Who Else Thinks Israel Deserves To Exist?

disregard previous

 

more like captured territory of the british! heard of the 'sun never settin on the british empire' ?

 

I have no bias because I don't have any ties to Palestine, nor Israel. I'm looking at it from an outside perspective. I've done intense research on Israel and Palestine in an International Relations class and did a role playing exercise where one half of the class was Isreal and the other half was Palestine and I learned a lot about the dynamics in which these people are living. I don't know everything about it, of course, but it opened my eyes a lot...As an American, I initially thought that Isreal was in the right...because that's what the media taught me, but as I researched, I realised how wrong I was.

No one owes anyone anything, but THAT was Palestinian land...the country was initially called Palestine. And the map I posted speaks for itself...THAT was their land and the Isrealites stole it from them. Now, if someone steals something, don't you think they should at least give most of it back? It's just the same as I feel we should give most of the Native Americans their land back, because it's the RIGHT thing to do.

That's not to say that the Jews shouldn't have a land of their own...that's why I think a two state solution is in order...but these people are so stubborn, it's never going to happen.

 

Please don't say that "the Jews" are stubborn, because that's not necessarily true. One of the plethera of problems with Israel is that, in my opinion, the government isn't a very good representation of its people. While its government seems to want to gain more land and all, most of the people were in favor of the pull-out from the Gaza Strip settlements, and would be in favor of more pull-outs from other settlements. You don't really hear about this much because most of what you hear in the news and other sources is about the Israeli government. Please don't make the mistake of labeling the government's desires and actions as the whole peoples' desires and actions. I have a lot of extended family in Israel, and I know for a fact that they're not happy with the actions of their government.

I agree though, that there must be a two state solution, or peace will never happen.

 

THANK YOU!!! That is essentialy what I've been trying to point out to people, but nobody seems to hear the part about the solution. All they hear is another person supporting the destruction caused by this war, something I am terribly saddened by. BOTH SIDES DESERVE PEACE!! END OF STORY!!

 

Of course Israel deserves to exist.

There's no way a dissolvement of Israel could happen. Theres no way to redistribute 6 million people without massive diaspora. Any group of people without a state are historically targeted. Look at all the crap the Jewish people and the Kurdish people have gone through.

Israel also has a right to defend itslef. So do the Palestinians. Israel should defend itself from bombers and gun men, but they shouldn't isolate all the Palestinians in a small area because of militias. The Israeli military is also far too militant in it's pursuit of saftey. They need to find a balence between protecting their own citizens, and protecting Palestinians which they have clearly not found

Jews and Arabs can coexist. I'm not exactly sure how. I had thought a two state solution could resolve it, but now I'm not so sure that's the way to go. What happened with Hezbollah building up in southern Lebanon could happen in a Palestinian state, a Palestinian state would likely have a fairly weak military, and would likely have trouble trading.

Lebanon is of course a very seperate issue and should be handled differently, but the same sort of problems may arise from Iranian sponsored paramilitaries in Palestine.

Would Palestine be capable of rendering a strong democracy with Israeli militantism on one side and foreign sponsored militas on the other. If thats what happened, then having Palestine become a state would probably just result in a short peace followed by more war.

What about a one state solution then. The Jews outnumber the Palestinians about six million to three. But if a one state solution could be reached, with the Palestinians represented fairly, the Palestinian economy could do much better, with Israeli investment and development then as aa seperate state, which would probably be dependant on other Muslim states aid, which might take the form of sponsering Hamas.

If the Palestinians could be integrated into the IDF, it would not only give the government more perspective, but it would also be completly effective at rooting out terrorists.

I'm starting to think a one state solution might be much better. I'm just not entirely sure how to realise it, while keeping the Israelis and Palestinians happy.

Either way, the status quo doesn't work. Disolving Israel wouldn't work. Israeli occupation doesn't work. We need to find something better.

 

That's exactly what the UN resolution in 1947 that gave Israel the right to form as a nation mandated. That resolution said that there were to be two sovereign nations side by side, one Israeli and one Palestinian. That never happened, and is one of the main reasons that the Palestinians are upset about their situation.

 

Their also isolated and impoverished.

 

Despite the fact that I think the Israelis blatantly robbed Palestine from the Palestinians with the help of the British (who've alot to answer for), at this stage anyone (mainly Hamas and Hezbollah) who think that Israel will be wiped off the map are badly mistaken. Israel is there to stay and they would be much better off negoiating than going around causing shit and not just killing Israelis but provoking Israel into killing loads of Palestinians and Lebonese aswell. Some of Hezbollah and Hamas will never accept Israel but if the economic conditions that most Palestinians lived in were to drastically improve in their own state people wouldn't be as inclined to entertain extremists.

In Ireland the IRA had widespread support when the British treated all the pro-Irish people in the British controlled North of Ireland like shit and interned them without trial etc etc back in the 70's & 80's. But after that stopped the IRA lost most of it's support base and were seen for what they really were. A bunch of scumbags who blew up women and children. The same could happen in the middle east and hopefully it will, enough people have needlessly died all for bullshit ideals and religion.

 

Lodui, an excellent post!

Your ONE STATE solution, as dificult as it sounds, may be the only solution that could work in the long term.

One big reason the UN didn't recommend a ONE STATE solution in '47 is because the Jews felt too vulnerable to Arab revenge over the injustice of land confiscation.

And because of the under-handed way Israel supplanted the Palestinians, neither the Arabs nor the Muslims will EVER reconcile themselves to an Israeli State.

