Israel offers to freeze settlement building on one condition

Aren't we normally against ethnic separatism? I mean, except for in Tibet, but it seems like the only reason we support that is so they don't have to live in China.

One, who's "we", two, who supports ethnic separatism in Tibet? I've never heard that.

Aren't we normally against ethnic separatism?

No. Let some states be nation-states and some be cosmopolitan. Yeesh, don't be an international busybody.

Also, does Israeli law define "Jewish" ethnically? Is an ethnic Jew who becomes a Christian treated as a Jew or not?

^^ 1): To be honest, "we" is to the left what Major Tom is to the right. I got the impression "we" were rather common here. 2): Doesn't Tibet want to separate from China based on the Tibetans' being ethnically different from the Chinese?

Anyways, I was just thinking of how black separatists and Native American separatists and all those groups tend to get smacked down by mainstream left-wing media (and I think by right-wing media as well, mainstream or not.)

Looks like it's rather vague, but I don't think that converts are covered under the return law.

2): Doesn't Tibet want to separate from China based on the Tibetans' being ethnically different from the Chinese?

I can't speak for Tibetans, but I think of it as an imperial power (China) taking over a historically and culturally independent country (Tibet).

edited 12th Oct '10 5:23:48 PM by Tzetze

I don't like ethnically seperating people off because in general that just creates little clumps full of people who are convinced they are all going to be attacked, and then attacking first to prevent it.

No. Let some states be nation-states and some be cosmopolitan. Yeesh, don't be an international busybody.

I mean they don't even speak the same language. Just look at the current situation in Belgium (it's ungovernable!) and you'll see why this is a problem even without a recent history of violance between them.

It's not like "Palestinian" was ever much of an identity anyway, as the borders of the Mandate of Palestine were pretty much arbitary, so let Jordan annex the West Bank and Egypt annex the Gaza Strip to avoid the creation of another state to small to be in any way viable. The Palestinians have more in common with Egyptians or Jordanians. Like language, religion and the common hate towards jews.

Edit:

I don't like ethnically seperating people off because in general that just creates little clumps full of people who are convinced they are all going to be attacked, and then attacking first to prevent it.

It's not like long winded low intesity ethnic/religious conflicts are much more common today then conventional wars between two sovereign countries...

edited 12th Oct '10 6:21:35 PM by DasAuto

Hatred of Israel dude, not the Jews, bit of a difference. Though the way Israel is under your vision there isn't. But tell me, what with Israels borders expanding into what was once "Arabic" territory (and with a lot of the people still there), how can they continue to claim that they are a solely Jewish state?

Yeah you know what, that doesn't seem too different from the situation they have anyway. And segregating people based on racial or ethnic barriers fosters resenment from the outside (wondering what the people are getting up to) and from the inside (wondering what the bastards out there might do to them). If all you are defining your country by is its "apartness" or "specialness" from its neighbours its only growing to grow resenment.

It'll be like the White areas of town in South Africa, made up of frightened people frightened about anyone who isn't someone they recognise and convinced of everyones elses bad intention till it becomes a self fullfilling prophecy.

edited 12th Oct '10 6:25:18 PM by JosefBugman

Hatred of Israel dude, not the Jews, bit of a difference.

Let's make some important distinctions here. Not all Palestians hate Jews. In fact, some of them don't even hate Israel. However, Hamas is overtly anti-semitic, and the average Palestinian, especially in the West Bank, has been exposed to a great deal of anti-semitic propoganda.

The problem with not having them in the same state is that their homes are all in the same areas, so there's no way to draw up any borders that include only one but not the other. So the only way is that they have to learn to live together

Also: just because there wasn't much of a Palestinian identity when the mandate was set up doesn't mean there isn't now. To say that the Palestinians are Jordanian or Egyptian or whatever is as accurate as saying that Americans are British

edited 12th Oct '10 11:59:51 PM by Kzickas

No on seriously thinks about one country for two people. There ARE Arab-Israelis living in Israel right now, but if you consider yourself Palestinian, or live in one of the Gaza/West bank cities, no way will you agree to be Israeli. Also, the official Hamas manifesto kinda suggests the destruction of the state of Israel. So there's not much to go from there :P

The Palestinians are NOT Jordanians or Egyptians - while the people who consider themselves Palestinians ARE decedents of people from those areas (There are a lot of Al-Masri and Al-Halebi families living in Palestinian territories), their new national Identity (which was formed after the foundation of Israel) is unique. You can't just dump them all in Egypt and tell them "Heh, you're their problem now". Also, no one actually wants those people. Gaza is a wretched hive full of Islamic extremists, and the last thing Egypt needs is more Islamic extremists.

