Hashem does things for a purpose. You can't study Tanach and more recent Jewish history without Him.
An article from an orthodox Jew of all people, about the history and ongoings of the Holy Land, without any mention of the G-d of Israel, demonstrates its worthlessness, its whitewashed harangue, its writers willful deviation of facts he prefers ignored.
Finally, Nosson you have said something "tzum zach" to an extent. But it's not a big chiddush, most intelligent people have known this for decades. One thing you have wrong. There is a solution to the "Palestinian Problem." The Palestinians, the way they think and behave, are solely due to the fact they are nothing but marionettes. They are moved and played from "on-high" midah keneged midah due to Secular Zionism, which seeks and vies to replace Torah as the Yesod of Judaism. The Palestinians are like the plague of lions that were attacking Shomron during the Second Temple period. Eliminate the true problem (Secular Zionism) and the plague will disappear.
There is more than one kind of Secular Zionism. Most secular Zionists would have already abandoned Torah, and never were looking for a replacement. There is another secular Zionism that has kept most of the Torah, but see only material (i.e. money) value in the State. That's popularly known by the misleading name יהדות התורה.
" Eliminate the true problem (Secular Zionism) and the plague will disappear."
Half right. Everyone must do their part to increase their Torah observance. We all know what מצות the secular are lacking. The so called Haredi community needs to take on a FEW more מצות like ונשמרתם מאוד לנפשותיכם, the responsibility to supporting one's family, ישוב ארץ ישראל, telling the truth (this is especially for those who lie about history), the avoidance of דרכי האמורי, and the obligation to fight in a מלחמת מצוה.
Maybe instead of worrying about the real or imagined faults of the chareidi world, you should focus on the big problems of your own so-called "Dati" community- your tolerance of chillul Shabbos, משכב זכר, pritzus, znus. Your rabbis who teach kefira, who undermine halacha at every opportunity, and who are apologists for the Reform movement. Your whitewashing of the anti-religious history of the founders of the State, your complete immersion in secular culture, your TVs in every home, your 40%+ OTD rate, etc. You guys have more than enough to keep yourselves busy for a long time.
You've lost the plot, so let me clear things up for you:
Sender declared himself a prophet with the claim that all our woes are caused by the sins of one part of the community. I simply responded that we all can take on more מצות. The secular have neglected many מצות and the חרדים have neglected a few מצות.
"- your tolerance of chillul Shabbos, משכב זכר, pritzus, znus."
I don't tolerate those things, and I don't know anyone in the community who does.
"Your rabbis who teach kefira"
My rabbis don't.
"who undermine halacha at every opportunity"
I don't know what you're talking about. The only thing that some of my rabbis do that would even be a halachic debate is their תכלת. I don't think all of them wear it. None of them have told me to wear it.
" who are apologists for the Reform movement."
Do you know what "apologist" means?
"your complete immersion in secular culture,"
No, that's not right either. You must be thinking of the Germans.
It's easy to point to the sins of other people. Can you recognize your own? Looks like you are in denial.
"The so called Haredi community needs to take on a FEW more מצות like ונשמרתם מאוד לנפשותיכם"-I don't know anybody who doesn't take that seriously. "the responsibility to support one's family" -they do that if they make sure their families have enough to eat and a roof over their head, which they do. "ישוב ארץ ישראל," the one who live in Eretz Yisroel do that. "telling the truth"- all the ones I know do that (you guys, on the other hand...) "the avoidance of דרכי האמורי" - I don't know anybody who engages in darchei emori. Are you talking about kaparos? " the obligation to fight in a מלחמת מצוה"- they hold the greatest milchemes mitzvah these days is against secularism, and they are right.
Everything you said about chareidim is either factually wrong, or dishonestly misses the point. Why don't you focus on your own community, which has plenty of problems?
No, Sender didn't say anything about chareidim, he said something about the secular. In response, you wrote a whole rant about the sins of that other non-secular community that you are not a part of, of course never in a million years admitting to the sins of your own non-secular community.
The secular Zionists are more observant of Torah in א"י than their counterparts in חו"ל. We should encourage them to keep more מצות. I don't think ham-fisted schemes like banning חמץ from hospitals are going to encourage the secular to do more מצות. If anything, the opposite is likely to happen.
