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What is the complication in West Bank? It is under occupation by all means. And also under apartheid. Occupying West Bank completely might also be just fringe i

What is the complication in West Bank? It is under occupation by all means. And also under apartheid. Occupying West Bank completely might also be just fringe ideas, that are not worth paying attention to? Is it the complication of Smotrich price-tagging Palestinians by creating as many illegal occupations as the number of countries recognising the Palestinian people's lives?

weatherlite 2y ago
By saying its more complicated I meant to say that the settlements in the West Bank don't really have mainstream support in Israel as the parent comment suggested. There's a very powerful national religious minority that is able to keep them alive but that's more due to political deadlock than due to widespread support (I'm not arguing some support exists but its not huge, and Smotrich btw is expected not to make it into the next parliament because he's leaking tons of voters). Curiously, the most religious Israelis (the ultra orthodox) generally don't care about the settlements at all. Now dismantling the settlements would be very hard now but that's much more due to a reluctance of most Israelis to see a Palestinian state in the West Bank due to fear for their security - not out of love for the settlements. If conditions for peace ever arrive I don't think the majority of Israelis would have a problem to dismantle them (Israel already did dismantle quite a few settlements in the past, also in the West Bank). But yeah we'll cross the 'peace bridge' when we get there.
- aguaviva 2y ago
  By saying its more complicated I meant to say that the settlements in the West Bank don't really have mainstream support in Israel as the parent comment suggested. No "mainstream support"? It's run as an administrative area of the State of Israel, "administered by the Israel Defense Forces Central Command, and military law is applied": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judea_and_Samaria_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judea_and_Samaria_Area
  - weatherlite 2y ago
    [flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- aguaviva 2y ago
  We also have e.g.: When it comes to Jewish settlements in the West Bank, 40% of the public say they help Israeli national security, while 35% say they hurt. An additional 21% think settlements don’t make much difference to the country’s security. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/06/20/settlements-and-violence-in-the-west-bank-and-east-jerusalem/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/06/20/settlements-an... Plus there's the fact that the country, despite all its internal divisions, managed to put a certain Benjamin Netanyahu -- who has declared the expansion of the settlements to be a "top priority" -- in office 3 times (for some 17 years total so far). And all the mainstream society hate for Oslo and 2SS, and so on. These are just a few of many obvious indicators. Of course many feel conflicted about the settlements, and only support them the perceived "security" advantages, and so on. But it's just not tenable to say that the settlements "don't really have mainstream support". When by all indications, the imperative to support and maintain them has been national consensus for several decades now.
  - runarberg 2y ago
    This is all on top of the fact that these settlements—even without expansion—are unambiguously breaking international law. Popular support against it—real or not—does not make this more complicated. A politician who does not support dismantling these settlements, return the land to Palestinians, and pay reparations, is obviously wrong. This describes almost all Israeli politicians, and is not fringe, nor complicated. The existence of politicians who go further only complicates matter in making things worse by providing a possibility for illegal policy not only maintained, but also expanded. That said, I agree with you, I don’t believe this is only a fringe position that has no relevance on current or future policy which breaks international law.
  - weatherlite 2y ago
    That some Israelis believe the settlements help security makes much more sense considering what happened after Israel disengaged from Gaza and uprooted all settlements there - things became much much worse (both for Israel and for Gaza) as I think we all can agree. Another thing is that Israel is in the middle of a horrible war so the public mood for obvious reasons goes much more to the right. If you ask the Palestinian public questions about peace prospects you wouldn't hear a lot of great things either. If push came to shove most Israelis wouldn't care at all if settlements are uprooted again just like Israel did in Gaza, the only Israelis out protesting last time Israel took out settlements were religious Zionists: determined, loud, sometimes violent but definitely not mainstream. No one else cared much. Even the pew numbers you are showing tell that even now the settlements at the very least are controversial in Israel and definitely not mainstream (no majority is saying they help security).

weatherlite 2y ago

By saying its more complicated I meant to say that the settlements in the West Bank don't really have mainstream support in Israel as the parent comment suggested. There's a very powerful national religious minority that is able to keep them alive but that's more due to political deadlock than due to widespread support (I'm not arguing some support exists but its not huge, and Smotrich btw is expected not to make it into the next parliament because he's leaking tons of voters). Curiously, the most religious Israelis (the ultra orthodox) generally don't care about the settlements at all. Now dismantling the settlements would be very hard now but that's much more due to a reluctance of most Israelis to see a Palestinian state in the West Bank due to fear for their security - not out of love for the settlements. If conditions for peace ever arrive I don't think the majority of Israelis would have a problem to dismantle them (Israel already did dismantle quite a few settlements in the past, also in the West Bank). But yeah we'll cross the 'peace bridge' when we get there.

aguaviva 2y ago
By saying its more complicated I meant to say that the settlements in the West Bank don't really have mainstream support in Israel as the parent comment suggested. No "mainstream support"? It's run as an administrative area of the State of Israel, "administered by the Israel Defense Forces Central Command, and military law is applied": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judea_and_Samaria_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judea_and_Samaria_Area
- weatherlite 2y ago
  [flagged]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
aguaviva 2y ago
We also have e.g.: When it comes to Jewish settlements in the West Bank, 40% of the public say they help Israeli national security, while 35% say they hurt. An additional 21% think settlements don’t make much difference to the country’s security. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/06/20/settlements-and-violence-in-the-west-bank-and-east-jerusalem/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/06/20/settlements-an... Plus there's the fact that the country, despite all its internal divisions, managed to put a certain Benjamin Netanyahu -- who has declared the expansion of the settlements to be a "top priority" -- in office 3 times (for some 17 years total so far). And all the mainstream society hate for Oslo and 2SS, and so on. These are just a few of many obvious indicators. Of course many feel conflicted about the settlements, and only support them the perceived "security" advantages, and so on. But it's just not tenable to say that the settlements "don't really have mainstream support". When by all indications, the imperative to support and maintain them has been national consensus for several decades now.
- runarberg 2y ago
  This is all on top of the fact that these settlements—even without expansion—are unambiguously breaking international law. Popular support against it—real or not—does not make this more complicated. A politician who does not support dismantling these settlements, return the land to Palestinians, and pay reparations, is obviously wrong. This describes almost all Israeli politicians, and is not fringe, nor complicated. The existence of politicians who go further only complicates matter in making things worse by providing a possibility for illegal policy not only maintained, but also expanded. That said, I agree with you, I don’t believe this is only a fringe position that has no relevance on current or future policy which breaks international law.
- weatherlite 2y ago
  That some Israelis believe the settlements help security makes much more sense considering what happened after Israel disengaged from Gaza and uprooted all settlements there - things became much much worse (both for Israel and for Gaza) as I think we all can agree. Another thing is that Israel is in the middle of a horrible war so the public mood for obvious reasons goes much more to the right. If you ask the Palestinian public questions about peace prospects you wouldn't hear a lot of great things either. If push came to shove most Israelis wouldn't care at all if settlements are uprooted again just like Israel did in Gaza, the only Israelis out protesting last time Israel took out settlements were religious Zionists: determined, loud, sometimes violent but definitely not mainstream. No one else cared much. Even the pew numbers you are showing tell that even now the settlements at the very least are controversial in Israel and definitely not mainstream (no majority is saying they help security).