Why should Palestinians recognize Israel, if Israel murders them by the hundreds every year, steals their land and water, builds illegal colonies for religio-crazy zionist nazis that terrorize Palestinians and steal more land. etc etc...
Why cant Israel just obey international law and respect human rights? It has NEVER tried that! That IS the issue.
Hamas won't do the destruction, it is Israel that will do the destruction. Of course they want to destroy Israel since Israel is killing the Palestinians and still say they want peace.
In response to your anticipatory rebuttal #1: I agree that elections have little to do with "legitimacy, whatever that means. Israel should negotiate with Hamas because Hamas is part of the Palestinian reality, not because it was elected. And indeed, Israel and Hamas negotiate with each other all the time, they just pretend not to.
Sure, they do some negotiating behind closed doors. But I'm arguing more that they were justified in sealing them off. As problematic as the blockade was, it's a strange claim to make that open borders and waters would have not been utilized by Hamas to procure gradually more sophisticated weaponry from the likes of Iran.
No, Israel does not need to negotiate with Hamas because it is part of the reality. Instead, it can wait until that reality changes or change the reality.
In response to your anticipatory rebuttal #3. You fail to consider the distinction between movement-mobilizing rhetoric and maximalist demands and a movement' practical and immediate program. For example, although Hezbollah's charter calls for a Shiite revolutionary regime in Lebanon, in reality it is devoted to its charities, street gangsterism and parliamentary maneuvering. Yes, I know you think the Saracens are fanatics that live for nothing but Paradise. But that's Orientalism for you.
Ouch. I never said the Saracens are all terrorists...just the saracens that form terrorist groups and declare it proudly. Funny that you call me an orientalist, especially since I've traveled through the Orient, studied the Orient, and have family from the Orient. And again, I don't care if complete Palestinian liberation is in the distant future and low on the priority list. Get it out of the charter. Get it out of mind. And for God's sake, stop repeating it over and over again on kids' shows.
In response to your anticipatory rebuttal #2: Although Israeli politicians noisily express their support for a two state solution (especially those masters of hypocrisy in Kadima and Avoda) in practice they support a policy of settlements, enclosures and settler roads that make this impossible. It's as if General Sherman declared his support for Indian self determination while at the same time corralling the natives into reservations and building western forts. Actions speak louder than words.
To be honest, I'm just about finished with the two-state solution. I'm gradually finding it to be more and more ridiculous. Resolution 242 didn't have a Palestinian state in mind, and I think for good reason. I think the eventual outcome will be a semi-autonomous Palestinian district in the West Bank as an appendage of Jordan. Same goes for Gaza with Egypt (though with Gaza there are a few interesting options).
Ah, the three state solution: the wet dream of the Zionist demographer. Change your sheets! Egypt has made its contempt for the Palestinians and its refusal to accept any responsibility for Gaza quite clear (and it never claimed sovereignty over Gaza). Jordan is no longer the Transjordan, it has renounced its claim to the Cisjordanian territories and it would be seen as the traitor of the Arab "nation" if it brokered a final status where the West Bank becomes a Jordanian satrapy.
All Israeli strategists who discuss this paradigm acknowledge that Egypt and Jordan declare this unworkable. They also say that, behind the scenes, Egypt and Jordan are gradually warming up to the idea because they recognize the alternative is worse. Example: Yes, Jordan, doesn't want all those Palestinians, but they also don't want a Hamas-run state right on their border that would implicate them in weapons smuggling and try to unsettle the Jordanian regime. I think it might happen. We'll see.
If the Jordanian and Egyptian regimes are ready to be the undertakers of the Palestinian national dream and face the domestic legitimation crisis that will surely entail, so be it. But they aren't. And they won't. Ever. (Not that I would mourn their downfall).
I think the Palestinian national dream is fickle (as is, some may claim, the Zionist dream at this point). I think Palestinians realize that there's not enough territory, resources, and motivation to raise a state in the West Bank. They know it'll become a cheap labor camp for Israel, and the only real industry will be some potential tourist traffic to Bethlehem and (maybe) the Dead Sea.
