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
(Avatar by Coffee)
To me it sounds like it's there to preclude any attempt to make Israel something that isn't the Jewish nation's nation-state.
The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Which will raise some unfortunate additional complications for the one-state solution we appear to be heading towards. Or, more accurately, will provide some constitutional backing to some of the more alarming fixes to the issues raised by that.
What's precedent ever done for us?
A procrastination in of itself
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I think you’re right, but I also think that in the minds of certain right wingers non-Jews being allowed to vote is an existential threat to the Jewishness of Israel.
(Avatar by Coffee)
That's quite possible but thankfully even Bennett doesn't think like that.
As of now, there are three constituencies in Israel where its being a Jewish nation-state are contested.
A minority within the Arab-speaking constituency.
A majority within the Jewish ultra-religious constituency or Haredim.
While these are very ethno-nationalistic, it’s not a nation-state they’re seeking let alone a democracy, but a “kingdom of priests” (Messiah-King inside), or some merciful foreign regime which is likely to come earlier.
A minority (I hope it’s still a minority) within the Jewish national-religious constituency agrees about the above “kingdom of priests” part.
Just as my freedom ends where yours begins my tolerance of you ends where your intolerance toward me begins. As told by an old friend
Oh, bother.
Wait, so these people want to bring back the Kingdom of Israel or something?
If I recall correctly, they believe that only the Messiah can restore Israel - as the Messiah hasn't shown up yet, the current state of Israel is illegitimate in their eyes.
Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Jul 20th 2018 at 12:57:28 PM
Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.
With the anointed scion of the House of David on the Sacred Throne of Light (made with real lightsabers).
I assume that in his absence, a Committee of Regency by the Sages of Torah would govern in his stead, like some Wilayat-e-Faqih (and they do love me in J-lem and T-ran for it), applying the ancestral law of Divine Right or Halakha, essentially like Shari’ah only it began earlier and with different views on things, ie: same difference.
Some two millennia ago, when Judah Aristoboulos I, of the priestly Hasmonean (?) family crowned himself King of Judea (he was only Nassi previously, the term currently used for “president”), many rabbis opposed that, arguing the crown was reserved exclusively for the Davidic lineage.
Actually, they didn’t want a monarchy with royalty, and the lack of a proper Davidic lineage was just what the rabbi mail-ordered (not that the line is extinct, these royals really got around).
Edited by AlityrosThePhilosopher on Jul 20th 2018 at 10:58:05 AM
Just as my freedom ends where yours begins my tolerance of you ends where your intolerance toward me begins. As told by an old friend
(Avatar by Coffee)
Most of the Haredim do not, actually, see the State of Israel as illegitimate. That's the stance of a minority of them, mainly the Neturei Karta and some small Hassidic groups like Toldos Aharon. Most of them are just fine with the State existing, have parties in the Knesset and use the State as a welfare programme.
Also, the national-religious for the most part do support Israel as the Jewish nation-state; the ones that want a theocracy are, for the most part, hilltop youth and not politically relevant.
The Neturei Carta and some of the Chassidische (Satmar et al) refuse to collaborate with the accursed Zionist Entity.
Most others Haredim, while denying its legitimacy since ruling according to man-made laws rather than Halakha, get along with it making use of it for their communities’ benefit (“welfare programmes for me but not for thee” i e: discretionary budget allocations weighted according to coalition partners), even at the price of running the Entity to the ground; and would then get along with whatever comes in its place, as they did with Sultan, Tsar, Paritz, whatever, praying the Ineffable that the Gentile-in-chief won’t hurt them, too much.
As for the pro-theocratic among the national-religious, most of them see nation-state, preferably ethno-state, as a temporary phase, the violent hippies on a shining-outpost-on-a-hill having lost patience with that shit.
Edited by AlityrosThePhilosopher on Jul 20th 2018 at 12:02:06 PM
Just as my freedom ends where yours begins my tolerance of you ends where your intolerance toward me begins. As told by an old friend
(Avatar by Coffee)
Where are you getting your info from? I get my info from the Haredim themselves, aside from the media. The Haredim I know (and worked with, and have in my family) do not go "ah yes, the government is illegitimate".
