Some important missing context: Netanyahu is thankfully not going to be around to have any say over this.
Is there any evidence his replacement would be any different. I recently looked at the frontrunner party and I’m not seeing much hope for a drastic change. Perhaps sans the religious zealots.
Benny Gantz is a moderate on Palestine. He supports strengthening the PA and a two-state solution. Although he does refer to it as a “two-entity” solution. I’m honestly not sure there’s a meaningful distinction between a “sovereign entity” and a state. At the very least, he seems much more likely to be a good faith negotiator. Almost anyone would be better than Netanyahu.
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That’s certainly the least charitable reading of that. He seems to always the center the importance of Palestinian sovereignty though, and I don’t see why he’d do that if that’s what he meant. Not owning your territory, being powerless to prevent interference, and not having ultimate say over who your citizens are is the opposite of sovereignty. In the political climate he operates in, there’s no cost to opposing a two-anything solution. So, why bother saying anything at all?
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Cute dodge. I’d still like to know why he’d waste so much time going on about Palestinian sovereignty. Just for shits and grins? What’s the difference between an area over which a nation has total sovereignty and a nation-state? Gantz would recognize a Palestinian state, though he’d still probably call it an entity. This is mostly owing to internal Israeli politics, though he also insists on calling it an Israeli entity too, saying that new language is needed to solve the problem. I think the language is weird, but I couldn’t give a shit as long as he’s describing a state.
From the linked article for the people who don’t click through: "In surveys carried out by his party, most Israelis are in favour of a two-state solution when it is described in other terms, such as “two separate entities.”’
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Probably something like Native American reservations in the U.S.
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If it’s acting like reservations, Palestinians won’t have the right to prosecute Israelis who commit crime on Palestinian land for 100+ years, allowing rampant violence against the colonized people :/
What would be beautiful is if “entity” meant “subdivision of a single state” but I won’t hold my breath.
So this is exactly what we’ve been saying from the beginning. They were never looking for peace. They just need more land to annex.
Lebensraum, if you will.
“Never” is a big word, and almost always unjustified. Various Israeli governments have looked for peace with Palestinians at times, just as many Palestinians have wanted peace with Israel.
Neither Palestinian nor Israeli populations are a monolith, and their attitudes and opinions change over time and in response to each other’s actions. But people are endlessly adaptable. That’s why diplomacy and a two-state solution are still possible.
Anyone who says “Israel will never seek peace,” or “Palestinians will always be terrorists” condemns both sides to ongoing conflict.
The majority of the Israeli population agrees that Netanyahu and his conservative coalition needs to go. Hamas also needs to go. Both of these governments are full of extremists, and the current conflagration is the result of two diametricaly-opposed extremist governments going head-to-head. Netanyahu wanted it and so did Hamas.
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Look up the past negotiations on the two-state solution. The method proposed was to first recognize a Palestinian proto-state with Israel still controlling military and borders. Over time, as the Palestinian proto-state strengthened, showed it could control terrorism, and avoid becoming an Iranian proxy and base for another attack on Israel, the Palestinian state would become a fully sovereign nation.
What you are suggesting is impractical, certainly in Gaza. Gaza is ruled by a different government from the West Bank, and Hamas is like Hezbollah. They are a militant Iranian proxy that wants to destroy Israel, and they’ve proved it yet again.
Now, Israel has certainly NOT sought peace since Likud came to power. The events of October 7 have been brewing for over 15 years, during which time neither Hamas nor Israel has sought real peace. They’ve both been ratcheting up the pressure.
So, I’m not sure what your point is. There was a point during the Camp David talks that a path to a two-state solution seemed close. Unfortunately, the talks failed, but clearly the Israeli and Palestinian governments were literally seeking peace and willing to make concessions. Now, relations are so bad and Palestinian governance in Gaza is in such a shambles that your proposed solution would be a disaster, for both Israel and the Palestinians.
The actual practical path is to return to negotiations aimed at incrementally building a two-state solution. That means the Israeli far-right coalition government has to go, the Jewish settlements in the West Bank have to go, and it also means that Hamas and others just bent on terrorism have to go. Until that happens, they can’t return to practical negotiations. I mean, that’s obvious, right? Extremist Israelis want to eliminate the Palestinians, and extremist Palestinians want to eliminate Israel. Both have to go. Peace negotiations with someone who doesn’t want peace is pointless.
Maybe October 7 and Israel’s response will prove so horrific that it will cause both populations to vote moderates back into power who will genuinely get back to the negotiating table and not give up.
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That’s a very hard line stance you have there. That sort of uncompromising attitude is exactly what both Hamas and the Israeli right-wing have been advocating for years. Sticking uncompromisingly to your principles makes for great drama, but is really the opposite of effective diplomacy.
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I wouldn’t want to apply the process proposed for Palestine and Israel to Ukraine and Russia. I’m not sure why you would want me to defend that. I don’t agree with that solution for Ukraine. It’s a completely different situation. Again, this where I think you are going wrong and perhaps misunderstanding me. People who just want to talk about principles and which side is more morally correct are the ones moving the two sides farther apart. Think realpolitik.
Like I said, uncompromising principles make for great drama, but you need an actual realistic plan. How exactly would this uncompromising stance you propose work? Do you think the Arab countries will come to Palestine’s rescue militarily? Not happening. Do you think it will be like South Africa and the whole world will sanction Israel into submission? That’s not happening either. It’s not the 1980s anymore. Bono and the gang aren’t going to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What is the actual realistic alternative to the two-state incremental path I outlined above?
I’m wondering what kind of peace they think they’re asking for. Israel has a buffet of oppressive laws that deny Palestinians access to water, land, and infrastructure, and allow the IDF to raze villages at their discretion and detain people indefinitely without evidence, all under the pretext of fighting terrorism and protecting national security. Meanwhile Israel has been the occupying force in this region for decades. Remember they are, by definition, not on the defensive. These laws actually do discriminate against Palestinians, and make life very hard for them.
I wonder if this is the kind of peace where Israel thinks “why won’t they simply accept our oppressive laws and let us displace them and take their land? Why are people fighting back all the time? We just want peace!”
I cannot stress enough that settlers and housing developments come at the same time as the military, and they work together. Like it’s not even a terrorism thing. They are just chasing Palestinians around with housing developments to justify forcing them out. As far as I can see the only way Israel’s operation could be peaceful is if the Palestinians literally just accepted their widespread displacement, dispossession and sometimes even mass murder, but we know that’s not how peace works :)
My understanding of past negotiations regarding the the two-state solution is that they proposed a “path to statehood” for Palestinians, not a one-and-done solution. It was a “give-a-little, get-a-little” incremental approach where the Palestinian proto-state would gradually gain more independence as it developed effective an effective governmental infrastructure, and as it could satisfy Israel that it could control terrorist elements within Palestine and resist being controlled by Iran and its proxies. Initially, Israel would control the borders of the Palestinian proto-state and have a military presence, but would gradually give those functions over to the Palestinian government if peace could be sustained.
Unfortunately, there are extremists on both sides who found it rather easy to smash that fragile and tentative method of peace-making. Also, of course, Iran provides non-stop support for the Palestinian factions that want to continue the conflict. And the Israeli far right does the same, probably with the support of American evangelicals who think the Rapture is just around the corner. It is a sad state of affairs for those who actually want peace.
Edit: I probably responded too quickly because your edit came to me after I already submitted my response.
To address your edit, yes, I agree with you that Israeli actions since about the mid-2000s with the aggressive expansion of settlements has only made the situation worse. It is my belief that both Hamas and Israeli right-wing governments have had the same goal since the failure of the two-state solution negotiations, and that is to provoke violence, make the other side look bad, and gain the support of sponsors and the international community.
Various Israeli governments have looked for peace with Palestinians at times,
When exactly? The handful of fake attempts at peace treaties where Palestine loses its attempt at gaining sovereignty in a two state configuration?
I’ve been following this conflict for 30 years, but from afar, so I don’t claim to know the hearts and minds of the participants. I don’t know, and neither do you, if the previous attempts at a two-state solution were genuine or if they could have been implemented on the ground.
What I do know is that there is no perfect solution that will make both sides entirely happy. When you call attempts at coming to agreement “fake” it is neither correct nor helpful. Generally speaking, Labor governments in Israel have been willing to make concessions for a two-state solution, and conservative governments haven’t. That doesn’t mean that the positive efforts have been “fake”.
