> Hopefully, the Arab League can convince them one way or the other. I believe, by simply accepting the Israeli citizenship, ALL Palestinians stand a chance to

> Hopefully, the Arab League can convince them one way or the other. I believe, by simply accepting the Israeli citizenship, ALL Palestinians stand a chance to fight it out politically, as otherwise, they're anyway "second-rate citizens", regardless of whether they're militant (Gaza) or not (the West Bank). Israeli citizenship is the crux of the issue. Much of when we consider as the borders of Israel was annexed. That means the people who were there before got full citizenship and rights. In 1967 when Israel occupied these additional territories they came with a vast number of Palestinians in them. Egypt didn't want Gaza back when a peace treaty was finally signed. Even now they won't let anyone in from Gaza. Jordan didn't want the west bank either. Israel chose to form settlements to slowly grab land. This was in-part a strategic decision, especially in the west bank where the border is very narrow. This was a poor mistake that was actually started by Nobel Peace prize winner for the Oslo accord Shimon Peres. Yes. The liberals started the settlements. This was criticized by some smart people at the time such as Yeshayahu Leibowitz who was a fascinating man that saw how occupying another people would destroy the country from within. Israel specifically chose not to annex the west bank and gaza to avoid citizenship for millions of additional Palestinians. That would completely offset the balance of power in the country. It's just a fucked up scenario. The extreme right parts of the current government have an annexation plan that would not grant citizenship to the Palestinian people effectively becoming an apartheid state officially. Most of the country is against it but I think a lot of the current events are part of their plan. > > They hope this will enrage the surrounding Arab countries enough to trigger an all out regional holy war for the destruction of Israel. > > The powers-that-be, surely aren't that naive given the unconditional support Israel has always had from Europe and the Americas. ALL of their Arab neighbors are in no economic position to wage a war, even if there's political will. But they still went ahead with this despicable plan anyway... I am lost, really. They did that in the past. In 1973 they nearly wiped out Israel and no one sent troops. Arguably Nixon saved Israel through weapon shipments. But up until now it was one of the deadliest wars in our history. Israel survived by dumb luck to a remarkable extent. Looking at Ukraine, you fight your wars alone. Support is all good but despite the attack western countries kept buying Russian gas. That fear is very real. Imagine countries cutting off oil to the west if they help Israel... > Not terrorism when people in uniform do it ;) Yes. But to be fair Israel does have some cases where investigation resulted in surprising outcomes. E.g. a couple of years ago a terrorist (real one) was shot while trying to stab a soldier. He wasn't dead, just lying down neutralized. A soldier took his weapon and killed him. That soldier stood trial and went to jail despite the right-wing going apeshit over this... > From Israeli (tech) twitter, the sentiment I get is... all of Gaza is enemy, and couldn't care less if IDF nakba'd them a bit more in to Sinai. Yes. I'm afraid this is pretty terrible in the news comment section too. A lot of this is due to a misconception about the Palestinians and gaza residents. During the day of the attack one of my spouses students was in a safe root with her kids corresponding with us. Amazingly they all survived (house burned down but considering literally half of their village died... that's good). There was no news so we went on Instagram and looked at their hashtags. The videos published and cheered by the Hamas supporters were just horrible. It's hard to think about the human side. We all know people and lost people. I was looking at John Oliver today and he showed a clip I didn't see here about a young guy who lost his brother. He was specifically talking about how his brother wouldn't want innocent Palestinians hurt. The problem is we don't see those things here... When I was a kid they took us to a holocaust museum and showed us what people wrote on the walls in death camps. That fucks up kids minds. It's all cries for vengeance. Right now the media is pumping out every demonstration and every anti-semantic sentiment, this creates a "we don't have anywhere else to go" mentality. A persecution complex that weighs heavily on everyone here. All of these things come together. Even when we see the innocent victims, the blame goes to the Hamas. That's partially true (obviously), but it's disheartening. Another thing that wasn't really reported here is the low support for the Hamas. People think that the Hamas won an election. They got 40% of the votes and even then the vast majority were in favor of peace. Yet, that latter part is missed. People justify violence because there's an assumption that the majority in Gaza chose violence and then celebrated in the streets when it happened. > if Israel remains a democracy I doubt it will still be a democracy even for us when the dust settles... > Hamas have estimated 40K "fighters" (but lets face it, they're not really a match, they'll be slaughtered if not by the Army If you have no morals and 2M human shields to hide behind this can stretch for years. Look at the much larger US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Finding them is a needle in a haystack. > Tear up the farce that was the US-brokered Oslo Accords and the UK-brokered Mandate, and undo the partition. Offer a life of dignity, peace, prosperity, and purpose to peoples who consider themselves refugees in their own homeland. Making the Palestinians accept citizenship can be forced by the Arab League. Easier said than done, of course (: That is something no one wants. It will be a disaster. Israel is a liberal democracy. We have things such as gay rights, women's rights, etc. Even with our religious factions this is sometimes a problem. Unfortunately, there's a lot in common between religions in that sense. It will send us back to a point we can't get beyond. That's if we're actually able to stop the terrorists. To do this we would need to remove the walls. That means we will go back to suicide bomber of the week. Three busses exploded in the street where I lived right next to my building. A coffee shop I was in was blown up. We can't go back to that, we need a border.