Right. Given the high quality of discussion on OTC about other issues, it would be nice to have some Troper input on this thorniest of Middle Eastern issues. Tropers wanting a brief overview of Israel should check out its Useful Notes page, or Israel
and Palestine's country profiles on the BBC.
At the outset, however, I want to make something very clear: This thread will be about sharing and discussing news. Discussions about whether the existence of Israel is justified would be off-topic, as would any extended argument or analysis about the countries' history.
So, let's start off:
At the moment, the two countries, prodded by the United States, are currently attempting to negotiate peace. A previous round of talks collapsed in 2010 after Israel refused to order a halt to settlement building on Palestinian land. US mediators will be present.
The aim of the talks is to end the conflict based on the "two state solution" - where independent Palestinian and Israeli states exist alongside each other. Both sides have expressed cynicism, although the US government has said it is "cautiously optimistic".
Key issues of the talks:
- Jerusalem: The city is holy to both Islam and Judaism. Both Palestine and Israel claim it as their capital. Israel has de facto control over most of it, a situation its Prime Minister has said will persist for "eternity". Some campaigners hope it can become an international city under UN or joint Israeli/Palestinian administration.
- Borders and settlements: The Palestinian Authority claims that the land conquered by Israel in the Six Day War of 1967 (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) is illegally occupied, and must be vacated by Israel in the event of a future Palestinian state. However, there are over 500,000 Israeli citizens living in settlements across the "Green line". Israel claims that a future Palestinian government would oppress or ethnically cleanse them, whilst many settlers claim that the land is rightfully theirs, as they have an ethno-religious link to it as part of the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people.
- Palestinian refugees: In 1948, around 700,000 Palestinian Arabs left the territory of the new Israeli state. The reasons why are still debated - preferably elsewhere. The Palestinian negotiators wish for them and their descendants to have a right of return to Israel. The Israeli government considers only those who were actually forced away all those years ago to have a legitimate claim (if that). The US government considers them all refugees, to Republican fury.
So you can see why its never been fixed. The religious dimension in particular has a lot of people vexed - asking Muslims or Jews to abandon Jerusalem has been likened to asking Catholics to skip communion.
Still, there's hope. Somewhere. The latest developments in the region:
- Israel has released 26 imprisoned Palestinian prisoners convicted of attacks on Israeli civilians and agreed to release another 78 in the future.
- Israel has OK'ed development of 900 new homes east of the "Green Line" in a controversial move ahead of the talks.
- Hamas is to execute publicly two prisoners in Gaza
- The new Palestinian government will not reunite the feuding Gazan and Transjordanian (West Bank) elements of Hamas and Fatah.
edited 15th Aug '13 2:10:49 PM by Achaemenid
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
Richard Nixon was elected in large part on his bona fides as a Cold War hardliner, which gave him the credibility with said Cold Warriors to be able to open US relations with the People's Republic; when he made that historic visit, nobody on the right could tar him with the "soft on Communism" brush without looking like idiots.
Thus, "only Nixon could go to China" means that the greatest changes require someone opposed to those changes' platform to change his tune.
edited 17th Aug '13 12:23:26 PM by Ramidel
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
Are you talking about how since Obama is a Democrat and the Democrats aren't in predominant control over the Congress like they were in the first year of his presidency, the Republican Congressmen can overturn/block anything he proposes on the matter?
edited 17th Aug '13 12:30:42 PM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Queen of Good Things, Honest
He's referring to the comparison. It's unclear what would stop Obama from instituting changes to the foreign policy regarding Israel.
edited 17th Aug '13 12:39:47 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.
"Are you talking about how since Obama is a Democrat and the Democrats aren't in predominant control over the Congress like they were in the first year of his presidency, the Republican Congressmen can overturn/block anything he proposes on the matter?"
That's all more or less true, but that's not what they are saying. Only an American President who is well known for his pro-Israel/anti-terrorist opinions would be safe enough from criticism to actually change the US policy toward Israel.