But in a single State of Equality with two official languages, neutral state symbols, right of return for both groups, and compensation for lands confiscated since 1856, perhaps these Semitic brothers can once again live peacefully in the same house.

 

disregard previous

 

A one state solution is not viable, one wants a Jewish state and the other wants an Islamic state, to think there could ever been a one state solution is to miss the whole problem.

 

but they don't (the refugee count alone runs in millions), so can the palestinians rule over israel ? and call the land palestine ? and the IDF can be integrated into PDF and the israelis can be fairly represented and the palestinians and israelis can, without discrimination, have equal amount of land allocated and have equal access to water and the olives and

..oh well

 

actually, one wants a jewish state (and they'd make you believe its the only democracy [really should read theocracy] in the mideast!) and the other wants a palestinian state ..or simply, a state ..or actually some friggin pieces of land and a bit of freedom!

 

The issues run much deeper then religion. The areas which could be refered to as Palestine have amongst the largest populations of Christians (and jews) of the middle east.

They both believe its the holy land of the same god. We're not going to have a fully secular state in the near future. But that doesn't mean some public secularity would be overwhelmingly objected too.

The government would probably need to be seperated to accomidate for both religious groups. But the problems of a two state solution are abundent. Mainly poverty and a return to status quo. The Palestinian people could probably not survive very well economically on their own, and it's likely Hamas and other fringe guerilla elements would take deep seated roots in the political structure of an impoverished Palestinian state.

Maybe a rocky peace for a few years, untill one side decided to blow up the other side.

A Palestenian state could only live peacefully with Israel if it had a very stable government and full military control of it's territory. Theres no solution I can think of to seperate them and make the state of Palestine set up a very strong government, make their economy for them somehow, and demand that Hamas not be a part of their government, which as soon as we made any of those demands, the Palestinians would resign from the government.

The only problem with a one state solution I see, is finding a way to make it seem like the best solution to two ethnic groups with a massive rift between them, and finding a way these groups could aid each other in the development of this new state. Finding the right political structure where everyone is satisfied.

So it's a big problem. Huge problem, but I believe if we could find a way to negotiate a one state solution, it would be much more likely to benifit the Palestinian people, in terms of helping them develop their infrastructure and contribute to a lasting peace instead of a shaky break between flare ups.

I'll post it when I think of something that may begin to work.

 

I think semantics are the last concern to deal with.

If you consider Palestinians an ethnic group their own, then there are about ten million I believe. Inside the state of Israel and Gaza/West Bank, about 2.5-3.5 million. (According to nation master.)

I'm not saying a two state solution couldn't work, it might be better. If we had easy answers we wouldn't need to talk about it.

But I can see many more complications arise from two states then my admitedly somewhat utopic one state.

Look at the UN partition though, it reflects the distribution of people well, but not so much the distribution of resources, and perhaps more importantly, the fact that the distributions under the UN partition zig zag all over the place to respond to ethnic divisions.

West Bank and Gaza don't touch, so in effect, forming a state of Palestine, you would have an impoverished state that depended on foreign (which would most likely take the form of Iranian to sponsor militias) aid, and it would be sequestered from it's own population.

As soon as someone from Hamas, who couldn't be forced out of the government in a two state solution, attacked some Israelis... the Israelis would respnd in a very crushing way that would destroy any hope of Palestinian sovereignty.

 

I just don't see any way which a State of Palestine wouldn't become a welfare state to Iran.

West Bank and Gaza would have so much trouble trading and setting up the infrastructure the the Palestinan people need, largely due to their seperation.

I don't see any way to keep Hamas out of a Palestinian government.

I don't see any way to prevent an Israeli invasion once the Hamas elements build up.

A one state solution seems much more likely to prevent Hamas from being able to operate in a stateless and organized fashion.

It also seems much more likely to help the Palestinian areas build economically, rather then rely on welfare.

I'm not trying to seem like I'm saying the Palestinian people couldn't build up fisically on their own, but considering the isolation and poor state it's in now, having them be further isolated from investment in a place with few natural resources looks like it might lead to an extremly rocky start.

The UN could provide aid of course, but they need more than food, blankets and medecine for a decent quality of living to devlop. Palestine needs investment and trade which the UN has never succesfully provided. Being one with Israel in a stable and democratic way is the only way I can see these issues being resolved in a way which would help set up the institutions in both countries to see a lasting end to violence.

A sequestered Palestine won't last.

 

One of the only reasons Israels economy is so good is because of the millions of hand outs it get from the USA along with all the trade the US gives them that it wouldn't give the Palestinians because of ideological differences.

 

Isreal and US are like best buddies...Jewish Americans give the most money in campaign contributions...therefore, where do US politicians and government send the money? Isreal...hmmm, funny how that works, huh?

 

Spacer, Israel has a very strong diversified economy with machinery, software and cut diamond exports. Israels military is formed largely of US handouts, but their economy is strong due to very good developmental policies and investment policies.

http://www.geoinvestor.com/statistics/israel/economicdata.htm

Palestine could be very affluent if it were somewhat more integrated economically with Israel, and foreign investment in Israels economy hasn't had anything to do with handouts. Ideological differences matter little for investment. Stable governments and indicators of growth do. If the Palestinans in some way had the means to encourage growth (end violence, have some political representation, had strong fisical policies)then investment would reflect that.

You think the US and China are in step ideoligically? That doesn't deter investment. What about the UAE? Of course I'm not saying a Palestinean economy should miror Chinas or the Arab Emerites, but Israeli investors would like to invest in the Palestinian areas, and if Palestinians had enough representation in the government to make sure the investment was handled well, it would be great for the Palestinian people.