Yeah we eliminated the Jewish idol worshipers completely and have never since been the majority population in Eretz Yisrael, and only for a brief 80 years have even had anything resembling a sovereign state. Do you prefer Eretz Yisrael being ruled by the PLO or by Hamas?
I meant to say this took place after the Exile of the Ten Tribes of Malchus Yisroel before the destruction of Malchus Yehudah during the First Temple period.
What makes you think politicians will learn from the Gaza debacle to avoid the same thing in Samaria? By the time of the expulsion in 2006 there had already been thousands of dead and maimed bodies b/c of Oslo, and did it make any impression at all on Sharon? And what about Oslo itself - hundreds of thousands of us saw the looming disaster, and did it make any impression on Rabin? Of course not. Everyone can always draw distinctions or convince himself that, somehow, "Me and my situation are different."
One of the things I find frustrating in discussions such as this one is that everyone refers to the Arabs that live in Gaza, etc., as Palestinians. Rabbi Slifkin, you started your post with an explanation of the origin of Palestine but did not continue with an explanation of the present day usage of that word. The "Palestinians" as known today were invented in the 1960s by Yassar Arafat with the help and encouragement of the Russians. There were no such Arab people as Palestinians before that.
Does it really matter what Arabs in Israel were called 100 years ago and how many were there then? The fact is that now they are there now and they have a name by which they identify.
I don't get why people love pointing out that "Palestinian" did not exist as a separately identifiable ethnic people at some point in the past, and that many came to the land because of the Jews' presence. So what? They're there now, and they happen to call themselves Palestinian, and it's an issue that needs to be addressed.
The historical claim and connection to the land is part of the fight, and the absence of thing called a "Palestinian" until 15 minutes ago is a serious flaw in their claim. (To this you can justifiably respond that no one cares who's right or wrong, or that anyone who's interested in this topic has already made up his mind, and you would be right - but if so, it begs the larger question of why anyone bothers with "hasbara" in the first place.)
So you are saying that we must address the situation of the Palestinians as the situation exists today without thought of the historical context within which we live. OK, I suppose that's one way of trying to deal with the problem. I'm far from convinced that this is the correct approach. Do I have a better suggestion? I have other thoughts on the subject but I really don't know if they are better or worse than how you want to address the Palestinian problem.
I don't have a solution, and I generally agree with R. Slifkin's outline of the problem in this post. My point is just that the common refrain of "The Palestinian people as a distinct ethnic group is relatively new" (with the implication typically being along the lines of "therefore it's a fake issue and we don't need to deal with it", or "we should just expel them to Jordan or something", or "therefore, who cares, we should just force them to live in the West Bank as non-citizens of Israel since they're fake anyhow"), is a non-sequitur and doesn't really say anything useful. Now they are here, and they identify as a group; that's just how it is.
I understand (I think) what you are saying. But I disagree with the implication you are making. In my mind it's a talking point, a point of discussion. The rest of the world seems to believe that Palestine existed forever and therefore we are the bad guys. And this affects any negotiations.
The trickery by the Palestinians (ever hear of Pallywood?) is everywhere. I don't think a week goes by when they accuse us of something whether related to our defense tactics or whatever. "Palestine" is one more example of that. Admittedly, half the problem is Israel's; we don't do nearly enough to counter these accusations. Our PR is not very good; it is better now than in previous years but is not nearly as good as the Palestinians'.
Anyway, enough said. I'm less than an hour by car from Lebanon and maybe an hour and a quarter from Syria. Believe me when I say I pray for peace.
"The rest of the world seems to believe that Palestine existed forever and therefore we are the bad guys." What the rest of the world (and Israel) recognizes is that Israel is occupying territory containing millions of residents without political rights. Israel could attempt to annex the entire West Bank and give the people living there the right to vote, but we know that wouldn't be a very good outcome, so they don't.
What in the world are you saying, David, that I made up the information about "Palestine"? That there really was such an Arab country? Just look at the PLO's Palestine Covenant of 1964, articles 1 and 2.
Yes there have been Arabs in the last of Israel for a long, long time but (1) their population exploded only after the arrival of the Jews in the beginning of the previous century; (2) they mostly considered themselves to be part of Syria not some independent made-up country.
So what am I "...doing exactly what the PA does when it denies the Jews..." ?