Since the mid-2000s, it looks to me like the play by both Hamas and Israeli conservative governments has been to ratchet up tension, force new “facts on the ground”, and provoke a violent confrontation. Sadly, the extremist strategy has achieved its goal of provoking massive violence and suffering. It remains to be seen if this strategy will break the status quo or just be another bloody chapter in an unresolved conflict.
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I appreciate the detailed response. I didn’t say that Israel was willing to make concessions and Palestinians were not. I said that the two populations have factions, some of whom will make concessions.
Yes, it is true that the Palestinians were not being accorded full sovereignty in previous negotiations. The Camp David accords were understood as a “path to statehood”, not the final status. Palestinians were not in a position at the time to take on all the responsibilities of full statehood, and Israel was worried about outside forces like Iran and its proxies taking advantage of the relatively weak state of the PA to create a threat right on Israel’s front porch. Hence why they wanted to control the military and the borders of the nascent Palestinian proto-state. Don’t forget that the surrounding Muslim countries tried to kill Israel in its cradle several times, so Israel had every reason to worry about their security situation.
“in its cradle” is about the most dishonest representation of Israel declaring its statehood upon the land of Palestine as a Jewish ethnostate and forcibly displacing 750,000 Palestinians from their family homes as I have seen
Calm down. Your hair-trigger outrage is showing.
I am sorry to tell you this, but you definitely ought look deeper into the peace accords as they were discussed at the time. Especially the ones at Camp David which were supposed to be the most fruitious and the ones Palestinians “threw out the door”. The Oslo accords were more of a guideline than a clear set of instructions. They were a very loose set of vague directions both sides were supposed to go down on. Before that there were no other concrete accords. One would argue that the Camp David Summit was the closest both sides ever got to making peace. So let’s take a look at that one and use it as a good compass in this discussion.
Palestinians were supposed to:
- be completely demilitarized
- give Israel the right to send troops to Palestine in case of any emergency (what constitutes as an emergency was never defined)
- ask Israel for approval for every diplomatic alliance Palestine would ever make with other countries
- have Israeli military bases installed in Palestinian territory
- give the Israeli military complete control of their airspace
- have israeli military outposts be installed on the border between Palestine and Jordan for a temporary amount of time
- give Israel temporary control over Palestinian border crossings (without having a specified timeframe)
- give up 10% of the West Bank, the most fertile land in the West Bank, for 1% territorial gains of desert land near the Gaza strip (the land that would be conceded included symbolic and cultural territories such as the Al-Aqsa Mosque, whereas the Israeli land conceded was unspecified)
- Israel would keep parts of the West Bank under temporary occupation, without a timespan being given
- What constitutes the West Bank was to be defined by Israel and not by international law. Israel defined West Bank as being the internationally recognized West Bank minus all the settlements they had at the time.
As you can see, all of these concessions would never amount to a completely sovereign Palestinian state, and as a result of that these talks failed in the end. To me, it looks like they were designed to fail from the get-go. Nonetheless, they did spawn new discussions and as a result of said discussion the Taba negotiations were born. With that being said, these concessions were in no way, shape, or form popular in Israel (only 25% of the Israeli public thought his positions on Camp David were just right as opposed to 58% of the public that thought Ehud Barak compromised too much). The Israeli prime minister at the time, Barak, facing elections, suspended the talks since it greatly affected his popularity in Israel. As a result of trying to broker a peace deal with Palestine, even a very bad one that was meant to fail as it was, he failed to get re-elected. The highly unbalanced concessions were already considered to be too much by Israelis.
Ehud Barak was from the Labour governments you were talking about, and this is the best Israel could ever come up with.
Trying to paint this situation as it being a level field where both sides did the same amount of wrongdoing is not a fair representation of the history of the peace process.
Since the most promising talks ever, the Camp David Summit, Israel has allowed over 750k settlers to move into the West Bank. A military regime has been installed and forced upon the occupied population contrary to international law. If getting the 30k settlers out of Gaza in 2005 was hard enough and almost caused an uproar inside the IDF, getting 750k settlers out of the West Bank will be straight up impossible without a major conflict.
There will never be two states and I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that this was in majority the doing of the Palestinians. We should talk a good look at all these facts when we start discussing this conflict and use them as a compass.
You can read more on that on Wikipedia if you’re interested in all the details. If wikipedia isn’t a good enough source, there is a great book on this subject by a german professor specializing on the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
Tie aid to this and watch him flip
He won’t.
They want to keep Palestine fractured.
So even tho the PA is basically a puppet already, they’d rather Gaza be in complete chaos so they can directly control it. And they’re going to slowly chip away at the border and absorb it.
They’ll continue to make Gaza a living hell, and then when people rebel, they’ll use it as justification for more war crimes and taking a little more land.
The cycle will likely continue until they control all of Gaza, then they’ll work on the rest of Palestine.
The whole time the chaos and violence they’re creating will be used to keep far right assholes like Netanyahu in power.
The only way it stops is if Israelis start voting for different people while they’re still allowed to vote. Because any day now Netanyahu can claim elections need to be suspended due to the war, and who knows if voting will ever come back after that.
The simple truth is Israel can do all this without America’s money. So if the choice is solidifying power permanently, or using more advanced weapons to commit their genocides…
They can accomplish what they’re doing now with much less money.
What would actually give them pause is flat out saying:
You’re starting WW3 against everyone’s advice, so if you do it, it’s you against the world
Israel isn’t afraid of Palestine, they’re afraid of all the other countries that are only refusing to help Palestinians because they know the US would ally with Israel in war.
I’d support threats to Israel that if they don’t immediately stop what they’re doing, the USA (my country) will invade and occupy their borders. I feel so helpless.
it would be an incredibly poor decision for US to invade israel. our heavy hand in this situation has already done enough damage. tbh no matter what happens from here, the seeds of violence, resentment and revenge planted deep within the remaining youthful population will ensure the cycle persists. just as we are seeing now, the oppressed, when given the opportunity to become the oppressor, will often feel justified in doing so. i don’t have answers but it’s pretty obvious that Netanyahu’s long established iron-fist policy in regards to the treatment of palestinians is and has always amounted to a powder keg. i am ashamed at my country (also US) for many things, but our mixed messaging, ignorant elevation of the zionist ideology and luke warm action (at best) on preventing the mass slaughter of innocent human beings has elevated that shame to disgust.
Have you been in the military? If so, then your suggestion baffles me even more.
The switch for the nukes.
Of course. Israel’s far-right has its eyes on new Lebensraum.
I think they’d be fine with Gaza being rendered completely uninhabitable.
At least for the first 50 years
Only adequate response from Anthony blinken is:
If you are so smart and independent, I guess you don’t need our weapons and cash
From what I’ve heard, Blinken is a Zionist hard liner, so the smart response for him would be to privately celebrate.
“We think the best way to resolve it remains a two-state solution, and one that ensures that Palestinians and Israelis alike know equal measures of democracy, of opportunity, of dignity in their lives.” – Antony Blinken
He knows his words are meaningless in this situation, and he’s playing the optics game. You can’t come outright and say you’re against a 2 state solution and still look like you have the moral highground.
Restricting visas to settlers in the West Bank is a first, yet insufficient step towards proving a commitment to that goal
Any source for that?
What I heard may have been exaggerated. It’s hard to tell.
Here’s a sympathetic profile of him: https://www.timesofisrael.com/where-blinken-stands-on-jewish-issues-from-immigration-to-israel/
Here’s an article that criticizes him: https://mronline.org/2022/07/14/blinken-leading-the-blind-into-the-mideast-desert/
All I have to do is Blink N your support is gone!
Archived link without paywall: https://archive.is/gjy1Z
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Palestinian authority is not ideal. Still it’s far better if they manage Gaza rather than Netanyahu.
Both are quite terrible tho…
The PA recognizes the Two State Solution. Netanyahu doesn’t. It’s the Palestinians who are the reasonable ones and that don’t have an interlocutor in the other side. If someone like Barak were to take over in Israel we would be very close to peace.
Palestinians dislike PA precisely because it’s a collaborationist government which Israel uses to manage their occupation. Even now the PA is helpless against Israeli attacks in the West Bank.
The PA was intended to manage the Israeli withdrawal and establishment of an independent Palestinian state, as agreed upon in the Oslo Accords, and yes that was meant to be a collaborative process with the Israelis. There were people on both sides who were serious about the peace process, but unfortunately the people in charge often weren’t, and so the situation deteriorated until Hamas and Likud, the two worst possible parties to oversee the peace process, consolidated power.
Are you sure? So why they dismissed all 2-state solution offers from Israel and did not come up with any counter offers.
PA is anything but reasonable. They fail to guarantee basic human rights of their citizens. Even most of Palestinians don’t support them because they are completely useless. And a category on its own is Abbas - A billionaire whilst his own people ride donkeys.
But I agree that Barak was far better.
Because after decades of continued oppression they’re more desperate than ever before? It’s not rocket science what’s happening.
So because they have a terrorist government which oppresses civilians does it mean they can organise terrorists attacks on their neighbours?
What do you want them to do? Protest?
More than half of people in the Gaza strip are too young to have voted in the last election which was almost two decades ago, and since then Israel just got worse.
I definitely don’t want them to attack neighboring countries as that usually causes more harm than good.
The far better solution is, as you have mentioned, protest or inform others nations/UN about it. If suddenly hundreds of thousands young people in a population of 2 million start pointing at Hamas’ atrocities, it very probably won’t be left unnoticed.
Needless to say I quite regret those people as their lives must be terrible. However, terrorism is not a solution.
History didn’t end with past failed negotiations.
You don’t have to like the PA in every way, you just need to have two parties ready to make peace. Perfect is the enemy of good enough.
For the moment the PA is good enough to make peace. The Israeli government is not.
No, it isn’t. Abbas is old, absolutely corrupt (probably even more than netanyahu) and he did literally nothing for Palestinians. So no, PA is not good enough to make peace.
All these are irrelevant when it comes to making peace.
I would say they are quite relevant. The most relevant point being not even majority support him.
How can the Palestinian Authority possibly rule Gaza? They don’t have either public support there or the soldiers necessary to rule without public support. I expect that even if almost all members of the current Hamas are killed or captured, a new Hamas would form and take over almost immediately unless there’s a sustained military occupation. How such an occupation can eventually transition into a government of Palestinians friendly towards Israel but not directly kept in power by Israeli soldiers is an open question that Netanyahu’s government doesn’t seem well-suited to answer.
(The Palestinian population of Gaza isn’t going anywhere - Egypt is quite clear about the fact that it won’t take Palestinian refugees. There will have to be a two-state solution eventually.)
I get your point. Palestinian authority as is it atm is not capable of running gaza. See how it ended in 2007. They probably would not handle it.
However, Netanyahu with his extremist government would be probably even worse as they would create just more hate towards israel by their actions.
Ideal scenario would be probably some sort of renewed PA without Abbas which is willing to talk to Israel about finally solving this conflict. Needless to say, current government of Israel would also need to resign to make this happen.
Why is this heavily downvoted?
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Can you image if Germany would have been occupied after WW1? So many lives saved.
The Palestine people deserve a free country. This is the absolute minimum we can do for them after their homes get destroyed in retaliation for what their government did.
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The first step is to hand over the terrorists and every hostage, what the fuck.
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Nah, they have a pretty good idea what their Final Solution to Palestinians will be.
Who could have seen this coming?
It is US + UK + maybe some arab countries vz Gaza children…
Of course he doesn’t want that, he strengthened Hamas specifically so there would be no single clear entity in the PNA with which he would have to negotiate for a two state solution. Except he underestimated Hamas and they became too strong. I don’t understand what his current theory of victory is though… annexing Gaza?
This has been my guess from the beginning, the only logical final objective solution was annexation. If you’re gonna drive everyone living there out and level the landscape it’s obvious you don’t intend for the original people to come back. I said this back in the beginning of November, come 2025 Gaza will just be a normal annexed portion of Israel.
He didn’t underestimate anything.
Do you think it’s a coincidence that their security services ignored warnings of this attack as a would-be fascist’s position of power was threatened with facing actual consequences for corruption?
Man you’d think the US would’ve learned its lesson last time a small power hungry country kept trying to oppress and take over other neighboring regions, allowing its fascism to grow until it became more than just a localized threat…
Why does this mistake keep repeating? It’s almost like the US likes going to war… oh. Hm.
If only someone had warned us about a military industrial complex… in 1961.
Which reminds me, how is Dallas this time of year?