Recent polls I've looked at suggest a greater willingness to explore alternatives to strict Palestinian statehood. There's growing interest in the Jordanian option and the one-state solution (Israstine).
Also, the three-state solution does allot some sovereignty to Palestinians. They would govern themselves, but defense and security would be allocated to Amman. Distinct nationality, flag, passports, etc. are all maintained.
Kadima and Avoda support settlements insofar as they intend to hold on to settlement blocs, which I think is entirely reasonable for several reasons. I expect that Palestinians will receive compensation for these annexations in the form of land swaps and other amenities (such as a land bridge between the West Bank and Gaza, if that can be used as negotiating leverage).
Even If one were to accept your distinction between "reasonable" and "unreasonable" settlements, that position would only be credible to the extent that Israel's so-called "center" and "center-left" forces demonstrated the political will to freeze future settlement expansion and take on the settler movement in a meaningful way. I'm not expecting that political showdown anytime soon.
I don't know if I share your pessimism. As much as people get all carried away with this ridiculous talk about the racist Gestapo that is the Israeli right-wing, I think there is a growing insistence that the dream of Greater Israel is, indeed, over. Right-wing think tanks like BESA are advocating evacuation of settlement outposts while strengthening blocs. Even Netanyahu has said that he will not build any additional settlements. That might not seem like enough, but just wait....
The indicators are not very encouraging. For example, a few days ago Israel opened the way for possible expansion of the Efrat settlement by taking control of a nearby West Bank hill of 171 hectares which was recently designated state land and is part of a master plan that envisions the settlement growing from 9,000 to 30,000 residents. In the short term, the settlement will expand by up to 2,500 homes.
As to Netanyahu, he may have said that he will not build any additional settlements, but he sure supports settlement expansion and has derided peace talks with the Palestinians as a waste of time, saying he would focus instead on trying to improve the Palestinian economy. Personally, I see settlement expansion as counter-productive as building new settlements.
I disagree with your argument that settlement expansion is as bad as building new settlements because much of this issue depends on location. As I said, settlement growth in the Gush Etzion region realistically does little to block prospects for a resolution. I do agree, however, that settlement construction and growth outside of blocs is counter-productive. I'm reading the news patiently to see how it will be addressed. I sense a view in the right-wing that the settlement enterprise is over.
Just to clarify, Netanyahu does not consider peace talks with the Palestinians a waste of time, he only considers it unproductive now. His view is that peace talks should be conducted after the situation on the ground is improved.
I don't agree with that, but that's what he's said.
I addressed that point in one of my responses to ListenLiberal. Efrat is in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, which will definitely be annexed to Israel in any negotiated settlement. Sure, it's bad PR, but expanding the Efrat settlement into the already existing settlement bloc really does little to hinder prospects because that will be going to Israel anyway.
You'll notice, of course, that the vast majority of settlement building takes place in blocs near the border that Israel intends to keep anyway. As much as people get all hot and bothered by new building in Gush Etzion, I think it's kind of silly. We can perhaps talk about the feasibility of keeping Ariel and a segment of the Jordan Valley, but Gush Etzion will become Israel proper.
Ehud Olmert has said his government reserves the right to keep building in large West Bank settlement blocs that it wants to annex as part of a final peace deal with the Palestinians. And I understand that Efrat is in one of those blocs. But the whole of the West Bank was supposed to be under negotiation, and if you start building settlements on a land that youre negociating or pledging to negociate, youre showing that youre not serious about achieving peace.
The argument you presented may be relevent in this case (and that doesnt mean I agree with it, since, on principle no settlement is to be built ANYWHERE in the West Bank) if that settlement was located inside the block, but its not. That newly designated state land, which is called "Eitam Hill" by settlers, is more than two kilometres north of Efrat and there are lands that belong to Palestinians in between, and to the west a bunch of Palestinian towns and villages.
So it is in the periphery of the bloc, and the Israeli West Bank barrier in that spot, which is not yet built, is again moving to include it in the bloc, thus eating up more palestinian land. Israel as the occupying Power did not abide by the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention. However, in 2005 the United States ambassador to Israel, Dan Kurtzer, expressed U.S. support "for the retention by Israel of major Israeli population centres in the West Bank as an outcome of negotiations",
reflecting President Bush's statement a year earlier that a permanent peace treaty would have to reflect "demographic realities" on the West Bank. So the strategy of Israel since the begining has been the creation of "facts on the ground", (ie the creation of an irreversible situation) and that strategy has obviously paid off. The facts on the ground say the creation of a viable palestinian state is quasi-impossible.
Although Israel has formally pledged to stop settlement efforts in the West Bank as part of internationally-backed peace efforts, it has failed to honor the commitment and construction has continued to grow. Israel has also stopped monitoring new construction at the settlements. Nearly 290,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements today, thats 95,000 more than in May 2001.
So Hamas is not the only one to blame here. Lets try to be fair and look objectively at whats been going on for years now: After each terrorist attack, Israel kills at least 5 Palestinians for every Israeli killed, demolishes tens of houses and resorts to other coercive measures of punishment. When Israel grabs new land and starts building a settlement on it, what do Palestinians do? They send letters of protest to the U.N. and to the U.S. administration.
Fuck Israel.
.
Poison their water and the world will be a much better place.
.
ballsauce666 1 year ago
Why should Palestinians recognize Israel, if Israel murders them by the hundreds every year, steals their land and water, builds illegal colonies for religio-crazy zionist nazis that terrorize Palestinians and steal more land. etc etc...
Why cant Israel just obey international law and respect human rights? It has NEVER tried that! That IS the issue.
ballsauce666 2 years ago
@ballsauce666 because pharoh kicked them out of egypt and the halocaust. it's their excuse for everything..
xplosivelilly 1 year ago
That one is good.
Just hate ur hair
Tzippka 3 years ago
If he grows out his hair, he will look just like Aladdin
OBZ 2 years ago
believe me friend,
Hamas won't do the destruction, it is Israel that will do the destruction. Of course they want to destroy Israel since Israel is killing the Palestinians and still say they want peace.
hamidious 3 years ago
Your channel has the best discussions on YouTube, that is clear.
ListenLiberal 3 years ago
Thanks. I appreciate that.
mbrown0315 3 years ago
In response to your anticipatory rebuttal #1: I agree that elections have little to do with "legitimacy, whatever that means. Israel should negotiate with Hamas because Hamas is part of the Palestinian reality, not because it was elected. And indeed, Israel and Hamas negotiate with each other all the time, they just pretend not to.
ListenLiberal 3 years ago
Hey ListenLiberal.
Sure, they do some negotiating behind closed doors. But I'm arguing more that they were justified in sealing them off. As problematic as the blockade was, it's a strange claim to make that open borders and waters would have not been utilized by Hamas to procure gradually more sophisticated weaponry from the likes of Iran.
No, Israel does not need to negotiate with Hamas because it is part of the reality. Instead, it can wait until that reality changes or change the reality.
mbrown0315 3 years ago
Latest poll I saw shows 25% support for Hamas in Gaza. That's from Ha'aretz.
mbrown0315 3 years ago
In response to your anticipatory rebuttal #3. You fail to consider the distinction between movement-mobilizing rhetoric and maximalist demands and a movement' practical and immediate program. For example, although Hezbollah's charter calls for a Shiite revolutionary regime in Lebanon, in reality it is devoted to its charities, street gangsterism and parliamentary maneuvering. Yes, I know you think the Saracens are fanatics that live for nothing but Paradise. But that's Orientalism for you.
ListenLiberal 3 years ago
Ouch. I never said the Saracens are all terrorists...just the saracens that form terrorist groups and declare it proudly. Funny that you call me an orientalist, especially since I've traveled through the Orient, studied the Orient, and have family from the Orient. And again, I don't care if complete Palestinian liberation is in the distant future and low on the priority list. Get it out of the charter. Get it out of mind. And for God's sake, stop repeating it over and over again on kids' shows.
mbrown0315 3 years ago
In response to your anticipatory rebuttal #2: Although Israeli politicians noisily express their support for a two state solution (especially those masters of hypocrisy in Kadima and Avoda) in practice they support a policy of settlements, enclosures and settler roads that make this impossible. It's as if General Sherman declared his support for Indian self determination while at the same time corralling the natives into reservations and building western forts. Actions speak louder than words.
ListenLiberal 3 years ago
To be honest, I'm just about finished with the two-state solution. I'm gradually finding it to be more and more ridiculous. Resolution 242 didn't have a Palestinian state in mind, and I think for good reason. I think the eventual outcome will be a semi-autonomous Palestinian district in the West Bank as an appendage of Jordan. Same goes for Gaza with Egypt (though with Gaza there are a few interesting options).
mbrown0315 3 years ago
Ah, the three state solution: the wet dream of the Zionist demographer. Change your sheets! Egypt has made its contempt for the Palestinians and its refusal to accept any responsibility for Gaza quite clear (and it never claimed sovereignty over Gaza). Jordan is no longer the Transjordan, it has renounced its claim to the Cisjordanian territories and it would be seen as the traitor of the Arab "nation" if it brokered a final status where the West Bank becomes a Jordanian satrapy.
ListenLiberal 3 years ago
All Israeli strategists who discuss this paradigm acknowledge that Egypt and Jordan declare this unworkable. They also say that, behind the scenes, Egypt and Jordan are gradually warming up to the idea because they recognize the alternative is worse. Example: Yes, Jordan, doesn't want all those Palestinians, but they also don't want a Hamas-run state right on their border that would implicate them in weapons smuggling and try to unsettle the Jordanian regime. I think it might happen. We'll see.
mbrown0315 3 years ago
If the Jordanian and Egyptian regimes are ready to be the undertakers of the Palestinian national dream and face the domestic legitimation crisis that will surely entail, so be it. But they aren't. And they won't. Ever. (Not that I would mourn their downfall).
ListenLiberal 3 years ago
... it would delight me.
ListenLiberal 3 years ago
I think the Palestinian national dream is fickle (as is, some may claim, the Zionist dream at this point). I think Palestinians realize that there's not enough territory, resources, and motivation to raise a state in the West Bank. They know it'll become a cheap labor camp for Israel, and the only real industry will be some potential tourist traffic to Bethlehem and (maybe) the Dead Sea.
mbrown0315 3 years ago
Recent polls I've looked at suggest a greater willingness to explore alternatives to strict Palestinian statehood. There's growing interest in the Jordanian option and the one-state solution (Israstine).
Also, the three-state solution does allot some sovereignty to Palestinians. They would govern themselves, but defense and security would be allocated to Amman. Distinct nationality, flag, passports, etc. are all maintained.
mbrown0315 3 years ago
Kadima and Avoda support settlements insofar as they intend to hold on to settlement blocs, which I think is entirely reasonable for several reasons. I expect that Palestinians will receive compensation for these annexations in the form of land swaps and other amenities (such as a land bridge between the West Bank and Gaza, if that can be used as negotiating leverage).
mbrown0315 3 years ago
Even If one were to accept your distinction between "reasonable" and "unreasonable" settlements, that position would only be credible to the extent that Israel's so-called "center" and "center-left" forces demonstrated the political will to freeze future settlement expansion and take on the settler movement in a meaningful way. I'm not expecting that political showdown anytime soon.
ListenLiberal 3 years ago
Agreed.
I don't know if I share your pessimism. As much as people get all carried away with this ridiculous talk about the racist Gestapo that is the Israeli right-wing, I think there is a growing insistence that the dream of Greater Israel is, indeed, over. Right-wing think tanks like BESA are advocating evacuation of settlement outposts while strengthening blocs. Even Netanyahu has said that he will not build any additional settlements. That might not seem like enough, but just wait....
mbrown0315 3 years ago
The indicators are not very encouraging. For example, a few days ago Israel opened the way for possible expansion of the Efrat settlement by taking control of a nearby West Bank hill of 171 hectares which was recently designated state land and is part of a master plan that envisions the settlement growing from 9,000 to 30,000 residents. In the short term, the settlement will expand by up to 2,500 homes.