When we got to Palestine in large number there were already lots of Arabs living there. While in the past, it was considered moral for one group of people to simply take land by force and force out another group of people or make them slaves, this is no longer considered moral. This is something that you recognize, so just as the Palestinians claim that Jews have no connection to the land, you claim that the Palestinians have no connection to the land. They do and we don't have right to force them out by modern moral standards. As far as the word usage which is pretty irrelevant to the issue, https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Palestinian%2CIsraeli&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3
"On a national level, the Palestinian people has, for the most part, never accepted the factual reality of the Jewish People’s ancestral history in the Land of Israel." This is an excuse. Palestinian opinions about the Jews historical connection to the land simply reflect their predictable negative views of Israel. An eventual two state solution doesn't depend on this and if there ever one, these feelings will likely fade away. I'd also point out may Israelis, including especially the ones in your camp, don't believe that there is any Palestinian connection to the land and they could just well all be moved out of the West Bank. That is bigger obstacle to any kind of solution given that Israel holds all the cards.
"That is bigger obstacle to any kind of solution given that Israel holds all the cards."
They didn't hold any cards until 1948. And some cards were missing from the deck before '67. And after the Yom Kippur war, Israel was in a very bad place. And the PLO rejected any peace overtures. At the time, even the "moderates" at the 12th Palestine Nat'l Council insisted that any peace deal would just be a tactic to eventually conquer the rest of the country.
We should thank God that Israel holds so many cards. כן ירבו!
"these feelings will likely fade away"
Speculation.
In any case, on some level, these opinions are irrelevant. Those Arabs who do admit that the Jews preceded them, while admitting a Jewish connection to the land still deny Jewish claims to the land. (All other invaders, such as the Hungarians, Turks and nationalist Scots have no plans of ceding even an inch of their ill-gotten territory.)
Yes, but now we do, and so the attitude prevalent in the RZ world that it is all our land and the Arabs living in the West Bank can choose to remain without political rights or leave is the one that more important to the dynamic. It is great that we have some control now, but if we exercise it foolishly or immorally that is now on us.
I agree 100% that these opinions are basically irrelevant. Bitter enemy nations have made peace and become allies in the past including Israel with Arab and non-Arab predominantly Islamic nations. This can happen with the Palestinians as well, but not if we do everything to make things worse on a permanent basis and make it impossible to ever draw a border. I have no idea if it will happen or when it could happen, but R Slikfin's assertion that it can never happen is to some degree a self-fulfilling prophecy.
On what basis do you make such a claim? The PLO has never ever indicated that they'd be willing to compromise. And certainly, quitting Gaza was a major failure, and all peace offers were met with violence.
What you're doing in conflating the possible with the probable.
This is shifting the burden of proof. The post claims that "most Israelis came to realize that no peaceful compromise would ever be possible". Will it happen? Future is hard to predict. Is it possible? Of course, given the bitter enemy nations who are no longer so. More important is that Palestinian denial (such as it is) of Jewish connection to the land is *symptom* of bad relations, not a cause.
Of course none of this justifies the actual colonization going on in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Because the third reason is, many (if not most) israelis are more than happy the way things are, and do not want it to change, even though it's a disaster in waiting.
Zionism is the ultimate ANTI-colonialst movement! The "West Bank" was Jewish centuries before any Arabs ever lived there. Zionism argues that there is no statute of limitations for reversing the effects ethnic cleansing.
1. You claim there are "millions" (thus a minimum of 2mm) of Arabs living in Samaria. Really? I highly doubt that. And certainly there are no reliable statistics that bear that out.
2. You make the common mistake of saying "the world" condemns, "known to the world", etc. Who exactly is this "world"? The great majority of people in the world have no opinion on any of this. Among those who care, there are hundreds of millions of Christians who support Israel. And even if one, for some inexplicable reason, believes "state department employees = world", that too fails. The previous US administration did a great many things we all heard many times "the world" would never stand for. The "world" is not monolithic.
Pessimism, like saying "the collapse of Israel is a possibility", is bad enough. Don't compound it by accepting false claims and statistics, or by falling for the propaganda of our enemies.
We really have no idea what the numbers are, all these statistics are based on wildly inflated numbers the Arabs use for propaganda purposes.
Besides, the post dealt with the future of Samariah. That number you mention, even if one accepts it as accurate, includes Arabs living in Israel outside of Samariah. If their numbers are to be taken into account, then it must be balanced and more than offset by the opinions of Jews living in Israel outside of Samariah.
(In that regard, I see NS's claim was about Arabs living "west of the Jordan", not about the so-called West Bank. Yes, if so, the number may well be above 2mm (though the exact number we cannot know), but that number is thoroughly irrelevant, for the reason stated above.)
No, it isn't irrelevant, particularly for the people who want to annex Judea and Samaria. An annexation is not an annexation unless all the residents get full citizenship from the annexing power. (That is why East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights are not *de jure* part of Medinat Yisrael and its boundaries remain the 1949 armistice lines.) So such an annexation would result in 3.2 million new Arab citizens of Israel, to add to the 1,9 million current Arab citizens. Add another 360,000 Arabs in East Jerusalem and 20,000 Druze in the Golan and you get almost a doubling of the Arab population of Medinat Yisrael. The number of Arab MKs would rise to about 20. Or more. Enjoy forming a government.
One thing I'd like to know is why the "Phased Plan," the PLO's 1974 plan to use diplomacy to "liberate" part of the land and use the land so "liberated" as a base of operations to "liberate" the remainder, not mentioned more by those arguing that the is no partner in Palestinian officialdom?
The Palestinians themselves don't talk about it any more. It basically destroyed the PLO, causing a huge split because much of the PLO refused to accept any partition, ever.
Hamas, which was never part of the PLO, came along later.
Hard to negotiate with people who can't agree themselves on what they want.
Actually, Arafat gave an interview with Jordanian radio before signing the Oslo Accords, for broadcast after the ceremony, in which he said that signing on to the Accords was in keeping with the Phased Plan. Of course the Palestinians would refrain from talking about it in western languages because wider knowledge of it in the West would reduce the number of do-gooders they can dupe. The question is why do we help them with that end by refraining from talking about the Phased Plan ourselves?
> Israelis understand that the world will never accept the legitimacy of Israel ensuring security for its citizens, if such actions would result in large numbers of Palestinian casualties.
It is totally legitimate for a nation state to invade another country to protect its citizens from non-state actors. The United States did that in 1916 to try to catch Pancho Villa, who had killed ten Americans in a cross-border raid at Columbus, New Mexico. (The invasion itself was a disaster for the US, but that is for another post.)
The left-wing, in both Israel and the US, had some early successes. They were a necessary correction for conservatism (which is often confused with "right wing") But in the past 50 years of both countries the left has not had a single good idea. The most recent "contributions" of both - Oslo in Israel, Transgenderism in the US - have been abysmal failures. In both countries the left wing is living on the fumes of the baby boomers, and within 5-10 years will be totally extinct. The choice then will then be of conservatism (leaving things as they are) or an active right wing (actively repealing the past mistakes of the left.)
"Israel’s leaders have pointed to Iron Dome as a game-changer, allowing Israel to pound Gaza from the air and “restore deterrence” without having to worry excessively about reprisal rocket launches on civilians."
But as the prime minister and others declare victory in front of Iron Dome batteries, Hamas’s and Islamic Jihad’s capabilities continue to grow. Rockets can strike deeper into Israel now than before, managing to temporarily shut down Ben Gurion Airport on more than one occasion.
Thanks for skipping one essential word. Hashem.
Hashem does things for a purpose. You can't study Tanach and more recent Jewish history without Him.
An article from an orthodox Jew of all people, about the history and ongoings of the Holy Land, without any mention of the G-d of Israel, demonstrates its worthlessness, its whitewashed harangue, its writers willful deviation of facts he prefers ignored.
What was the purpose of the Hadrianic persecutions?
Brilliant analysis and totally on point.
I wish that there were inaccuracies here. But there aren't any.
Unfortunately, not _all_ Israelis agree about attack rocket launching apparati
I suggest that you translate the map for your readers who don't read Hebrew. Its impact will be lost on them.
Finally, Nosson you have said something "tzum zach" to an extent. But it's not a big chiddush, most intelligent people have known this for decades. One thing you have wrong. There is a solution to the "Palestinian Problem." The Palestinians, the way they think and behave, are solely due to the fact they are nothing but marionettes. They are moved and played from "on-high" midah keneged midah due to Secular Zionism, which seeks and vies to replace Torah as the Yesod of Judaism. The Palestinians are like the plague of lions that were attacking Shomron during the Second Temple period. Eliminate the true problem (Secular Zionism) and the plague will disappear.
Wrong.
There is more than one kind of Secular Zionism. Most secular Zionists would have already abandoned Torah, and never were looking for a replacement. There is another secular Zionism that has kept most of the Torah, but see only material (i.e. money) value in the State. That's popularly known by the misleading name יהדות התורה.
" Eliminate the true problem (Secular Zionism) and the plague will disappear."
Half right. Everyone must do their part to increase their Torah observance. We all know what מצות the secular are lacking. The so called Haredi community needs to take on a FEW more מצות like ונשמרתם מאוד לנפשותיכם, the responsibility to supporting one's family, ישוב ארץ ישראל, telling the truth (this is especially for those who lie about history), the avoidance of דרכי האמורי, and the obligation to fight in a מלחמת מצוה.
Maybe instead of worrying about the real or imagined faults of the chareidi world, you should focus on the big problems of your own so-called "Dati" community- your tolerance of chillul Shabbos, משכב זכר, pritzus, znus. Your rabbis who teach kefira, who undermine halacha at every opportunity, and who are apologists for the Reform movement. Your whitewashing of the anti-religious history of the founders of the State, your complete immersion in secular culture, your TVs in every home, your 40%+ OTD rate, etc. You guys have more than enough to keep yourselves busy for a long time.
You've lost the plot, so let me clear things up for you:
Sender declared himself a prophet with the claim that all our woes are caused by the sins of one part of the community. I simply responded that we all can take on more מצות. The secular have neglected many מצות and the חרדים have neglected a few מצות.
"- your tolerance of chillul Shabbos, משכב זכר, pritzus, znus."
I don't tolerate those things, and I don't know anyone in the community who does.
"Your rabbis who teach kefira"
My rabbis don't.
"who undermine halacha at every opportunity"
I don't know what you're talking about. The only thing that some of my rabbis do that would even be a halachic debate is their תכלת. I don't think all of them wear it. None of them have told me to wear it.
" who are apologists for the Reform movement."
Do you know what "apologist" means?
"your complete immersion in secular culture,"
No, that's not right either. You must be thinking of the Germans.
"your 40%+ OTD rate"
I still don't know what you're talking about.
You really don't know what you're talking about.
It's easy to point to the sins of other people. Can you recognize your own? Looks like you are in denial.
"The so called Haredi community needs to take on a FEW more מצות like ונשמרתם מאוד לנפשותיכם"-I don't know anybody who doesn't take that seriously. "the responsibility to support one's family" -they do that if they make sure their families have enough to eat and a roof over their head, which they do. "ישוב ארץ ישראל," the one who live in Eretz Yisroel do that. "telling the truth"- all the ones I know do that (you guys, on the other hand...) "the avoidance of דרכי האמורי" - I don't know anybody who engages in darchei emori. Are you talking about kaparos? " the obligation to fight in a מלחמת מצוה"- they hold the greatest milchemes mitzvah these days is against secularism, and they are right.
Everything you said about chareidim is either factually wrong, or dishonestly misses the point. Why don't you focus on your own community, which has plenty of problems?
I wrote:
"Everyone must do their part to increase their Torah observance."
You wrote:
"It's easy to point to the sins of other people. Can you recognize your own?"
You really should try to stay focused.
No, Sender didn't say anything about chareidim, he said something about the secular. In response, you wrote a whole rant about the sins of that other non-secular community that you are not a part of, of course never in a million years admitting to the sins of your own non-secular community.
The plague of lions back then was also due to secular Zionism?
It was due to the shomronim having a culture that disregarded the Torah in e"y. The secular Zionists disregard the Torah in e"y.
The secular Zionists are more observant of Torah in א"י than their counterparts in חו"ל. We should encourage them to keep more מצות. I don't think ham-fisted schemes like banning חמץ from hospitals are going to encourage the secular to do more מצות. If anything, the opposite is likely to happen.
Yeah we eliminated the Jewish idol worshipers completely and have never since been the majority population in Eretz Yisrael, and only for a brief 80 years have even had anything resembling a sovereign state. Do you prefer Eretz Yisrael being ruled by the PLO or by Hamas?
Have you ever heard of the Hasmoneans?
That was the 80 years I mentioned.
