I wish there would be more talk in western media how the Palestinian grievances are strongly rooted in Islamic doctrine and other anti-humanist ideals rather than Palestinian human and national rights.
Palestinian Christians are every bit as hostile to Israel as Palestinian Muslims. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is a Marxist atheist group founded by a murderous terrorist from a Christian family. I personally know people who have had a relative murdered by them. Sirhan Sirhan is a Christian Palestinian and Jordanian subject who has been in prison since 1968 for murdering Robert Kennedy Sr. because of Kennedy's support for Israel. Islam has had nothing to do with these.
Somewhere between 1%-2.5% of the Arabs in the West Bank are Christian. Less than 1% of the population of Gaza is Christian. Even taking the most-likely overinflated Palestinian population statistics, that's probably less than 50,000 people, and they keep their heads down or have them kept down. (Less than 2% of the population of Israel is Christian, for the record.)
Christians were perhaps over-represented in the Palestinian terror movements back when they were more Marxist and nationalist. (Then again, Arab Christians in general are overrepresented in pretty much everything across the Arab world when they're not being repressed, much as Jews were, Christians being better educated, wealthier, and better connected. Israeli Christians are the most educated group in the State of Israel,) Now? Not so much. Not much room in Hamas for Christians, obviously, and not even much in Fatah, which is tribal and kleptocratic, which means little room for those outside the group.
(The leaders of Christian churches in Israel often mouth anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist platitudes. It's painfully obvious that some are motivated by fear of pogroms against their flock in PA and Hamas controlled areas, some are angling for political power or have even more base financial motives at heart, and some are just Jew-haters- Middle Eastern churches are pretty conservative, and some of them still haven't gotten over the "Christ-killer" stuff.)
Of course, many Arab Christians overseas, blissfully unaware of what goes on in the Middle East, have romantic anti-Semitic notions. Helen Thomas (whose ancestors were Lebanese, not Palestinian) was a vicious anti-Semite.
Of course, you will also find overseas Christians, particularly Lebanese, who know full well what goes on and who you can't beat for anti-Muslim sentiment. And lots of Israeli Christian Arabs are much the same.
Anyway, it's all a red herring. We're not living in the 1960's. The thrust of anti-Zionist acts is motivated by Islam. Mostly always has been, but now any facade is gone. Will it be so in fifty years? Who knows, but probably. (Islam has been massacring Jews since the day it was founded.) But we're living in 2024.
"Arab Christians in general are overrepresented in pretty much everything across the Arab world"
The very concept Palestinian national identity was created by Christians opposed to Ottoman rule and the oversight of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople in the early 20th century.
"The leaders of Christian churches in Israel often mouth anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist platitudes."
Catholic bishops in the Middle East provided most of the votes against Nostra Aetate at Vatican II.
"many Arab Christians overseas, blissfully unaware of what goes on in the Middle East, have romantic anti-Semitic notions"
Edward Said was from a Palestinian Christian family. Huwaida Arraf is from a Palestinian Christian family. Horrifying.
"you will also find overseas Christians, particularly Lebanese, who know full well what goes on and who you can't beat for anti-Muslim sentiment"
Ralph Nader is another Lebanese American with anti-Israel attitudes.
And many Lebanese Christians are strongly allied with Hezbollah. One of them is the father in law of Tiffany Trump. Hezbollah is supporting one of his friends, Sliman Frangieh, to be the next President of Lebanon. Frangieh has been reported in the media to have been a childhood friend of Bashar Al-Assad.
"The thrust of anti-Zionist acts is motivated by Islam."
The Har Nof murders were not done by religious Muslims. Ahmad Sa'adat, responsible for the murder of Rehavam Ze'evi, is one of the terrorists that Hamas is demanding be released in exchange for Israeli hostages, and there have even been rallies in NYC calling for his release. (I find it fascinating that there are still people think Marxism-Leninism has any relevance anywhere today. )
Jew Hatred more complicated than you seem to be able to accept. The KKK was/is a Christian group.
All due respect, you seem to have responded to the post you wish I had made and not the one I did. I nowhere denied that Jew-hatred is "complicated." Of course it is. I am merely making a factual point regarding Christian Palestinian (not Lebanese, and for that matter not Said) Arab participation in it.
Look, we all know your politics, and it's thus pretty clear where your original post was coming from. And as if to confirm it, you had to throw in that political aside in your follow-up. I trust I don't have to spell either out, but whatever gets you through the night- or through Election Day, I suppose. Others of us have, perforce, a more, shall we say, rational perspective.
But bizarrely, you seem to have agreed with every one of my points before accusing me of not getting the complexity. OK.
Anyway, if you want complicated, the KKK (for some reason people get very angry when I point out that it existed only for two brief periods in American history, the last ending about 1929) was not only Christian (at least nominally), it was...Democrat. In Radical Chic, Tom Wolfe cites the claim that the reason so many Jews became radical socialists was because the Democratic Party was so anti-Semitic back then. (The Republicans, of course, were completely out of the picture, although the types of people who made it so are now all Democrats.)
Oh and I don't mean to at all diminish the degree of Jew hatred coming from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian Mullahs, and a variety of other Islamic groups.
Your first statement is inaccurate. Polls have consistently shown Palestinian Christians to be considerably less supportive of terror attacks on Israeli civilians than Palestinian Muslims. In addition, Palestinian Christians are impacted by the Islamic themes that animate Palestinian nationalism.
Maybe people in general would be less supportive of terror attacks if they themselves weren't the victims of almost daily terror attacks by Zionist extremists since the 1930's.
Palestinian grievances are rooted in the fact that COLONIZERS STOLE THEIR LAND, OCCUPIED THEM, ETHNICALLY CLEANSED THEM, KEPT THEIR BRUTAL OCCUPATION AND OPPRESSION FOR OVER 70 YEARS, AND HAS EVEN COMMITTED GENOCIDE! It is absolutely irrelevant that Palestinians are mostly Muslims. Their fight for freedom is justified. It's also irrelevant that their oppressors are Jews. I wish there would be more talk in western media how the Israeli grievances are strongly rooted in ethno-nationalist Zionist extremism, which ties the religion of Judaism to Zionism and the state of Israel, and also more talk about the fact that Israel is a settler colonial state founded on land theft and ethnic cleansing, forced by the European colonial and racist Jewish supremacist ideology of Zionism, with great help from the racist colonial British empire, and later American imperialism.
"The majority of Palestinians believe that early 20th century Palestinians had every right to violently resist Jews moving en masse to Palestine in order to flee persecution."
Ironically, at the same time they make the completely fallacious claim that they "welcomed" Holocaust survivors. (With the subtext of, "How stupid we were" and at the same time "How nice we were.")
It's a ridiculous lie, but even Rashida Tlaib sh"r likes to say it, so deep has the propaganda sunk.
The solution is simple: Israel must end its illegal occupation, dismantle all illegal settlements, allow Palestinian refugees to return and pay reparations to Palestinians. It's all in ICJ's Advisory Opinion (which is binding for all states) of 19th July 2024.
Your racist and genocidal rhetoric doesn't help your cause, it just makes you look like the villain.
I appreciate your point and agree it's rare to see a Palestinian like Ahmed who opposes Hamas and supports Israel’s right to exist. After looking at his profile, though, it’s clear that while he may be anti-Hamas and for fair justice, he’s not exactly a supporter of Israel or its policies. He has his gripes, perhaps deservedly so, but he goes so far as to accuse the IDF of fabricating evidence.
Ahmed might be better than most Palestinian expats, but to call him 'extraordinary' feels like a stretch. There’s still a long way to go for genuine understanding.
Healthy debate about political opinions is healthy, condemnation of a country's right to exist is not. Just as I would welcome the right, the left, and everyone in between into the political dialogue, I would welcome such positions as well. However, complete denial of basic national, global and humanitarian values should be condemned on every possible level.
So what are those different directions? Status quo is Israeli military occupation of the territories with no civil rights for the non-Jewish residents there (and state/military protection for the Jewish residents). Saying that is the indefinite situation, with the only change over time being the growth of settlements. That rankles with the Palestinians, but also with most outside observers. It violates international law and the very principles of human rights and self-determination the Zionist movement relied on to found the state.
The security case to say "you should rule yourselves, but we can't allow that as long as you want to kill us/ can't stop those who want to kill us" is belied by the state support for the settlers who think it's a mitzvah to conquer and settle the hills of Judah.
The non-Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria - i.e., the Arabs under the rule of the Palestinian Authority - have no civil rights anyway and would not get them in an independent Palestinian state, just as there are no Arab states that grant what we would consider civil rights.