mmahfoud19 3 years ago
As to Netanyahu, he may have said that he will not build any additional settlements, but he sure supports settlement expansion and has derided peace talks with the Palestinians as a waste of time, saying he would focus instead on trying to improve the Palestinian economy. Personally, I see settlement expansion as counter-productive as building new settlements.
mmahfoud19 3 years ago
I disagree with your argument that settlement expansion is as bad as building new settlements because much of this issue depends on location. As I said, settlement growth in the Gush Etzion region realistically does little to block prospects for a resolution. I do agree, however, that settlement construction and growth outside of blocs is counter-productive. I'm reading the news patiently to see how it will be addressed. I sense a view in the right-wing that the settlement enterprise is over.
mbrown0315 3 years ago
Just to clarify, Netanyahu does not consider peace talks with the Palestinians a waste of time, he only considers it unproductive now. His view is that peace talks should be conducted after the situation on the ground is improved.
I don't agree with that, but that's what he's said.
mbrown0315 3 years ago
I addressed that point in one of my responses to ListenLiberal. Efrat is in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, which will definitely be annexed to Israel in any negotiated settlement. Sure, it's bad PR, but expanding the Efrat settlement into the already existing settlement bloc really does little to hinder prospects because that will be going to Israel anyway.
mbrown0315 3 years ago
You'll notice, of course, that the vast majority of settlement building takes place in blocs near the border that Israel intends to keep anyway. As much as people get all hot and bothered by new building in Gush Etzion, I think it's kind of silly. We can perhaps talk about the feasibility of keeping Ariel and a segment of the Jordan Valley, but Gush Etzion will become Israel proper.
mbrown0315 3 years ago
Ehud Olmert has said his government reserves the right to keep building in large West Bank settlement blocs that it wants to annex as part of a final peace deal with the Palestinians. And I understand that Efrat is in one of those blocs. But the whole of the West Bank was supposed to be under negotiation, and if you start building settlements on a land that youre negociating or pledging to negociate, youre showing that youre not serious about achieving peace.
mmahfoud9 3 years ago
The argument you presented may be relevent in this case (and that doesnt mean I agree with it, since, on principle no settlement is to be built ANYWHERE in the West Bank) if that settlement was located inside the block, but its not. That newly designated state land, which is called "Eitam Hill" by settlers, is more than two kilometres north of Efrat and there are lands that belong to Palestinians in between, and to the west a bunch of Palestinian towns and villages.
mmahfoud9 3 years ago
So it is in the periphery of the bloc, and the Israeli West Bank barrier in that spot, which is not yet built, is again moving to include it in the bloc, thus eating up more palestinian land. Israel as the occupying Power did not abide by the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention. However, in 2005 the United States ambassador to Israel, Dan Kurtzer, expressed U.S. support "for the retention by Israel of major Israeli population centres in the West Bank as an outcome of negotiations",
mmahfoud9 3 years ago
reflecting President Bush's statement a year earlier that a permanent peace treaty would have to reflect "demographic realities" on the West Bank. So the strategy of Israel since the begining has been the creation of "facts on the ground", (ie the creation of an irreversible situation) and that strategy has obviously paid off. The facts on the ground say the creation of a viable palestinian state is quasi-impossible.
mmahfoud19 3 years ago
Although Israel has formally pledged to stop settlement efforts in the West Bank as part of internationally-backed peace efforts, it has failed to honor the commitment and construction has continued to grow. Israel has also stopped monitoring new construction at the settlements. Nearly 290,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements today, thats 95,000 more than in May 2001.
mmahfoud19 3 years ago
So Hamas is not the only one to blame here. Lets try to be fair and look objectively at whats been going on for years now: After each terrorist attack, Israel kills at least 5 Palestinians for every Israeli killed, demolishes tens of houses and resorts to other coercive measures of punishment. When Israel grabs new land and starts building a settlement on it, what do Palestinians do? They send letters of protest to the U.N. and to the U.S. administration.
mmahfoud19 3 years ago