I meant to say this took place after the Exile of the Ten Tribes of Malchus Yisroel before the destruction of Malchus Yehudah during the First Temple period.
What makes you think politicians will learn from the Gaza debacle to avoid the same thing in Samaria? By the time of the expulsion in 2006 there had already been thousands of dead and maimed bodies b/c of Oslo, and did it make any impression at all on Sharon? And what about Oslo itself - hundreds of thousands of us saw the looming disaster, and did it make any impression on Rabin? Of course not. Everyone can always draw distinctions or convince himself that, somehow, "Me and my situation are different."
One of the things I find frustrating in discussions such as this one is that everyone refers to the Arabs that live in Gaza, etc., as Palestinians. Rabbi Slifkin, you started your post with an explanation of the origin of Palestine but did not continue with an explanation of the present day usage of that word. The "Palestinians" as known today were invented in the 1960s by Yassar Arafat with the help and encouragement of the Russians. There were no such Arab people as Palestinians before that.
Does it really matter what Arabs in Israel were called 100 years ago and how many were there then? The fact is that now they are there now and they have a name by which they identify.
I don't get why people love pointing out that "Palestinian" did not exist as a separately identifiable ethnic people at some point in the past, and that many came to the land because of the Jews' presence. So what? They're there now, and they happen to call themselves Palestinian, and it's an issue that needs to be addressed.
The historical claim and connection to the land is part of the fight, and the absence of thing called a "Palestinian" until 15 minutes ago is a serious flaw in their claim. (To this you can justifiably respond that no one cares who's right or wrong, or that anyone who's interested in this topic has already made up his mind, and you would be right - but if so, it begs the larger question of why anyone bothers with "hasbara" in the first place.)
So you are saying that we must address the situation of the Palestinians as the situation exists today without thought of the historical context within which we live. OK, I suppose that's one way of trying to deal with the problem. I'm far from convinced that this is the correct approach. Do I have a better suggestion? I have other thoughts on the subject but I really don't know if they are better or worse than how you want to address the Palestinian problem.
I don't have a solution, and I generally agree with R. Slifkin's outline of the problem in this post. My point is just that the common refrain of "The Palestinian people as a distinct ethnic group is relatively new" (with the implication typically being along the lines of "therefore it's a fake issue and we don't need to deal with it", or "we should just expel them to Jordan or something", or "therefore, who cares, we should just force them to live in the West Bank as non-citizens of Israel since they're fake anyhow"), is a non-sequitur and doesn't really say anything useful. Now they are here, and they identify as a group; that's just how it is.
I understand (I think) what you are saying. But I disagree with the implication you are making. In my mind it's a talking point, a point of discussion. The rest of the world seems to believe that Palestine existed forever and therefore we are the bad guys. And this affects any negotiations.
The trickery by the Palestinians (ever hear of Pallywood?) is everywhere. I don't think a week goes by when they accuse us of something whether related to our defense tactics or whatever. "Palestine" is one more example of that. Admittedly, half the problem is Israel's; we don't do nearly enough to counter these accusations. Our PR is not very good; it is better now than in previous years but is not nearly as good as the Palestinians'.
Anyway, enough said. I'm less than an hour by car from Lebanon and maybe an hour and a quarter from Syria. Believe me when I say I pray for peace.
"The rest of the world seems to believe that Palestine existed forever and therefore we are the bad guys." What the rest of the world (and Israel) recognizes is that Israel is occupying territory containing millions of residents without political rights. Israel could attempt to annex the entire West Bank and give the people living there the right to vote, but we know that wouldn't be a very good outcome, so they don't.
Hi Joe. Here you are doing exactly what the PA does when it denies the Jews historical connection to the land.
What in the world are you saying, David, that I made up the information about "Palestine"? That there really was such an Arab country? Just look at the PLO's Palestine Covenant of 1964, articles 1 and 2.
Yes there have been Arabs in the last of Israel for a long, long time but (1) their population exploded only after the arrival of the Jews in the beginning of the previous century; (2) they mostly considered themselves to be part of Syria not some independent made-up country.
So what am I "...doing exactly what the PA does when it denies the Jews..." ?