This situation came about as a result of the ideologies and the decisions of the Arab leadership.
The problems of these Arabs is that they were conquered in 1967, and not in 1948. It ultimately has nothing to do with the settlers.
1) they never got to make that choice, and probably prefer living under Arab autocracy if you did ask
2) regardless, these human beings are the responsibility of the State of Israel as long as it persists in occupation
The settlers materially worsen the well-being of the Palestinians, even when the don't riot in their villages. And like I said, they undermine claims by Israelis that the occupation is a regrettable matter of preserving safety rather than a deliberate choice to sustain Greater Israel.
I take issue with your claim that settlers worsen the wellbeing of Palestinians. The highest paid Palestinians (except perhaps PLO cronies) work for settlers, in Judea or Samaria industrial zones, or in settlers' homes.
This is happening less and less, unfortunely, because of Palestinian terror. I know that my own settlement, and others too, have voted to forbid Palestinian workers in our community in most cases.
Another example of improvement of Palestinan wellbeing would be the hundreds of mile of improved roads they drive on all over J&S.
But I wonder if this is the right forum for this disscussion
Whether settlers are there or not, if the Arabs got their own state , they would use it as a base to launch terror attack against Israel, and that would also serve as a base for the Iranian influence.
Well they include political rights as well as things like freedom of movement and protection of your body and home against search, seizure, and detention without due process of the law.
Those are civil rights, not political rights. Political rights are the right to vote or hold office. You can, at least theoretically, have the former without the latter (and vice-versa).
I would love to see a settlement where Israel controls the entire ground, including the West bank and Gaza . While on top of the ground there is a Jewish part and an Arab part based on on the population of who is in the area.
Each one votes for its leaders on the daily issues . Israel will control the security of all of Israel and have to defend it, and set policy in regards to security and international boundaries and other issues. There can never be 2 complete separate states next to each other as Israel will never survive.
This gives security to the entire region and each part makes it own decisions for its people.
Of course there should be a separation wall to protect against those that want to harm the other.
I don't see why a full Zionist would not agree to this. To the Arabs that wont agree, we should offer a certain payment to leave the region and find a place where they will feel better living in.
Intriguing, but how would you distinguish this from the "A word" on the one hand, and from status quo on the other?
I assume under this plan Jews who live in a what are now the territories would remain full citizens of Israel with representation in the Knesset and full protection of the law, but the Arabs nearby would not, but maybe I misunderstood.
You can have protection of the law without representation. In fact, Arabs in the West Bank currently *do*. (And the 90% or so who live in Areas A and B have representation *without* protection of the law- from their own. Go figure.)
There should be a switch of the outlying settlements of its populations . It will then be easy to "Separate" into 2 groups. It will be painful but no we will make sure no one will lose the value of their homes.
This will be a strong sticking point and will come with very difficult decisions.. Some Arab towns will have to be uprooted and they can go into the outlying settlements. It will be based purely on the "military" what they think they can defend for both groups. Everyone will have to follow or be forced to follow.
Short of throwing out the Arabs, what other choice do we have not to live in perpetual fighting and strife.
"Arab rejectionism"? You mean the fact that the Palestinian people never had the right to decide their fate, the fact that all diplomatic doors were closed to them, and the fact that the 1947 partition plan, which was a non-binding UN resolution passed in the General Assembly which consisted of fewer than 60 states, most of them colonial, and after pressure from the US and the USSR? They refused the partition plan, which they had the right to do, but no one cared. And the day after the UN resolution was passed (in the GA), the Zionist terrorist organisations Hagana, Irgun and Lehi (Stern Gang) began the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. By the founding of the Israeli state in May 1948, at least 300,000 Palestinians had already been forced from their homes.
According to international law, which was clarified by ICJ's Advisory Opinion of July 19th 2024, Israel must end its occupation, dismantle the settlements on occupied territories (all of which are illegal), end its apartheid policies, and pay reparations to Palestinians.
"Right to defend itself" likewise. It doesn't help that almost every time someone uses that phrase it's followed by a "but" that completely negates it.