Queen of Good Things, Honest
If criticism meant anything to United States Politics, our government would look completely different.
My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.
A procrastination in of itself
In this sense criticism goes hand in hand with electoral ability. Here's a quote from The Other Wiki
Now even amongst Democrats you've got more than half sympathising with Israelis over Palestinians, when three quarters of one party and half of the other support a policy, it's kinda hard to change without destroying your electoral ability.
edited 17th Aug '13 12:49:44 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
OK, now I get the picture. Obama, for example, knows that even if he somehow manages to get Congress to agree with changing US policy towards Israel, it would all but destroy his party's electoral chances and ultimately lead to extremist pro-Israel politicians to take over Congress and/or the Presidency, whereupon they would counter-reverse his his policy reversal.
Yeesh, I hate realpolitik.
edited 17th Aug '13 12:56:05 PM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Queen of Good Things, Honest
Obama has no electoral ability, though. He's ineligible to run for Presidency in 2016. Getting elected for another term is no longer a consideration for him.
Let's say Obama manages to institute Policy X. Even if the next President comes in and does away with Policy X, that'll still be three years under Policy X; three years that can potentially change people's minds if Policy X goes well.
My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
Congressional elections take place on a biannual basis that is deliberately timed to not coincide with presidential elections IIRC, so it could take much less for the counter-reversal to happen — perhaps even before Obama's presidency ends.
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
A procrastination in of itself
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Obama's electoral ability is also the electoral ability of the Democratic Party, he might not have have to run for election again, but there are lots of Democratic congressmen, senators and governors who do. They would unite to stop him if he tried such a move, since it would destroy many of their careers along with his.
edited 17th Aug '13 1:09:36 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
scratching at .8, just hopin'
Now to talk about the topic. To Man in Gray:
Now, the problem with Hamas is that for all the harm they do, they're also the people distributing food and medicine, providing shelter, and maintaining infrastructure. You can't beat that kind of PR. That's why I don't see state solutions working until you handle the underlying economics. You'd see a lot more variety in the political opinions of the average Palestinian if the Israeli army was helping them get to the hospital instead of stopping them from doing so, but that isn't happening. Politicians deal in political solutions; people have to deal with whether or not they can get access to a doctor, who has access to the limited water supplies, who can grow stuff on the arable land, etc. So if you force a unified state or a separated state or an independent Jerusalem upon them, and you don't handle the underlying economics first, you're going to have a bunch of agencies snooping around trying to buy people out of their property. Or undercut prices. Or sneak real estate deals through that are favourable to their side. Or whatever they have to do to crowd the other demographic out of the country they have to share.
How do you get around this? You have to provide an alternative to Hamas, to the settler block, to the cultural and economic and political groups who have a vested interest in nothing being resolved peacefully ever. I personally think we might want to shoot for cross-border business cooperatives that provide customers and services to people on both sides of the border - heck, make them integrated kibbutzes that can manufacture products for outside customers. Once there's an economic incentive to get along, you expand and encourage that model all across the region. THEN you try to implement a political solution. The other thing you need to do all throughout the process is keep the existing interests from sabotaging such an enterprise.
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
That's true, much as Zionism is about land more than faith, so the Settlers are motivated by land and economic matters, and the misery of the Palestinians is more about their separation from the outside world, the blockades and the checkpoints and all the mire placed in their path. If the Palestinians could see some of the money coming from the settlers (namely through economic cooperation), they'd be more likely to let some of them stick around.
Good faith gestures need to be made, and the first move needs to be made by the Israelis in that respect.
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
Yeah, the financial/economical aspect is important, though not the end-all-be-all.
), includes "controversial nature" as a valid meaning; I guess I should've gone with "controversiality" or "controversialism", which the Free Dictionary says are valid noun forms of "controversial".
edited 17th Aug '13 2:56:06 PM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
scratching at .8, just hopin'
O_O I'm an EFL teacher at my day job and a freelance editor on my free time, and have been for several years now. I'd never seen those forms of the "contro-vers-" morpheme combination before.