When we got to Palestine in large number there were already lots of Arabs living there. While in the past, it was considered moral for one group of people to simply take land by force and force out another group of people or make them slaves, this is no longer considered moral. This is something that you recognize, so just as the Palestinians claim that Jews have no connection to the land, you claim that the Palestinians have no connection to the land. They do and we don't have right to force them out by modern moral standards. As far as the word usage which is pretty irrelevant to the issue, https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Palestinian%2CIsraeli&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3
Thank you for bringing this up. Needs to be said over and over again.
"On a national level, the Palestinian people has, for the most part, never accepted the factual reality of the Jewish People’s ancestral history in the Land of Israel." This is an excuse. Palestinian opinions about the Jews historical connection to the land simply reflect their predictable negative views of Israel. An eventual two state solution doesn't depend on this and if there ever one, these feelings will likely fade away. I'd also point out may Israelis, including especially the ones in your camp, don't believe that there is any Palestinian connection to the land and they could just well all be moved out of the West Bank. That is bigger obstacle to any kind of solution given that Israel holds all the cards.
"That is bigger obstacle to any kind of solution given that Israel holds all the cards."
They didn't hold any cards until 1948. And some cards were missing from the deck before '67. And after the Yom Kippur war, Israel was in a very bad place. And the PLO rejected any peace overtures. At the time, even the "moderates" at the 12th Palestine Nat'l Council insisted that any peace deal would just be a tactic to eventually conquer the rest of the country.
We should thank God that Israel holds so many cards. כן ירבו!
"these feelings will likely fade away"
Speculation.
In any case, on some level, these opinions are irrelevant. Those Arabs who do admit that the Jews preceded them, while admitting a Jewish connection to the land still deny Jewish claims to the land. (All other invaders, such as the Hungarians, Turks and nationalist Scots have no plans of ceding even an inch of their ill-gotten territory.)
Yes, but now we do, and so the attitude prevalent in the RZ world that it is all our land and the Arabs living in the West Bank can choose to remain without political rights or leave is the one that more important to the dynamic. It is great that we have some control now, but if we exercise it foolishly or immorally that is now on us.
I agree 100% that these opinions are basically irrelevant. Bitter enemy nations have made peace and become allies in the past including Israel with Arab and non-Arab predominantly Islamic nations. This can happen with the Palestinians as well, but not if we do everything to make things worse on a permanent basis and make it impossible to ever draw a border. I have no idea if it will happen or when it could happen, but R Slikfin's assertion that it can never happen is to some degree a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"This can happen with the Palestinians as well,"
On what basis do you make such a claim? The PLO has never ever indicated that they'd be willing to compromise. And certainly, quitting Gaza was a major failure, and all peace offers were met with violence.
What you're doing in conflating the possible with the probable.
This is shifting the burden of proof. The post claims that "most Israelis came to realize that no peaceful compromise would ever be possible". Will it happen? Future is hard to predict. Is it possible? Of course, given the bitter enemy nations who are no longer so. More important is that Palestinian denial (such as it is) of Jewish connection to the land is *symptom* of bad relations, not a cause.
Of course none of this justifies the actual colonization going on in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Because the third reason is, many (if not most) israelis are more than happy the way things are, and do not want it to change, even though it's a disaster in waiting.
Zionism is the ultimate ANTI-colonialst movement! The "West Bank" was Jewish centuries before any Arabs ever lived there. Zionism argues that there is no statute of limitations for reversing the effects ethnic cleansing.
QED
1. You claim there are "millions" (thus a minimum of 2mm) of Arabs living in Samaria. Really? I highly doubt that. And certainly there are no reliable statistics that bear that out.
2. You make the common mistake of saying "the world" condemns, "known to the world", etc. Who exactly is this "world"? The great majority of people in the world have no opinion on any of this. Among those who care, there are hundreds of millions of Christians who support Israel. And even if one, for some inexplicable reason, believes "state department employees = world", that too fails. The previous US administration did a great many things we all heard many times "the world" would never stand for. The "world" is not monolithic.
Pessimism, like saying "the collapse of Israel is a possibility", is bad enough. Don't compound it by accepting false claims and statistics, or by falling for the propaganda of our enemies.
3.19 million in Judea and Samaria according to the official estimate.
https://www.pcbs.gov.ps/portals/_pcbs/PressRelease/Press_En_InterPopDay2022E.pdf
I read that they tried to do a real census last year but I have seen no results yet.
We really have no idea what the numbers are, all these statistics are based on wildly inflated numbers the Arabs use for propaganda purposes.
