Well this discussion has been all about two-state solution etc, but the article wasn't about that: It was just focused on Gaza. In Gaza the least bad alternative is some kind of revamped PA, preferably with international involvement.
So what's your plan? You state the Palestinians: But they must be offered specific, attainable, reasonable, and measurable steps that they could take to ameliorate their situation. Really? Haven't we tried that for the past 75 years without success? People on the left simply can't accept reality and that sentence is so out of touch it's shocking.
I don’t think it has been tried for 75 years. I think it was tried briefly and imperfectly during the Oslo years and for a short time afterwards and then abandoned. But even if you are correct it remains the only game in town as the policy of permanent subjugation is no less out of touch.
Really? Been to Tibet lately? Or any number of former countries that are now under subjugation? Sometimes that is better than the alternative (where we give them a platform from which to easily kill us).
Yes - my point is that anyone who suggests we should take the approach China has in Tibet is that we should annex the WB and Gaza and make the Palestinians citizens.
I was looking at the China-type situation from the opposite direction, the current fad for “decolonization” which, like so much else from the faculty lounges of academia, seems to begin and end with Israel.
The future of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people relies on separation from the Palestinians not their incorporation as citizens through annexation as that would, under current and foreseeable conditions, destabilize the country and worse.
Looking back on historical contingency, the Mandate was created at just the “right” time as the Jewish Agency was forging its governmental institutions. Had the British actually abided by their legal obligations regarding Jewish immigration and close settlement, the antisemitic legislation that foreshadowed the Holocaust and the tight immigration policies throughout the West in the ‘30s would have made the Mandate the #1 destination for the Jews of Europe (even if not everyone’s first choice) and there would have been a large Jewish majority on the land before WWII.
That’s not to say that the Arabs would have accepted a Jewish state in their midst, just that the numbers would be different. If Israel had, say, 20 million Jews today, then the possibility of adding 3-4 million Palestinians as citizens becomes a different calculation.
But none of that happened and alternate history is not history. The tragedy of what might have been remains a tragic possibility.
You critiqued my approach and intimated that doing something like China does in Tibet is better. When I mentioned this would involve giving Palestinians citizenship, you drop the idea. So what is it you think Israel's policy should be?
No no you misunderstand me. I was saying that creating a formal Palestinian state is not necessarily the only option. There are many creative suggestions so we need not rush into that tired old non-sollution. Aside from that I found your article quite interesting. Perhaps there actually is no solution for this problem. Won't be the first nor last time that happened.
OK genius so what's YOUR plan
BTW I v much liked your prev piece on Jewish Labour
Well this discussion has been all about two-state solution etc, but the article wasn't about that: It was just focused on Gaza. In Gaza the least bad alternative is some kind of revamped PA, preferably with international involvement.
So what's your plan? You state the Palestinians: But they must be offered specific, attainable, reasonable, and measurable steps that they could take to ameliorate their situation. Really? Haven't we tried that for the past 75 years without success? People on the left simply can't accept reality and that sentence is so out of touch it's shocking.
I don’t think it has been tried for 75 years. I think it was tried briefly and imperfectly during the Oslo years and for a short time afterwards and then abandoned. But even if you are correct it remains the only game in town as the policy of permanent subjugation is no less out of touch.
Really? Been to Tibet lately? Or any number of former countries that are now under subjugation? Sometimes that is better than the alternative (where we give them a platform from which to easily kill us).
Tibetans are citizens of China. Are you proposing making Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank citizens of Israel?
Tibetans are unwilling citizens of China
They've been incorporated & 'Sinofied' by force
Tibet sits on a huge high plateau separated by a major geological faultless push it ever up up
It's ethnically culturally religiously quite distinct from Han mainline China let alone the CCCP & its Cultural Revolution
Are you not aware that China invaded Tibet in 1950 and formally annexed it in 1959?
Yes - my point is that anyone who suggests we should take the approach China has in Tibet is that we should annex the WB and Gaza and make the Palestinians citizens.
I was looking at the China-type situation from the opposite direction, the current fad for “decolonization” which, like so much else from the faculty lounges of academia, seems to begin and end with Israel.
The future of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people relies on separation from the Palestinians not their incorporation as citizens through annexation as that would, under current and foreseeable conditions, destabilize the country and worse.
Looking back on historical contingency, the Mandate was created at just the “right” time as the Jewish Agency was forging its governmental institutions. Had the British actually abided by their legal obligations regarding Jewish immigration and close settlement, the antisemitic legislation that foreshadowed the Holocaust and the tight immigration policies throughout the West in the ‘30s would have made the Mandate the #1 destination for the Jews of Europe (even if not everyone’s first choice) and there would have been a large Jewish majority on the land before WWII.
That’s not to say that the Arabs would have accepted a Jewish state in their midst, just that the numbers would be different. If Israel had, say, 20 million Jews today, then the possibility of adding 3-4 million Palestinians as citizens becomes a different calculation.
But none of that happened and alternate history is not history. The tragedy of what might have been remains a tragic possibility.
But they don't want to be. They want their country back!
You critiqued my approach and intimated that doing something like China does in Tibet is better. When I mentioned this would involve giving Palestinians citizenship, you drop the idea. So what is it you think Israel's policy should be?
No no you misunderstand me. I was saying that creating a formal Palestinian state is not necessarily the only option. There are many creative suggestions so we need not rush into that tired old non-sollution. Aside from that I found your article quite interesting. Perhaps there actually is no solution for this problem. Won't be the first nor last time that happened.