And to the person who asked about Jewishness: According to Jewish law, you're a Jew if your mother is or was a Jew (that is, if your mother converted to another religion you are still a Jew) or if you converted according to the more Orthodox rites. There are some more criterions, but it's more complex then I care to understand and I think Israeli law isn't clear on that, so there.

The problem is that the Palestinians are entirely defined by their relationship to Israel. If they would be subsumed in a single state, by definition their national identity would also disappear.

Anyway... no, they are not going to "learn to live together" any time soon. It's easy to say that from your nice comfy chair hundreds or thousands of miles away. Try saying that to two peoples who intensely distrust one another and find each other incredibly dangerous. Not gonna happen. The best they can do is to build nice big borders and stay the hell out of each other's way.

And yes, the Muslim extremism in the Palestinian territories - especially Gaza - is rampant. References to Jews as "monkeys and pigs" are quite common, in fact.

Anyone who thinks that the settlements are the one thing keeping peace from coming has no sense of either history or the present day. Fatah - the supposed "moderates" - are still naming sports venues after suicide bombers and promoting textbooks in which there is no mention of a country called Israel. And Arabs were killing Jews way back in 1929, before there was an inkling of the Jewish state, and certainly before 1967, where the "settlements" didn't exist.

Frankly, every country defines themselves in some way as being "special". Nationalism is what makes America American, France French, Britain British. Why is Israel the only country denied that opportunity?

As for why Israel deserves to be a safe haven for Jews - if you think that Jews are no more deserving than Christians, again, you are missing history. More than any other group (besides perhaps the Roma), Jews have been used as convenient excuses in every country they've found themselves in. They've been banned, persecuted, murdered, demonized, thrown out of town, demoted to second-level citizen status and generally treated like garbage. World society is a little nicer nowadays, especially in the West, but the last fifty or so years are a blip in the radar compared to the last three thousand. It'll take a long while for them to feel safe elsewhere.

One last thing to note - as much as Palestinians want Israel out, practically speaking, they would much rather live under Israel than under the corrupt, extremist governments who run their lives now. Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Muslim homosexuals aren't killed and where Muslim women have full and equal rights.

edited 13th Oct '10 12:33:34 PM by Cidolfas

As for why Israel deserves to be a safe haven for Jews - if you think that Jews are no more deserving than Christians, again, you are missing history. More than any other group (besides perhaps the Roma), Jews have been used as convenient excuses in every country they've found themselves in. They've been banned, persecuted, murdered, demonized, thrown out of town, demoted to second-level citizen status and generally treated like garbage. World society is a little nicer nowadays, especially in the West, but the last fifty or so years are a blip in the radar compared to the last three thousand. It'll take a long while for them to feel safe elsewhere.

I don't like to say "speaking as a Jew" on such matters, since I don't really identify as one anymore, but speaking on behalf of my family, who are Jewish, feeling safe from persecution in the present day is just a matter of perspective.

Besides, one of the most effective ways to keep yourself from being trusted is to be openly distrustful of others.

I don't think most Palestinians want Israel out, they want to be able to live their lives in their homes and Israel won't let them. Which leads to extremism and hatred and so on and so on

Just opening the borders won't work while people are throwing rockets over the border and forcing people off their land.

The region is a mini Crapsack World. The extremists have taken over on both sides. If you can get the extremists out, you can fix the problems... I wish you good luck.

edited 13th Oct '10 2:43:18 PM by GameChainsaw

Which is why you don't go from never allow them to return to allowing them to return without anything in between. But of course they won't. I'm starting to think it's never going to be possible to convince Israel to co-exist peacefully. Maybe the best solution is to destroy Israel then reestablish it once the safety of the Palestinians has been secured

Go ahead, if you want to kill God knows how many people in the process.