Anyways, may I ask what your sig means? Though it seems more relevant to the contents of the Arab Spring thread...
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
"The people want to bring down the military's rule". More variants on Wikipedia.
edited 17th Aug '13 4:41:10 PM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC!
I think the correct form is "controversiality."
...I don't even mind this derail because it's so much better than the derails that could be going on right now.
... Wait, isn't this technically off-topic?
I don't think we can talk about Israel/Palestine at all if we decide that the two-state model is off-topic. The two-state model is central to most discussions seeking a peaceful resolution, so it pretty much has to be central to this thread, as well.
As for who named/re-named the West Bank/Judea and Samaria, according to Wikipedia the term used by Israel is older; and it was indeed renamed by Jordan in 1949. From then until 1977 or so the term "West Bank" was used everywhere, but since Israel renamed it (in 1967) back to what it was before, the original name has been gaining popularity. These days both terms are used but the West Bank is more widely recognised.
So neither name is really wrong.
edited 17th Aug '13 11:15:05 PM by BestOf
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
So neither name is really wrong.
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC!
It would be kind of hard to ban discussion about whether there should be a Palestinian state when the two-state solution features so prominently in these discussions. So yeah, I think it's on-topic.
It might seem unfair that I'm declaring that we can talk about whether the Palestinians have a right to have an independent country when I've told you not to talk about Israel's right to exist, but the fundamental difference there is that Israel does exist as a state and that's something that people have to accept as a reality before they can talk about this subject. Besides, the debate about the justification for founding Israel tends to revolve around religion and history, neither of which is something we'd want to have in this thread to an excess. Let's try to talk about today and tomorrow.
EDIT: If you want to talk specifically about the right to a free state, I don't know if anyone would claim that the Palestinian people don't have a right to a country of their own. Is there anything to discuss?
edited 18th Aug '13 12:23:27 AM by BestOf
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
Not on my end. I don't know about pro-Israeli people like Israel-born Man In Gray, though.
edited 18th Aug '13 1:03:49 AM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Do the Palestinians need an ethnic state of their own?
Because if not, one possibility would be to annex the West Bank back to Jordan and eliminate Jordanian ethnic quota laws. According to wiki, 70% of Jordan's population is Palestinian, so allowing Palestinians access to the Kingdom's electoral politics (if that can be done without disenfranchising the Bedouin; given the power held by the King, I think the latter is unlikely) might eliminate the need for a specific Palestinian republic.
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
Ironically enough, that was apparently the original plan quite early on, before the Palestinians develeoped a separate national identity (and perhaps dissatisfaction with the evident corruption of Jordan's government). And honestly, the only reason they're pursuing an "ethnic" state of their own as you put it is that they have no guarantees that Israel would treat them fairly if they somehow agreed to allow them Israeli citizenship — which they won't, because doing so would overturn Israel's demographics to be overwhelmingly in favor of the Palestinians, and thus they would effectively control any political elections by sheer dint of their numbers. Not to mention that it would also undermine the whole reason Israel was created — to serve as the first national homeland for the Jewish people (ethnically speaking); kinda hard to do that when over two thirds to three quarters of the population is made of Muslim and Christian Arabs.
edited 18th Aug '13 2:20:43 AM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Oh, aye. Israel losing its status as a Jewish state (ethnic, if not religious) would be flatly unacceptable to the majority of Israelis, and not just Jews either. Druzes in particular have very good reasons for having become Israel's most fervent patriots. And I don't think that the Christian Arabs would be too happy with a Sunni majority either.
I'm not sure the Palestinians would like the idea of Jordan and Egypt restoring the status quo ante bellum, but I think that Jordan and Egypt would be better able to defend the West Bank and Gaza from Israeli predation (such as the Jewish settlements in the West Bank), or at least better able to summon effective international help.
V
And the Palestinians know Jordan won't help them — not after their failed takeover during Black September.
edited 18th Aug '13 3:16:31 AM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling On