If you are in college now your view of Israel is very very different from when I grew up.
People need to stop papering over what the Israeli government has become. This is not to say that Israel shouldn’t exist or antisemitism should ever accepted at protests.
The facts on the ground have drastically changed over the last 25 years. It was …
If you are in college now your view of Israel is very very different from when I grew up.
People need to stop papering over what the Israeli government has become. This is not to say that Israel shouldn’t exist or antisemitism should ever accepted at protests.
The facts on the ground have drastically changed over the last 25 years. It was slowly changing but it has accelerated. It will have long term effects on our politics towards Israel unfortunately. This has been true for a longtime (since Obama…you just can’t have prime ministers openly condemning democrats and rooting for republicans and not expect a bipartisan issue to stay bipartisan)
I'm a Boomer and my view is that the situation of Palestinians in Israel pre 10/7 had long been unjust and unsustainable. I was proven right.
My current position is that as soon as Hamas leadership is dealt with, Palestinians should be dragged into their own state, kicking and screaming if necessary. They cannot keep playing refugees.
No idea what this means. The issue has never been with the pla. Gaza its own issue.
Israel doesn’t want a 2 state solution. The pla does but it is so ineffective now because (1) corruption and (2) they have been so ineffectual in getting a 2 state solution they are also viewed as part of the occupying force because they support the idf but get nothing in return.
No idea how to change this but 40 years of constant new settlements hasn’t been well received. There are an additional 750k Israeli’s on the Palestinians territory now. They aren’t leaving
I agree -- but both the Palestinians and the Israelis should be "dragged" into a viable two-state solution, which has to include a rollback of all Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and an arrangement for Jerusalem that neither side would choose on their own.
Any deal that gives them a state is a worthwhile deal for the Palestinians. There are elements in Israel that will do anything they can to prevent it. They have zero leverage. Getting bogged down in negotiatons would be a mistake. They should be more concerned about roll forward than roll back. Once they prove they can govern themselves peacefully anything is possible
Arafat should have taken the Clinton deal. They would be so much better off today.
I agree re: Arafat. He sacrificed the future of the Palestinian people for the sake of maintaining his own dominance and the wealth that flowed from it. He was a lot like Putin.
They will not be allowed to have a state. Israel, even the most reasonable parts, won’t allow it. They will not be allowed to have borders. They will not be allowed to police their own people. They will not be allowed to stop the idf from raiding homes. You have to see this right?
This has nothing to do with Arafat. Once again, THAT WASNT A STATE EITHER. you can’t impose shit on either Israel or Palestine. That’s the fundamental problem
The failure of the Israeli offer that Clinton brokered had EVERYTHING to do with Arafat and his refusal to accept it. He would have had a state if he had been anything like a statesman.
As for imposing a solution, of course we can, if the United States and its allies are willing to impose steadily increasing pressure on the Israelis and the more powerful Arab states are willing to do the same on the Palestinians. We can't make them LIKE each other, or even cooperate with each other, but we CAN create a situation where two sovereign states live side by side without being able to attack each other, as East and West Germany did from 1949 to the end of the Cold War, and North and South Korea have done since the Korean Armistice in 1953. My ambitions, certainly for my lifetime and quite possibly for yours, too, don't go any farther than that.
Al that wasn’t a state unless your definition is different than every other state in the world. Once again, they wouldn’t be allowed to police their own people. They wouldn’t be allowed to stop the IDF raids on their people’s homes. Maybe that’s what they end up with but no one would call that a “state.”
To your second part. True but there is no political will to do any of what you propose. The US, Europe and the gulf states will never send their soldiers to police the Palestinians. That’s a non starter.
If you are going to use Korea or Germany as examples. Ok when will the US send 100k troops to Israel? That was how we made peace. There is no chance we will ever do that in Israel.
I think that the plan Arafat rejected would have been a start, but it doesn't matter what either of us think about it now: he rejected it, it's dead, and it's not recoverable.
I think that once Hamas is eliminated, there may be political will to force the sides to a two-state solution. From everything I've read, any frustration we feel with the Israelis is as nothing compared to the frustration that the Arab states feel with the Palestinians. Any such plan would require massive investments from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States to stand Palestine up so that it can succeed economically. Once the Palestinians have jobs and a lifestyle that they can enjoy, they might have second -- and third, and fourth -- thoughts about throwing it all away.
Palestine would have to be demilitarized, but that doesn't mean that they wouldn't have an effective police force and defensive weapons, just nothing that they could throw over the border. In that, they would be no different from Costa Rica or Iceland, which also have no military. They could have defense guarantees from Saudi Arabia and Jordan, but probably wouldn't need them: if most Israelis could just forget that the Palestinians were there, I think that they'd be content to live back to back, walled off from each other with both open to the rest of the world. Transit between Gaza and the West Bank could be handled the way that transit between West Germany and West Berlin was handled from 1949 to the end of the Cold War.
At any rate, once Hamas is eliminated, the Israelis must be forced to roll back the West Bank settlements, which were illegal from the jump and never should have been permitted in the first place, someone besides the Israelis should be responsible for keeping Gaza and the West Bank peaceful, and as I've said, the Gulf should take the lead in rebuilding the West Bank and Gaza and making them economically viable.
Wrong on Arab states. The monarchs hate Hamas. Their people love the Palestinians. The countries closest to Israel are pissed at Israel. Saudi foreign minister called it a genocide last week.
The Palestinians are already demilitarized and look what happened.
I’m glad you have hope. I wish I did but I don’t. Israel doesn’t want a state. Palestinians are getting stepped on everyday and their hate grows which leads to violence. Rinse and repeat.