Israel does have the right to defend itself, on territories that are legally theirs. Isreal DOES NOT have the right to defend itself on territories that the state of Israel is illegally occupying, against a people that its occupying. Israel DOES NOT have the right to even shoot a single bullet into Gaza (nor hold Gaza under occupation, under a total siege), nor does it have the right to have a single soldier or settler (all of whom are illegal) on the West Bank. The Palestinians however have the right to resist. International law gives the Palestinians the right to armed resistance, which of course doesn't mean the right to commit war crimes. But also, an illegal act by the resistance doesn't make resistance illegal. On the other hand, an occupation is always illegal, every moment that it exits.
A female acquaintance once wrote that most American politicians who say "Israel has a right to defend itself" mean well (and some don't), but "Israel doesn't have a "right" to defend itself, Israel has a [obscenity deleted] *obligation* to defend itself."
"Isreal does exist. Israel is a recognized member of the United Nations. Besides this, there is no such thing in international law as like right of a state to exist. Does Italy have the right to exist? Italy exits! Now, if tomorrow Italy and France want to merge and become Itafrance, fine, this is not up to us. What IS enshrined in international law is the right of a PEOPLE to exist. So, the state is there, the state of Israel is there, it's protected as a member of the United Nations. Does this justify the erasure of another people? Hell no. Not 75 years ago, not 57 years ago, surely not today. Where is the protection of the Palestinian people from erasure, from annexation, from illegal occupation and apartheid? This is what we need to discuss."
I wish there would be more talk in western media how the Palestinian grievances are strongly rooted in Islamic doctrine and other anti-humanist ideals rather than Palestinian human and national rights.
Palestinian Christians are every bit as hostile to Israel as Palestinian Muslims. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is a Marxist atheist group founded by a murderous terrorist from a Christian family. I personally know people who have had a relative murdered by them. Sirhan Sirhan is a Christian Palestinian and Jordanian subject who has been in prison since 1968 for murdering Robert Kennedy Sr. because of Kennedy's support for Israel. Islam has had nothing to do with these.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/taboo-of-arabs-in-the-idf-is-slowly-crumbling-says-first-muslim-non-bedouin-officer/
Gosh. I did not know that.
Somewhere between 1%-2.5% of the Arabs in the West Bank are Christian. Less than 1% of the population of Gaza is Christian. Even taking the most-likely overinflated Palestinian population statistics, that's probably less than 50,000 people, and they keep their heads down or have them kept down. (Less than 2% of the population of Israel is Christian, for the record.)
Christians were perhaps over-represented in the Palestinian terror movements back when they were more Marxist and nationalist. (Then again, Arab Christians in general are overrepresented in pretty much everything across the Arab world when they're not being repressed, much as Jews were, Christians being better educated, wealthier, and better connected. Israeli Christians are the most educated group in the State of Israel,) Now? Not so much. Not much room in Hamas for Christians, obviously, and not even much in Fatah, which is tribal and kleptocratic, which means little room for those outside the group.
(The leaders of Christian churches in Israel often mouth anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist platitudes. It's painfully obvious that some are motivated by fear of pogroms against their flock in PA and Hamas controlled areas, some are angling for political power or have even more base financial motives at heart, and some are just Jew-haters- Middle Eastern churches are pretty conservative, and some of them still haven't gotten over the "Christ-killer" stuff.)
Of course, many Arab Christians overseas, blissfully unaware of what goes on in the Middle East, have romantic anti-Semitic notions. Helen Thomas (whose ancestors were Lebanese, not Palestinian) was a vicious anti-Semite.
Of course, you will also find overseas Christians, particularly Lebanese, who know full well what goes on and who you can't beat for anti-Muslim sentiment. And lots of Israeli Christian Arabs are much the same.
Anyway, it's all a red herring. We're not living in the 1960's. The thrust of anti-Zionist acts is motivated by Islam. Mostly always has been, but now any facade is gone. Will it be so in fifty years? Who knows, but probably. (Islam has been massacring Jews since the day it was founded.) But we're living in 2024.
"Arab Christians in general are overrepresented in pretty much everything across the Arab world"
The very concept Palestinian national identity was created by Christians opposed to Ottoman rule and the oversight of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople in the early 20th century.
"The leaders of Christian churches in Israel often mouth anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist platitudes."
Catholic bishops in the Middle East provided most of the votes against Nostra Aetate at Vatican II.
"many Arab Christians overseas, blissfully unaware of what goes on in the Middle East, have romantic anti-Semitic notions"
Edward Said was from a Palestinian Christian family. Huwaida Arraf is from a Palestinian Christian family. Horrifying.
