We just want our land ... Oh wait, no we just want war

Post Reply New Topic

http://stallman.org/archives/2010-nov-f ... is%20up%29

We shouldn't be involved in this either way. Israel has nuclear weapons and one of the most advanced militaries in the world, they don't need us to do their bidding. They'd be much better off if we weren't supporting all those essentially authoritarian dictatorships all over the middle east. It shouldn't be any of our business.

We're basically there because we need the oil. We supported Israel to keep the Soviet-supported Muslims in line. We are now stuck in the position of supporting Israel AND the Muslims. Those groups have hated each other for three thousand years, and if humanity is still around three thousand years hence they will still hate each other. We should secure the oil and leave the running/policing/fighting war part of the region to its own devices.

Definitely, the Jews should have been given land in a less volatile part of the world to compensate them for the horrors of the Holocaust and the loss of safe harbors in Europe. The Jews are in Palestine because they demanded Palestine. The British tried moving them to Africa, but the Jews turned them down flat, they insisted on the Biblical Land of Israel. I suspect that many Israelis regret that decision.

Stalin briefly tried moving Soviet Jews to far eastern Russia, which at least got them out of the way of the Nazis-Jews who remained in the Baltics were transported to the gas chambers when the Nazis invaded. The novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union imagined a Jewish colony in the Alaska Panhandle, founded after Israel lost its war of independence (a war they won IRL).

There are about two million Jews who are radicals, and who will never abandon "their" land. The rest should be offered immigration, possibly to a semi-autonomous Jewish colony in the Northern Plains or the Canadian Plains. The remaining Jews should understand that if they don't immigrate, the US govt bears no responsibility for any ensuing bloodshed. Jews in the USA can still send money, and many do, in a system comparable to that used by Mexican nationals to send money to their homeland. But the USA should not support either side officially.

About half of the Jews in Israel are Israeli for virtue of being born in Israel-many are "sabras" who have roots going back a century-and should at least be offered an alternative to staying in Israel, which is densely packed, low wage and high cost, and under constant rocket attack, for someplace safer. The other half are radical, many from the US, and are fanatically devoted to "the Jewish Homeland", and will never immigrate, although they should be offered it. Many of these live on the West Bank, in crude-and illegal-settlements. The Gaza experience is a good barometer for what might happen if the sabras were offered immigration-most would take it. Only a handful of radicals gathered at Neve Dekalim in Gaza to resist.

inb4 we told you so?

Silly as heth? How compare letters for silliness?

Are these documents even genuine to begin with? Seriously, the premise that Israel would just want to keep the fighting going is not just illogical, it is completely irrational. If Israelis were really of that mindset, they would never have handed the Sinai back to Egypt as part of a peace deal (one that has been kept on both sides for decades).

Furthermore, weren't there also wikileaks documents that suggested that Fatah was getting Israeli help concerning Hamas? So something doesn't add up here.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00419.html

Given that the Palestinians are distancing themselves from the contents of these documents, one wonders about their authenticity. I find it incredible that they would have unilaterally come to the table with the restrictions on the right of return that are suggested in these documents.

I am no fan of the Israeli government's approach to talks with the Palestinians, but had the Palestinians arrived with these concessions in hand, it would have been almost impossible to say no--particularly as no Palestinian negotiator would have failed to keep the Americans apprised of the nature of the offer.

Fatah can definitely be reasoned with but Hamas? Hell no.

Each side in this conflict walks a fine line between, what they need for long term peace, what outside observers expect of them, what their people want and what they have the legitimacy to deliver.

For the Palestinians, they have gotten now, through Fatah to the point where they can reach an agreement with Israel whereby their long term interests could be met. However the outside observers that apply pressure on them, such as Iran and Syria, have critically weakened their legitimacy in the eyes of their own people and with the outside world. Fatah may be able to reach an agreement, but there is no way of knowing that reaching agreement with Fatah means reaching one with the whole of Palestine.

The Israelis face similar problems. The government cannot (due to the nature of their proportional representation system, which in this case, has placed more power in the hands of the extremes of politics) reach any agreement over the settlements. The present Government of Israel is presently within a tight coalition that would collapse if it attempted to put through a peace agreement at the moment. Israel has also, having faced the Palestinian walkout under Arafat, ensured that it faces little military threat from Palestine. The suicide bombings have been stopped and for the most part, the central part of Israel is living with a peace dividend already. Its only the Palestinians who need to negotiate peace in the short-medium term, as she stands Israel is powerful enough to wait for the best possible deal.

What is needed is for things to change on the ground and change they will. Israel has a changing internal population that will increasingly favor conservative outcomes. The secular and some of the religious nationalist groups will most likely form a coalition against the more radical elements and push for peace eventually. What will bring that on is probably the sheer increase in the number of Palestinians in the occupied territories. If the Israelis hold onto those territories too long, then they face becoming a minority in their own claimed lands. When the population reaches this tipping point, its a fair bet that peace will be reached.