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> > the later negotiations ended with the Palestinians walking away from deals that gave them almost everything they supposedly wanted > You can't possibly bel

by edanm 2y ago

> > the later negotiations ended with the Palestinians walking away from deals that gave them almost everything they supposedly wanted > You can't possibly believe this. Every side had to compromise quite a lot. Israel had to give in to some right of return, and Palestine had to give in to having to tell some refugees they would never return to their ancestral lands. Palestinians had to accept a broken up West Bank despite the occupation and settlement of the area being illegal, and they were willing to do so. You know the talks were not Israel giving everything the Palestinians wanted to them and them refusing over minor details. Why would the stronger nation, negotiating with their strongest ally orchestrating the talks, do that? I do believe it. Not only that, I'll say something I first heard from an Israeli-Palestinian peace activist I admire - if you went up to a random Palestinian and told them that there was a deal on the table that gave them 99% of the land they wanted (some via land swaps), gave them sovereignty over half of Jerusalem, and a few other conditions I don't recall - they'd be shocked that this was on the table and shocked it wasn't accepted. Look, there is a real matter of what your starting position going in. From the Palestinian side, if their starting position is "we should get all the land of Israel, all Jews should be gone from here", then yes, they "compromise" a lot by giving up on 80% of the land. Very few Israelis consider this a valid claim though. The offers that were on the table in e.g. the Clinton Parameters included almost everything the Palestinians supposedly wanted in terms of land. Yes, there was the issue of Jerusalem, though a later offer included that. There was the issue of a right of return, which is also tricky. But I've read multiple accounts of the negotiations by now. There are dissenting voices, but many of the people involved that I've read, mostly Israelis and Americans - including some that were fairly critical of the Israeli side - agree that a very good offer was put on the table. What is undeniable, historically, is that the Palestinians walked away from the negotiations. They refused all Israeli offers, and eventually ended the negotiations, never offering a counter-offer. They didn't say "well your compromise on issue X is fine, but we need you to compromise more on issue Y", they said "no, this doesn't work for us, bye". It is just true that there would be peace and a Palestinian state today, had Arafat said "yes" and accepted something that, as far as anyone knows, gave them 99% of what they say they wanted. And yes, some say Arafat couldn't agree, because there is no way any Palestinian leader would give up the right of return. But then all of this again comes down to a single, undeniable issue - the Palestinians refuse to give up on the idea of returning to all the land and (depending on how it's implemented), effectively dismantling Israel, something Israel will simply never agree to. > > The American left-wing reading of the situation is simply wrong > Why is it wrong? Israel is a security threat to Palestinians right now and for the past many years. If you are a Palestinian, especially led by a government who pursued peace with Israel (the PA), you are at risk to have had your land taken by settlers, your family killed by the same settlers, and your home stolen and "legalized" by Israel after it's stolen. Because this "risk" affects 0.01% of the population? At least pre-October 7th? As I said before, the vast majority of Palestinians living under the PA are living day to day in cities in a pretty normal way, without any interaction with Israelis. And you keep saying "families killed by the same settlers", how many Palestinians do you think have been killed by settlers, exactly? There are a few horrible acts of violence, but definitely not big numbers. And the majority of Palestinians killed by the IDF are terrorists - I just looked up the stat for 2022, and it was 142 Palestinians from the WB killed by Israel security forces, with 80-ish of them militants or terrorists shot after they shot/stabbed