Edited by desdendelle on Jul 20th 2018 at 4:04:28 PM
The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
(Avatar by Coffee)
I saw statistics that most Arabs that want to get something done vote for Zionist parties, but I'm still waiting for the person in question to provide the source.
Editing: turns out I was completely misled and it is not the case at all.
Edited by desdendelle on Jul 20th 2018 at 9:55:07 PM
The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground
The law in the night
Does anyone knows if there is another bombing/rocket strike in the Gaza region right now?
Inter arma enim silent leges
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Yep. A soldier was reportedly killed by a sniper and Israelis is retaliating with air strikes.
Who watches the watchmen?
×5 desdendelle, you wrote:
Quote: Where are you getting your info from? I get my info from the Haredim themselves, aside from the media. The Haredim I know (and worked with, and have in my family) do not go "ah yes, the government is illegitimate".
Some familiarity with the subject matter, without boring you with personal anecdotes.
It is pervasive, and part and parcel of the opposition to modernity which is the very raison d’être for Harediut, which first appeared as a reaction to emancipation from the Enlightenment on, and later to Zionism.
The broadness of the subject and the multiple and varied origins of the information (as in data) obtained over long time IRL means I cannot make a demonstration in this post, nor search the internet for one.
So, in the spirit of vedayy le-hakima bi-rmiza (Aramaic for “hint to the wise”), I be throwing a few hints.
It’s not about any given government being illegitimate, it’s about a modern Jewish nation-state being antithetical to “ours is no nation but in its Laws” (ayn umatenu umah ela be-toroteha, dixit Rabbi Sa’adia Gaon).
While Haredim adhere to the Talmudic precept of the “law of the Realm is the Law” (Dina de-Malkhuta Dina), meaning they are bound to respect the law of the land as they do the Torah, to their understanding it applies only to Gentile states, not to a Jewish one in the Holy Land.
They do desire state support however and have reluctantly accepted to participate in the democratic game (elections, coalitions) to gain said support, which they call hishtadluth, which in this particular case traditionally means using the regime’s ways (one of its modern meanings is to lobby) to serve their tzibbur first and foremost rather than the whole polity (and not in the same sense that Labour used to, say, provide for kibbutzim back in the day). All the while keeping severe reservations about a regime whose legislating is done by individuals who aren’t required by law to study proper Toyreh (“lo qaroo ve-lo shanoo” cf. R’ Schach’s “rabbits’ speech” in 1990), and who publicly transgress shabbos, eat treif, and are boning during nida, qal va-homer some of them being women (ra’hmana litzlan!).
This approach has been retreating in some respects; e g: while it may not have had the same echo in the secular Israeli demographics, R’ Ya’aqov Litzmann accepting the Ministry of Health portfolio in 2015 was unprecedented as being a minister (sar) was deemed by many in the Frum world as lending the heathen state a legitimacy it should be denied, through participating in its very srarah (temporal power, with which the word sar is closely related).
Then again, Haredim have been Israelised in many ways, see how most of them now speak modern Hebrew, a desecration of loshon ha-koydesh (sacred tongue) and then some, rather than Yiddish, and I don’t mean just the Mizrahim among them.
A Jewish nation-state, even a very conservative one, is still, according to proper Haredi hashqafah, is in opposition to the “kingdom of priests and a holy people” (mamlekhet cohanim ve-goy qadosh) which is the only Jewish polity they deem as legitimate.
Milquetoast that they are! Unlike them, the ’Eidah ’Haredit (you know, the one whose badatz delivers kosher certifications) and the Satmar ’hassidut among some others, while small in size, aren’t marginal or shunned like the NKs, and are the hardcore: the Zionist Entity is anathema to them, although they won’t be as eager to be seen together with Fatah or Hamas.
Not at this juncture anyway.
Edited by AlityrosThePhilosopher on Jul 20th 2018 at 12:06:37 PM
Just as my freedom ends where yours begins my tolerance of you ends where your intolerance toward me begins. As told by an old friend
×5 Marq FJA, you wrote:
Quote: ... That boggles my mind. [That only a minority within the Arabic-speaking constituency contest Israel being a Jewish nation-state]
Most of them aren’t content with the present state of affairs obviously, let alone with the way things have been going for the last decade at least; and who could blame them.
Make no mistake, that minority contesting it is significant. Yet it hasn’t even the kind of critical mass which makes an insurgency, let alone civil unrest, possible.
A conundrum of their majority is that while they are solidary with their Palestinian brethren they are also solidary, in a civic sort of way, with Israeli citizenry; given the real potential for Israeli democracy to achieve equal rights for all in practice rather than merely in theory, they mostly feel invested in it.
This is a tough act to pull off, one that gets little to no acknowledgement let alone respect.
Another conundrum is that they often feel unrepresented by the body politic since the Arab parties, whether nationalistic, Communist, or Islamic ones, are high on rhetoric and local infighting and low on getting things done, while the mainstream Israeli parties either ignore them more often than not, or sometimes pander to them, but won’t actually cater to them.
Edited by AlityrosThePhilosopher on Jul 20th 2018 at 12:05:01 PM
Just as my freedom ends where yours begins my tolerance of you ends where your intolerance toward me begins. As told by an old friend
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
Netanyahu: Hitler Didn't Want to Exterminate the Jews
Netanyahu is starting with his whole "Palestinians are responsible for the Holocaust" narrative again.
Suppose he's angry his segregation clause got shot down.
Oh really when?
Article's from 2015.
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
Oh, derp. I thought it was from today.
In other news Haaretz really should move that current time and date in Israel thing so as not to be confusing.
Oh really when?
Catholic Church in Jerusalem slams nation-state law, urges Christians to protest
The Patriarchate, which represents the Roman Catholic Church in the Holy Land, called on all Christians in Israel to protest the law that reserves the right to national-self determination exclusively for Israel’s Jewish citizens.
“The law fails to provide any constitutional guarantees for the rights of the indigenous and other minorities living in the country,” a Patriarchate statement said. “Palestinian citizens of Israel, constituting 20 percent are flagrantly excluded from the law.”
The law, passed earlier this month, has roiled the country, amid mounting criticism of provisions that many decry as exclusionary toward minority groups. Supporters of the law see it as necessary to balance Israel’s Jewish and democratic characters, as well as enshrine into law the country’s status as a Jewish state.
“It is beyond conception that a Law with constitutional effect ignores an entire segment of the population as if its members never existed,” the church said. “It sends an unequivocal signal to the Palestinian citizens of Israel, to the effect that in this country they are not at home.”
The church said the law contravened the United Nations Resolution 181 that established the State of Israel, and Israel’s own Declaration of Independence.
It also called on Christians to protest the law.
“The Christian citizens of Israel have the same concerns as any other non-Jewish communities with respect to this Law. They call upon all citizens of the State of Israel who still believe in the basic concept of equality among citizens of the same nation, to voice their objection to this law and the dangers emanating thereof to the future of this Country,” it said.
In addition to defining Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, the law downgrades Arabic from an official language to one with “special” status, declares that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, sets the Hebrew calendar as the official calendar of the state, and recognizes Independence Day, days of remembrance, and Jewish holidays.
The government has faced widespread international and local oppostion to the law. However, within Israel most of the dissent has focused on the exclusion of the Druze.
Unlike Arab Israelis, members of minority groups such as the Druze and Circassians are subject to Israel’s mandatory draft and serve in large numbers alongside Jewish soldiers in some of the military’s most elite units. They also serve in the police and Border Police gendarmeries.
Several lawmakers within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition have pushed for changes to the law that would grant the Druze a special status of their own, but Netanyahu has insisted he will not amend the legislation.
Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Jul 31st 2018 at 9:52:03 PM
Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
The Druze are mad, and Netanyahu is handling it... poorly.
Oh, bother.
"Netanyahu is handling it poorly" seems to be a recurring thing in Israeli politics.
Disgusted, but not surprised
Netanyahu is handling EVERYTHING poorly, and the polls suggest that the Likkud still has the most votes with Yesh Atid being second place and the Joint List being third place.
The phrase “Jewish people ... have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it” sure sounds like the kind of thing that lays the groundwork for removing the right to vote from non-Jewish citizens.
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran