> I live in a country where conservatives and liberals co-exist just fine. Israel's biggest ally is a country that has survived just fine. I understand the fear

> I live in a country where conservatives and liberals co-exist just fine. Israel's biggest ally is a country that has survived just fine. I understand the fear however. There used to be consensus here too. After the 6 day war the heads of local Arab municipalities wrote letters to the president congratulating Israel on its victory. The concept of co-existence was something that was promoted and people believed in it. Unfortunately, this eroded away with the occupation. Most of us don't remember a time of co-existence. Looking at countries like the USA it seems that the far right has gone completely haywire thanks in large part to social media that pushes to the extremes. > > The reason they have weak leadership is due to the Israeli right wing which sabotaged that leadership. > > What's their end-goal, though? This varies based on the group. A lot of this is just reactionary. There's an attack on Israeli settlements, so we'll build even more settlements to "show them"... That's insane and dates back to the father of Israels right wing Jabotinsky who said that the conflict can only be resolved when Israel is so strong that no thought of taking it down can ever cross the minds of its enemies. He defined it as a wall of strength if I remember correctly. That's nonsense obviously. People aren't homogeneous and empires fall. But that dogma still exists in the right. The settlers are 90% religious. Heavily so. They are the crux of the problem here. Before these attacks an internal conflict was brewing in Israel where the three factions of Israeli life were coming undone. We have many factions but the 3 I'm talking about are: * Secular - Israel is one of the most secular countries on earth * Religious right - typically settlers but they live all over * Hasidic jews - they are tribal and don't really care about any of this. But they have a long standing deal with the right and use it to extort government funds. The moderate/liberal element has grown tired by the robbery conducted by the hasidic jews and the fact that religious settlers are forcing us into redundant conflicts with the Palestinians. Many said they will refuse to serve in the territories if they're called to duty. Pilots in the IDF resigned from active duty etc. Palestinian leaders used to joke in the past that the conflict is the only thing keeping Israel together. If they left the Jews alone they would kill each other. This seems pretty accurate. Once this happened everyone who quit showed up in bases and signed up. Even if they disagree with the cause nothing unifies more than a common enemy. This is all about religion in both sides. Jews wouldn't live in Hebron without being religious extremists. There's no "end game" because they are just f*ing crazy. Notice that there are the crazier Nazi level players. Historically, these parties were illegal in Israel because they were considered racist. In the last election Bibi made sure they get legalized to leverage their power. I hope a lot of the people who voted for them don't really realize what they are. They don't yell "death to Arabs" or anything like that publicly, so people can delude themselves. But the history of these parties and the subtext is clear to those who pay attention. > then it behooves Israeli liberals to speak up Israeli liberals speak up a lot. There are amazing organizations like Betselem (in image) or brothers in arms. They provide testimonials and visual evidence of the crimes in occupation. In Israeli society they are viewed as bleeding heart liberals who are disconnected from the reality of "our enemy". Organizations like BDS which tries to blacklist Israel end up even worse. It feeds into the "everyone is against us" mentality. The fact that the organization includes key members with terrorism association further cements that notion. > btw, I don't see any resemblance between the Turkic and the Celtic peoples, Cypress is an example of such friction. There are many cultural clashes through Europe between immigrants and whites. This triggered a rise in white nationalism and triggered things like Brexit (also partially against Polish immigration). We haven't assimilated the current Arab population. There are many problems across the board. There aren't many things on which we have a wide consensus here across the board but this is one them. Both Palestinians and Israelis aren't for this in very large numbers. > > They failed pretty badly in Afghanistan and Iraq. > > Those are massive territories unlike Gaza and WB. Yes. That does give me a bit of hope. But the problem is more cultural, not just peacemaking. There's deep rooted religion and also historic corruption. Getting the communities to "buy into" a cultural shift would be hard.