someone. Now, any civilian killed is a tragedy, and I definitely don't want to downplay this; but this is a picture of clashes between terrorists and security forces, than of "the average Palestinian has to live in fear of being gunned down by security forces or settlers". That's why I call this a misreading of the situation. It's like hearing about the many tragic school shooting in the US, and thinking that therefore people must be terrified every day of going to school or going in with bulletproof vests or something. It's simply a misundersatnding of the scope and the numbers here. Of course - let's be super clear here - I pulled up 2022 for a reason. All of this has gotten much worse since October 7th in the WB. Another tragic consequence of Hamas's terrible actions. (Worth noting that last week, there was a giant clash between the PA and Hamas/Islamic Jihad in the WB, with the PA trying to drive them out.) > You have constantly spent time trying to paint Palestinians as fundamentally evil (but earlier you decried anyone doing that to you), but you're missing the point that what would happen in hypothetical scenarios, and what Palestinians "want" doesn't matter. It doesn't change the reality on the ground, and it doesn't change the fact that when two hostile nations are next to each other, only deterrence can lead to peace. I absolutely do not think that Palestinians are fundamentally evil, and I really don't think I implied that. I think the average Palestinian is wrong about the history, and holds a narrative that is simply wrong - that with enough violence, Israelis can be convinced to "go back to Europe". This is just wrong on many levels, and tragically wrong - because it means that "just a bit more violence" is what is needed. But it is 100% true that Hamas wants to destroy all of Israel. It's not projection - they've said so many, many times, and when they temporarily gained the power to kill Israelis by invading Israel, they did so brutally. It's not a hypothetical scneario - if there were to be a Palestinian state that is able to arm itself for real, and it were run by Hamas - I have no reason to think I wouldn't be dead as soon as they could launch an attack. Remember - Israel completely left Gaza, pulled all settlers and all security forces from Gaza, and the result was them electing Hamas, and Hamas shooting rockets at Israelis every day. And the Israeli response here wasn't to go back in or dismantle Hamas - it was to build defensive weapons so that the rockets kill only a few people, instead of being super dangerous. I strenuosly disagree with you that "only deterrence can lead to peace". The path to peace was really simple and can be so again - the Palestinians stop violence towards Israel and agree to live in peace with Israel as a neighboring state. That's really all it would take. (Well, nowadays it would take that, plus a new Israeli government, plus convincing Israelis to actually trust the Palestinians again). > Never has there ever been any peace process that even hinted that the Palestinians would get "what they want" according to you (because according to you it's the death of all Israelis), so it's a moot point to bring up. Yes, which is why I think that fundemantally, the Palestinians have to change what they want for there to be peace! My point exactly. > > What if we asked what the Israelis want according to polling? Lots of polling shows that they believe Palestinians should be stateless forever or be deported to other countries. But again, that has never been offered in any peace process ever. Even as little as a few years ago, >50% of Israelis agreed with the idea of a two state solution. It's gotten lower over time, and I'm sure it polls very low right now (so probably around 30-40%, I don't remember offhand). > Stick to reality and what's actually on the table politically, and try to answer in good faith. Look, if you don't believe me, just listen to one of the many Palestinian peace activists I admire. Peace can be reached, but it will happen when both sides simply agree to live side by side with each other in peace. The 15 million people who live on this tiny patch of land need to all accept one thing - none of them is going anywhere! If both sides internalize this at the same time, the solution is incredibly obvious - just share the friggin' land!

siltcakes 2y ago
You keep glossing over Nakba. It doesn’t make sense to “share the land” with people who ethically cleansed your family from said land. You say that you represent “leftist Zionism” but such a thing doesn’t exist as evidenced by your argument against basic human rights.
- edanm 2y ago
  I'm not "glossing over" the Nakba. Firstly, we probably don't 100% agree on the exact events of the Nakba or the interpretation of them. But more importantly, I'm not sure how actually relevant it is today. Israel was founded and for sure did some things that weren't great, just as the surrounding Arab countries did things that weren't great. Just as like 50% of the countries today have been through stuff that isn't great. If no one can live in peace and a joint future because of things that happened in 1940, how is there any peace with Germany? With Japan? WW2 didn't just ethnically cleanse a lot of people - 50 million people died in that war. Yet there is peace, because people chose to stop fighting and figure out a way to coexist. > It doesn’t make sense to “share the land” with people who ethically cleansed your family from said land. For the sake of argument, let's assume your idea of what happened in the Nakba is spot on. What exactly is the alternative? What do you imagine should happen to the millions of Israelis that have been born and raised in Israel? If the land isn't "shared", what should happen? This idea of trying to roll back the existence of countries is antithetical to the entire relatively-peaceful world order since 1945. > You say that you represent “leftist Zionism” but such a thing doesn’t exist as evidenced by your argument against basic human rights. Where did I argue against basic human rights?
  - siltcakes 2y ago
    You just glossed over Nakba again: ”Israel was founded and for sure did some things that weren't great” The very foundation of Israel is illegitimate. That is the core issue.
    - edanm 2y ago
      > You just glossed over Nakba again: I'm not glossing over it, we disagree about it. Also, the Nakba doesn't usually refer to the founding of Israel itself, but rather the ethnic cleansing of Arabs as part of the war, which is why you might think I'm glossing it over - I literally didn't understand what you mean. That said, let's get into it. First, let me again say - this doesn't matter as much as you claim it does. Is the foundation of other countries any more legitimate? Is the foundation of the US legitimate? What makes the foundation of a state "legitimate" is a question, but the fact that Israel is a worldwide-accepted state for 75 years for sure means that this question doesn't matter as much - there is no world in which saying "oops it was illegitimate" leads to anything but much more trouble for everyone. You continue to refuse to say what should actually happen - even if you think the founding of Israel is illegitimate, what now? What should happen in practice? All that caveat aside, let's get into the question itself. Why do you think Israel's founding is illegitimate? In 1947, the land of Palestine had both a Jewish and Arab population living on it - about 30% Jewish and 70% Arab, iirc. These populations were often in conflict, and signaled, many times, that they didn't particularly want to live together (moreso from the Arab side than the Jewish side). The land was ruled by the British - and they handed over to the UN the question of what to do with the land. The UN gave the same answer that everyone else who's ever looked at the land said; there's two peoples who don't want to be part of the same country but live on the same land - so split up the land into a majority-Jewish state and a majority-Arab state. This also solved another problem the UN/world had - there were 250k Jewish displaced persons after WW2 that no country wanted as immigrants, and had nowhere to go. So the UN voted on and officially proposed the partition plan for Palestine. This was accepted by the Jews, and rejected by the Arabs. This led to the Jews declaring independence on the land. The Nakba happened when this declaration of independence was followed by surrounding Arab armies attacking Israel, and Israel fought back. Some of the Arab population stayed where they were - they are today citizens of Israel. Some fled - unclear exactly how many or why, probably partially fear and partially at the urging of Arab leaders. Some were ethnically cleansed - actually pushed out. There are disagreements about the exact numbers of each of these groups, with Palestinians largely claiming everyone was pushed out, and Israelis largely claiming the majority just fled. Anyway, from all the above - what part exactly do you think is illegitimate? Is there a more legitimate way of declaring independence than after the world's countries get together and officially vote for a new state to be founded? Seems far more legitimate than how most countries have been founded (pure force). And if you think the founding of Israel was so illegitimate, what do you think should have happened in Mandatory Palestine instead? Both sides had a thriving community life on that land, and did not want to be a single country (with the early-Palestinian leadership pretty explicitly refusing to state "what should happen" to the Jews if an Arab state were to arise there). So what should have happened? And on that subject, what should have happened to the 250k Jewish displaced persons from WW2, or to the millions of Jews facing persecution in the Arab world, that were themselves ethnically cleansed after the founding of Israel, and made up the majority of the early-Israeli population?

by edanm 2y ago

siltcakes 2y ago

You keep glossing over Nakba. It doesn’t make sense to “share the land” with people who ethically cleansed your family from said land. You say that you represent “leftist Zionism” but such a thing doesn’t exist as evidenced by your argument against basic human rights.

edanm 2y ago
I'm not "glossing over" the Nakba. Firstly, we probably don't 100% agree on the exact events of the Nakba or the interpretation of them. But more importantly, I'm not sure how actually relevant it is today. Israel was founded and for sure did some things that weren't great, just as the surrounding Arab countries did things that weren't great. Just as like 50% of the countries today have been through stuff that isn't great. If no one can live in peace and a joint future because of things that happened in 1940, how is there any peace with Germany? With Japan? WW2 didn't just ethnically cleanse a lot of people - 50 million people died in that war. Yet there is peace, because people chose to stop fighting and figure out a way to coexist. > It doesn’t make sense to “share the land” with people who ethically cleansed your family from said land. For the sake of argument, let's assume your idea of what happened in the Nakba is spot on. What exactly is the alternative? What do you imagine should happen to the millions of Israelis that have been born and raised in Israel? If the land isn't "shared", what should happen? This idea of trying to roll back the existence of countries is antithetical to the entire relatively-peaceful world order since 1945. > You say that you represent “leftist Zionism” but such a thing doesn’t exist as evidenced by your argument against basic human rights. Where did I argue against basic human rights?
- siltcakes 2y ago
  You just glossed over Nakba again: ”Israel was founded and for sure did some things that weren't great” The very foundation of Israel is illegitimate. That is the core issue.
  - edanm 2y ago
    > You just glossed over Nakba again: I'm not glossing over it, we disagree about it. Also, the Nakba doesn't usually refer to the founding of Israel itself, but rather the ethnic cleansing of Arabs as part of the war, which is why you might think I'm glossing it over - I literally didn't understand what you mean. That said, let's get into it. First, let me again say - this doesn't matter as much as you claim it does. Is the foundation of other countries any more legitimate? Is the foundation of the US legitimate? What makes the foundation of a state "legitimate" is a question, but the fact that Israel is a worldwide-accepted state for 75 years for sure means that this question doesn't matter as much - there is no world in which saying "oops it was illegitimate" leads to anything but much more trouble for everyone. You continue to refuse to say what should actually happen - even if you think the founding of Israel is illegitimate, what now? What should happen in practice? All that caveat aside, let's get into the question itself. Why do you think Israel's founding is illegitimate? In 1947, the land of Palestine had both a Jewish and Arab population living on it - about 30% Jewish and 70% Arab, iirc. These populations were often in conflict, and signaled, many times, that they didn't particularly want to live together (moreso from the Arab side than the Jewish side). The land was ruled by the British - and they handed over to the UN the question of what to do with the land. The UN gave the same answer that everyone else who's ever looked at the land said; there's two peoples who don't want to be part of the same country but live on the same land - so split up the land into a majority-Jewish state and a majority-Arab state. This also solved another problem the UN/world had - there were 250k Jewish displaced persons after WW2 that no country wanted as immigrants, and had nowhere to go. So the UN voted on and officially proposed the partition plan for Palestine. This was accepted by the Jews, and rejected by the Arabs. This led to the Jews declaring independence on the land. The Nakba happened when this declaration of independence was followed by surrounding Arab armies attacking Israel, and Israel fought back. Some of the Arab population stayed where they were - they are today citizens of Israel. Some fled - unclear exactly how many or why, probably partially fear and partially at the urging of Arab leaders. Some were ethnically cleansed - actually pushed out. There are disagreements about the exact numbers of each of these groups, with Palestinians largely claiming everyone was pushed out, and Israelis largely claiming the majority just fled. Anyway, from all the above - what part exactly do you think is illegitimate? Is there a more legitimate way of declaring independence than after the world's countries get together and officially vote for a new state to be founded? Seems far more legitimate than how most countries have been founded (pure force). And if you think the founding of Israel was so illegitimate, what do you think should have happened in Mandatory Palestine instead? Both sides had a thriving community life on that land, and did not want to be a single country (with the early-Palestinian leadership pretty explicitly refusing to state "what should happen" to the Jews if an Arab state were to arise there). So what should have happened? And on that subject, what should have happened to the 250k Jewish displaced persons from WW2, or to the millions of Jews facing persecution in the Arab world, that were themselves ethnically cleansed after the founding of Israel, and made up the majority of the early-Israeli population?