If you are in college now your view of Israel is very very different from when I grew up.
People need to stop papering over what the Israeli government has become. This is not to say that Israel shouldn’t exist or antisemitism should ever accepted at protests.
The facts on the ground have drastically changed over the last 25 years. It was slowly changing but it has accelerated. It will have long term effects on our politics towards Israel unfortunately. This has been true for a longtime (since Obama…you just can’t have prime ministers openly condemning democrats and rooting for republicans and not expect a bipartisan issue to stay bipartisan)
I'm a Boomer and my view is that the situation of Palestinians in Israel pre 10/7 had long been unjust and unsustainable. I was proven right.
My current position is that as soon as Hamas leadership is dealt with, Palestinians should be dragged into their own state, kicking and screaming if necessary. They cannot keep playing refugees.
No idea what this means. The issue has never been with the pla. Gaza its own issue.
Israel doesn’t want a 2 state solution. The pla does but it is so ineffective now because (1) corruption and (2) they have been so ineffectual in getting a 2 state solution they are also viewed as part of the occupying force because they support the idf but get nothing in return.
No idea how to change this but 40 years of constant new settlements hasn’t been well received. There are an additional 750k Israeli’s on the Palestinians territory now. They aren’t leaving
I agree -- but both the Palestinians and the Israelis should be "dragged" into a viable two-state solution, which has to include a rollback of all Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and an arrangement for Jerusalem that neither side would choose on their own.
Any deal that gives them a state is a worthwhile deal for the Palestinians. There are elements in Israel that will do anything they can to prevent it. They have zero leverage. Getting bogged down in negotiatons would be a mistake. They should be more concerned about roll forward than roll back. Once they prove they can govern themselves peacefully anything is possible
Arafat should have taken the Clinton deal. They would be so much better off today.
I agree re: Arafat. He sacrificed the future of the Palestinian people for the sake of maintaining his own dominance and the wealth that flowed from it. He was a lot like Putin.
They will not be allowed to have a state. Israel, even the most reasonable parts, won’t allow it. They will not be allowed to have borders. They will not be allowed to police their own people. They will not be allowed to stop the idf from raiding homes. You have to see this right?
I see it, which is why I say that a solution must be imposed, and it has to start with rolling back the settlements.
Brett F. is right: Arafat should have taken the Clinton deal. But he didn't, so we need to deal with the current reality.
This has nothing to do with Arafat. Once again, THAT WASNT A STATE EITHER. you can’t impose shit on either Israel or Palestine. That’s the fundamental problem
The failure of the Israeli offer that Clinton brokered had EVERYTHING to do with Arafat and his refusal to accept it. He would have had a state if he had been anything like a statesman.
As for imposing a solution, of course we can, if the United States and its allies are willing to impose steadily increasing pressure on the Israelis and the more powerful Arab states are willing to do the same on the Palestinians. We can't make them LIKE each other, or even cooperate with each other, but we CAN create a situation where two sovereign states live side by side without being able to attack each other, as East and West Germany did from 1949 to the end of the Cold War, and North and South Korea have done since the Korean Armistice in 1953. My ambitions, certainly for my lifetime and quite possibly for yours, too, don't go any farther than that.
Al that wasn’t a state unless your definition is different than every other state in the world. Once again, they wouldn’t be allowed to police their own people. They wouldn’t be allowed to stop the IDF raids on their people’s homes. Maybe that’s what they end up with but no one would call that a “state.”
To your second part. True but there is no political will to do any of what you propose. The US, Europe and the gulf states will never send their soldiers to police the Palestinians. That’s a non starter.
If you are going to use Korea or Germany as examples. Ok when will the US send 100k troops to Israel? That was how we made peace. There is no chance we will ever do that in Israel.
I think that the plan Arafat rejected would have been a start, but it doesn't matter what either of us think about it now: he rejected it, it's dead, and it's not recoverable.
I think that once Hamas is eliminated, there may be political will to force the sides to a two-state solution. From everything I've read, any frustration we feel with the Israelis is as nothing compared to the frustration that the Arab states feel with the Palestinians. Any such plan would require massive investments from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States to stand Palestine up so that it can succeed economically. Once the Palestinians have jobs and a lifestyle that they can enjoy, they might have second -- and third, and fourth -- thoughts about throwing it all away.
Palestine would have to be demilitarized, but that doesn't mean that they wouldn't have an effective police force and defensive weapons, just nothing that they could throw over the border. In that, they would be no different from Costa Rica or Iceland, which also have no military. They could have defense guarantees from Saudi Arabia and Jordan, but probably wouldn't need them: if most Israelis could just forget that the Palestinians were there, I think that they'd be content to live back to back, walled off from each other with both open to the rest of the world. Transit between Gaza and the West Bank could be handled the way that transit between West Germany and West Berlin was handled from 1949 to the end of the Cold War.
At any rate, once Hamas is eliminated, the Israelis must be forced to roll back the West Bank settlements, which were illegal from the jump and never should have been permitted in the first place, someone besides the Israelis should be responsible for keeping Gaza and the West Bank peaceful, and as I've said, the Gulf should take the lead in rebuilding the West Bank and Gaza and making them economically viable.
Agree on Arafat.
Wrong on Arab states. The monarchs hate Hamas. Their people love the Palestinians. The countries closest to Israel are pissed at Israel. Saudi foreign minister called it a genocide last week.
The Palestinians are already demilitarized and look what happened.
I’m glad you have hope. I wish I did but I don’t. Israel doesn’t want a state. Palestinians are getting stepped on everyday and their hate grows which leads to violence. Rinse and repeat.