"you will also find overseas Christians, particularly Lebanese, who know full well what goes on and who you can't beat for anti-Muslim sentiment"
Ralph Nader is another Lebanese American with anti-Israel attitudes.
And many Lebanese Christians are strongly allied with Hezbollah. One of them is the father in law of Tiffany Trump. Hezbollah is supporting one of his friends, Sliman Frangieh, to be the next President of Lebanon. Frangieh has been reported in the media to have been a childhood friend of Bashar Al-Assad.
"The thrust of anti-Zionist acts is motivated by Islam."
The Har Nof murders were not done by religious Muslims. Ahmad Sa'adat, responsible for the murder of Rehavam Ze'evi, is one of the terrorists that Hamas is demanding be released in exchange for Israeli hostages, and there have even been rallies in NYC calling for his release. (I find it fascinating that there are still people think Marxism-Leninism has any relevance anywhere today. )
Jew Hatred more complicated than you seem to be able to accept. The KKK was/is a Christian group.
All due respect, you seem to have responded to the post you wish I had made and not the one I did. I nowhere denied that Jew-hatred is "complicated." Of course it is. I am merely making a factual point regarding Christian Palestinian (not Lebanese, and for that matter not Said) Arab participation in it.
Look, we all know your politics, and it's thus pretty clear where your original post was coming from. And as if to confirm it, you had to throw in that political aside in your follow-up. I trust I don't have to spell either out, but whatever gets you through the night- or through Election Day, I suppose. Others of us have, perforce, a more, shall we say, rational perspective.
But bizarrely, you seem to have agreed with every one of my points before accusing me of not getting the complexity. OK.
Anyway, if you want complicated, the KKK (for some reason people get very angry when I point out that it existed only for two brief periods in American history, the last ending about 1929) was not only Christian (at least nominally), it was...Democrat. In Radical Chic, Tom Wolfe cites the claim that the reason so many Jews became radical socialists was because the Democratic Party was so anti-Semitic back then. (The Republicans, of course, were completely out of the picture, although the types of people who made it so are now all Democrats.)
Oh and I don't mean to at all diminish the degree of Jew hatred coming from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian Mullahs, and a variety of other Islamic groups.
Your first statement is inaccurate. Polls have consistently shown Palestinian Christians to be considerably less supportive of terror attacks on Israeli civilians than Palestinian Muslims. In addition, Palestinian Christians are impacted by the Islamic themes that animate Palestinian nationalism.
Maybe people in general would be less supportive of terror attacks if they themselves weren't the victims of almost daily terror attacks by Zionist extremists since the 1930's.
Palestinian grievances are rooted in the fact that COLONIZERS STOLE THEIR LAND, OCCUPIED THEM, ETHNICALLY CLEANSED THEM, KEPT THEIR BRUTAL OCCUPATION AND OPPRESSION FOR OVER 70 YEARS, AND HAS EVEN COMMITTED GENOCIDE! It is absolutely irrelevant that Palestinians are mostly Muslims. Their fight for freedom is justified. It's also irrelevant that their oppressors are Jews. I wish there would be more talk in western media how the Israeli grievances are strongly rooted in ethno-nationalist Zionist extremism, which ties the religion of Judaism to Zionism and the state of Israel, and also more talk about the fact that Israel is a settler colonial state founded on land theft and ethnic cleansing, forced by the European colonial and racist Jewish supremacist ideology of Zionism, with great help from the racist colonial British empire, and later American imperialism.
"The majority of Palestinians believe that early 20th century Palestinians had every right to violently resist Jews moving en masse to Palestine in order to flee persecution."
Ironically, at the same time they make the completely fallacious claim that they "welcomed" Holocaust survivors. (With the subtext of, "How stupid we were" and at the same time "How nice we were.")
It's a ridiculous lie, but even Rashida Tlaib sh"r likes to say it, so deep has the propaganda sunk.
"even Rashida Tlaib sh"r likes to say it"
She ain't the sharpest tool in the shed, you know, or someone interested in the truth. Why wouldn't she repeat a lie?
Oh, I'm not surprised. Unfortunately, she's one of 535 people out of 350 million who get to sit in Congress.
And what would that new direction be?
I think you know what it is, but don't have the guts to say it.
Well! let me spell it out for you.
There is only one solution, "THEY ALL MUST GO"
Yes! That is the ONLY solution, no country can exist with millions of two-legged murderous poisonous snakes roaming freely in its mids.
There is already a Palestinian state, and it's called Jordan.
Expell every last one of them to either Jordan or to the Jihadist loving EU or to Jihadist loving Biden and Mayorkas
The solution is simple: Israel must end its illegal occupation, dismantle all illegal settlements, allow Palestinian refugees to return and pay reparations to Palestinians. It's all in ICJ's Advisory Opinion (which is binding for all states) of 19th July 2024.
Your racist and genocidal rhetoric doesn't help your cause, it just makes you look like the villain.
Read tanach to learn WHY Hashem sends enemies and what helps us overcome them.
I appreciate your point and agree it's rare to see a Palestinian like Ahmed who opposes Hamas and supports Israel’s right to exist. After looking at his profile, though, it’s clear that while he may be anti-Hamas and for fair justice, he’s not exactly a supporter of Israel or its policies. He has his gripes, perhaps deservedly so, but he goes so far as to accuse the IDF of fabricating evidence.
Ahmed might be better than most Palestinian expats, but to call him 'extraordinary' feels like a stretch. There’s still a long way to go for genuine understanding.
Healthy debate about political opinions is healthy, condemnation of a country's right to exist is not. Just as I would welcome the right, the left, and everyone in between into the political dialogue, I would welcome such positions as well. However, complete denial of basic national, global and humanitarian values should be condemned on every possible level.
Debate is one thing; denial of reality is another.
By the way, you're going to have to define "basic national, global, and humanitarian values." Also, is "values" the word you're looking for?
So what are those different directions? Status quo is Israeli military occupation of the territories with no civil rights for the non-Jewish residents there (and state/military protection for the Jewish residents). Saying that is the indefinite situation, with the only change over time being the growth of settlements. That rankles with the Palestinians, but also with most outside observers. It violates international law and the very principles of human rights and self-determination the Zionist movement relied on to found the state.
The security case to say "you should rule yourselves, but we can't allow that as long as you want to kill us/ can't stop those who want to kill us" is belied by the state support for the settlers who think it's a mitzvah to conquer and settle the hills of Judah.
The non-Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria - i.e., the Arabs under the rule of the Palestinian Authority - have no civil rights anyway and would not get them in an independent Palestinian state, just as there are no Arab states that grant what we would consider civil rights.
This situation came about as a result of the ideologies and the decisions of the Arab leadership.
The problems of these Arabs is that they were conquered in 1967, and not in 1948. It ultimately has nothing to do with the settlers.
Maybe right on the counterfactual but
1) they never got to make that choice, and probably prefer living under Arab autocracy if you did ask
2) regardless, these human beings are the responsibility of the State of Israel as long as it persists in occupation
The settlers materially worsen the well-being of the Palestinians, even when the don't riot in their villages. And like I said, they undermine claims by Israelis that the occupation is a regrettable matter of preserving safety rather than a deliberate choice to sustain Greater Israel.
I take issue with your claim that settlers worsen the wellbeing of Palestinians. The highest paid Palestinians (except perhaps PLO cronies) work for settlers, in Judea or Samaria industrial zones, or in settlers' homes.
This is happening less and less, unfortunely, because of Palestinian terror. I know that my own settlement, and others too, have voted to forbid Palestinian workers in our community in most cases.
Another example of improvement of Palestinan wellbeing would be the hundreds of mile of improved roads they drive on all over J&S.
But I wonder if this is the right forum for this disscussion
Unfortunately, as Meir Kahane would put it bluntly, "You can't buy Arab national loyalty with a toilet."
Whether settlers are there or not, if the Arabs got their own state , they would use it as a base to launch terror attack against Israel, and that would also serve as a base for the Iranian influence.
Civil rights are not political rights.
Well they include political rights as well as things like freedom of movement and protection of your body and home against search, seizure, and detention without due process of the law.
Those are civil rights, not political rights. Political rights are the right to vote or hold office. You can, at least theoretically, have the former without the latter (and vice-versa).
And would you say Palestinians in the territories have those rights?
Also don't want to belittle the value of having representatives responsive to your community making decisions for it (political rights).
That's why I said "at least theoretically." In practice, it would depend on a lot of good will and strong courts.