Besides, the post dealt with the future of Samariah. That number you mention, even if one accepts it as accurate, includes Arabs living in Israel outside of Samariah. If their numbers are to be taken into account, then it must be balanced and more than offset by the opinions of Jews living in Israel outside of Samariah.
(In that regard, I see NS's claim was about Arabs living "west of the Jordan", not about the so-called West Bank. Yes, if so, the number may well be above 2mm (though the exact number we cannot know), but that number is thoroughly irrelevant, for the reason stated above.)
No, it isn't irrelevant, particularly for the people who want to annex Judea and Samaria. An annexation is not an annexation unless all the residents get full citizenship from the annexing power. (That is why East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights are not *de jure* part of Medinat Yisrael and its boundaries remain the 1949 armistice lines.) So such an annexation would result in 3.2 million new Arab citizens of Israel, to add to the 1,9 million current Arab citizens. Add another 360,000 Arabs in East Jerusalem and 20,000 Druze in the Golan and you get almost a doubling of the Arab population of Medinat Yisrael. The number of Arab MKs would rise to about 20. Or more. Enjoy forming a government.
I mean irrelevant towards furthering the Arab cause.
One thing I'd like to know is why the "Phased Plan," the PLO's 1974 plan to use diplomacy to "liberate" part of the land and use the land so "liberated" as a base of operations to "liberate" the remainder, not mentioned more by those arguing that the is no partner in Palestinian officialdom?
The Palestinians themselves don't talk about it any more. It basically destroyed the PLO, causing a huge split because much of the PLO refused to accept any partition, ever.
Hamas, which was never part of the PLO, came along later.
Hard to negotiate with people who can't agree themselves on what they want.
Actually, Arafat gave an interview with Jordanian radio before signing the Oslo Accords, for broadcast after the ceremony, in which he said that signing on to the Accords was in keeping with the Phased Plan. Of course the Palestinians would refrain from talking about it in western languages because wider knowledge of it in the West would reduce the number of do-gooders they can dupe. The question is why do we help them with that end by refraining from talking about the Phased Plan ourselves?
And don't forget that the Palestinian leadership repeated confirmed that the Charter never was amended to remove the anti-Israel articles.
I had such hopes for Yitzhak Rabin ....
> Israelis understand that the world will never accept the legitimacy of Israel ensuring security for its citizens, if such actions would result in large numbers of Palestinian casualties.
Not "if". "Whether or not".
It is totally legitimate for a nation state to invade another country to protect its citizens from non-state actors. The United States did that in 1916 to try to catch Pancho Villa, who had killed ten Americans in a cross-border raid at Columbus, New Mexico. (The invasion itself was a disaster for the US, but that is for another post.)
That's mostly correct. But you've forgotten the well-established "except when Jews do it" clause of international law.
"and they would rather wait for the State of Israel to eventually collapse (which, unfortunately, is indeed a possibility)."
There is no prophecy for such a reality happening, except for the coming of the final redemption.
Lots of things happen in the world that aren't predicted by prophesy.
The left-wing, in both Israel and the US, had some early successes. They were a necessary correction for conservatism (which is often confused with "right wing") But in the past 50 years of both countries the left has not had a single good idea. The most recent "contributions" of both - Oslo in Israel, Transgenderism in the US - have been abysmal failures. In both countries the left wing is living on the fumes of the baby boomers, and within 5-10 years will be totally extinct. The choice then will then be of conservatism (leaving things as they are) or an active right wing (actively repealing the past mistakes of the left.)
"Life in Sderot is immensely difficult. If most of the country were to become Sderot, that would be the end of the country."
That's possible, but no real way to know. In that counterfactual, Israel's response would (of necessity) likely be very different. https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-years-of-dead-end-air-campaigns-pinpoint-use-of-ground-forces-may-offer-way-out/
"Israel’s leaders have pointed to Iron Dome as a game-changer, allowing Israel to pound Gaza from the air and “restore deterrence” without having to worry excessively about reprisal rocket launches on civilians."
But as the prime minister and others declare victory in front of Iron Dome batteries, Hamas’s and Islamic Jihad’s capabilities continue to grow. Rockets can strike deeper into Israel now than before, managing to temporarily shut down Ben Gurion Airport on more than one occasion.
Deterrence isn't prevention.