They'll get sick of fighting each other 100 years down the line and come up with something on their own. Either that or the Palestinians will finally be driven from the map as a country and be subsumed into Israel. A Palestinian rights movement will start within Israel and finally it will succeed and all the drama will be over.

Either that or the whole region and a second one will get nuked off the map as the middle east descends into a bloodbath.

And you don't think alot of people would get killed in those scenarios? I bet more would be. And I doubt the Palestinians would come out anywhere near as good in any of those scenarios. Certainly not if they all get nuked

Lets see, carve a bloody swathe through the IDF? Thats 1.5 million right there. Plus civilian casualties, and then there's the dreaded possibility the Israelis will just decide to launch a nuke rather than let themselves be destroyed.

I doubt anything other than the nuclear resolution (which was just me being cynical) would cause more casualties.

EDIT: And then we'd just be back to the days of the Mandate when there was an Israeli insurgency and an Arab insurgency.

Further EDIT: Oh, and then there's how many soldiers of the invader killed during that time. Which knowing the IDF might be higher than the number of Israelis killed.

edited 13th Oct '10 3:03:19 PM by GameChainsaw

You don't actually have to kill everyone in an army to make it unable to fight anymore. In fact it would be a very rare exeption if it did. But yes that would require some way to knock out the Israeli nuclear arsenal (or possibly scaring them into not using it). It's pretty much a hopeless situation

Edit: Meh it was more an outlet of frustration than a real proposal. But given Israel's unwillingness to reconcile with the Palestinians I'm not seeing a lot of options

Edit 2: okay, how about instead forcing Israel to change it's attitude towards the Palestinians with the threat of destruction rather than actually doing it

edited 13th Oct '10 3:10:29 PM by Kzickas

A threat can only work if the one being threatened has a good reason to believe it can and will be carried out.

You know, Life isn't a Civ game, you can't just tell someone "Make peace with these guys or we'll blow the shit out of you". The Israeli response would likely be "Bring it on". It's diplomacy that's the answer. Not war.

But Israel has made it abundantly clear that they will not under any circumstances peacefully coexist with the Palestinians. At that point diplomacy is totally useless. Sure holding the door open for diplomacy if they were to change their mind would always be worthwhile, but the primary consideration should be to secure the rights of the Palestinians with active opposition from Israel

Edit: Maybe you could they could try staging some huge demonstration with tens or maybe even hundreds of thousands of simply marching into Israel, totally unarmed, and simply hoping that there's enough humanity in the IDF to restrain them from starting the bloodbath it would take to stop them all. Most likely Israel would just threaten whatever country they assembled in into dispersing them. That's the problem with defining good guy as not using violence it means that the bad guys can always use violence to stop any non-violent solutions without having any concequences to fear

edited 13th Oct '10 3:22:16 PM by Kzickas

Threatening to blockade them and choke the shit out of their economy and means of getting arms would be far better. Pull the same trick on them that they did to the Palestinians.

You'd have to defy America though. And if you weren't strong enough to guarantee victory at sea at the site, the Israeli navy and airforce would surely try to break the blockade. Even if it was a far stronger power blockading them, they might hold out in the hope of an American intervention. I think only America would be intimidating enough to scare the Israelis into accepting a blockade of their waters without challenge. And the Israelis would not survive a blockade. They'd have to cave or be annihilated by neighbours.

EDIT: Convincing America to change sides is key.

edited 13th Oct '10 3:18:30 PM by GameChainsaw

That's one way to look at it, Kzickas. Israel is not above diplomacy, otherwise it'd just roll over into Gaza with tanks any day of the week. It's a country, not some Cobra ersatz.

Israel is doing what it's doing as a mean to defend itself. Whether or not there should be settlements in the west bank is a different matter, but Israel is always open for diplomacy. Trust me, the people here want nothing more then to live peacefully.