Do they have those rights? Israelis in Israel don't have those rights.
I would love to see a settlement where Israel controls the entire ground, including the West bank and Gaza . While on top of the ground there is a Jewish part and an Arab part based on on the population of who is in the area.
Each one votes for its leaders on the daily issues . Israel will control the security of all of Israel and have to defend it, and set policy in regards to security and international boundaries and other issues. There can never be 2 complete separate states next to each other as Israel will never survive.
This gives security to the entire region and each part makes it own decisions for its people.
Of course there should be a separation wall to protect against those that want to harm the other.
I don't see why a full Zionist would not agree to this. To the Arabs that wont agree, we should offer a certain payment to leave the region and find a place where they will feel better living in.
Did you support Trump's Peace to Prosperity plan?
Intriguing, but how would you distinguish this from the "A word" on the one hand, and from status quo on the other?
I assume under this plan Jews who live in a what are now the territories would remain full citizens of Israel with representation in the Knesset and full protection of the law, but the Arabs nearby would not, but maybe I misunderstood.
You can have protection of the law without representation. In fact, Arabs in the West Bank currently *do*. (And the 90% or so who live in Areas A and B have representation *without* protection of the law- from their own. Go figure.)
There should be a switch of the outlying settlements of its populations . It will then be easy to "Separate" into 2 groups. It will be painful but no we will make sure no one will lose the value of their homes.
This will be a strong sticking point and will come with very difficult decisions.. Some Arab towns will have to be uprooted and they can go into the outlying settlements. It will be based purely on the "military" what they think they can defend for both groups. Everyone will have to follow or be forced to follow.
Short of throwing out the Arabs, what other choice do we have not to live in perpetual fighting and strife.
"Arab rejectionism"? You mean the fact that the Palestinian people never had the right to decide their fate, the fact that all diplomatic doors were closed to them, and the fact that the 1947 partition plan, which was a non-binding UN resolution passed in the General Assembly which consisted of fewer than 60 states, most of them colonial, and after pressure from the US and the USSR? They refused the partition plan, which they had the right to do, but no one cared. And the day after the UN resolution was passed (in the GA), the Zionist terrorist organisations Hagana, Irgun and Lehi (Stern Gang) began the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. By the founding of the Israeli state in May 1948, at least 300,000 Palestinians had already been forced from their homes.
According to international law, which was clarified by ICJ's Advisory Opinion of July 19th 2024, Israel must end its occupation, dismantle the settlements on occupied territories (all of which are illegal), end its apartheid policies, and pay reparations to Palestinians.
An interview with his sister
https://youtu.be/U0Tl0HwTeNM?si=T1h1w2b0PrFWvYPk
"Right to defend itself" likewise. It doesn't help that almost every time someone uses that phrase it's followed by a "but" that completely negates it.
Israel does have the right to defend itself, on territories that are legally theirs. Isreal DOES NOT have the right to defend itself on territories that the state of Israel is illegally occupying, against a people that its occupying. Israel DOES NOT have the right to even shoot a single bullet into Gaza (nor hold Gaza under occupation, under a total siege), nor does it have the right to have a single soldier or settler (all of whom are illegal) on the West Bank. The Palestinians however have the right to resist. International law gives the Palestinians the right to armed resistance, which of course doesn't mean the right to commit war crimes. But also, an illegal act by the resistance doesn't make resistance illegal. On the other hand, an occupation is always illegal, every moment that it exits.
Maybe try to focus on those facts instead.
A female acquaintance once wrote that most American politicians who say "Israel has a right to defend itself" mean well (and some don't), but "Israel doesn't have a "right" to defend itself, Israel has a [obscenity deleted] *obligation* to defend itself."
She was on to something.
"Isreal does exist. Israel is a recognized member of the United Nations. Besides this, there is no such thing in international law as like right of a state to exist. Does Italy have the right to exist? Italy exits! Now, if tomorrow Italy and France want to merge and become Itafrance, fine, this is not up to us. What IS enshrined in international law is the right of a PEOPLE to exist. So, the state is there, the state of Israel is there, it's protected as a member of the United Nations. Does this justify the erasure of another people? Hell no. Not 75 years ago, not 57 years ago, surely not today. Where is the protection of the Palestinian people from erasure, from annexation, from illegal occupation and apartheid? This is what we need to discuss."