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
Unfortunately, his personal issues with the law might push Netanyahu to act more radically (i.e. actually annexing the settlements) in order to retain support. Then again, I doubt Gantz would genuinely have been radically better for Palestinians.
There is no war in Ba Sing Se.
Keep Calm and Parry On
On the off chance that the West Bank actually gets angeschlossen, will the Palestinians get voting rights?
Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Consider the story from last page. What do you think?
What's precedent ever done for us?
A procrastination in of itself
That's why annexation is done in stages, a wholesale annexation would mean either giving Palestinians voting rights, openly stripping them of rights, mass deportations or mass killings.
But if only parts of the West Bank are formally annexed (and other parts de-facto annexed) than the Palestinians can be put in a small remaining area, where due to overcrowding and the cutting off of basic services they will die until there are so few left they pose no electoral threat.
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
Organized Canine Bureau Special Agent
Looks like Bibi's forming a coalition now.
"Exit muna si Polgas. Ang kailangan dito ay si Dobermaxx!"
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I mean, most of the West Bank is already de facto annexed anyways.
Fuck Bibi. He’s a stain on Israel and Jewish people across the world.
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
And people still have hope for this "peace" process.
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Israel yes but Jewish people no, that's dangerously close to anti-semitism.
No one should suggest that Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud is a stain on Muslims, same with Bibi. It's just too close to collective responsibility and thus discrimination.
I know you didn't mean it like this but I just have to say that.
"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn
Shin Megami Tensei IV
I think that they meant that Bibi's authoritarianism is a easy fuel for actual anti semites, who can just point at him and say "you see what happens when Jews are in power??".
Israel's crimes tend to be used for anti semites who want to continue using the slurs while looking progressive at doing it.
I mean, just look at Polandball and how many of the "critics to Israel" had Israel (which isn't even allowed to be a actual ball...) acting in anti semite stereotypes ala Greedy Jew to get a easy example.
Edited by KazuyaProta on Apr 11th 2019 at 1:07:06 PM
Watch me destroying my country
Yeah, that’s what I meant. He also engages in Holocaust Denial (!) and his son has spread antisemitic memes in the past.
I think another term of Netanyahu is going to end very badly. There is that tendency of this flavour of politician (c.f Trump, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin) to push the envelope further and further and I am kind of afraid of where it will arrive at the end.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Nice to see the NYT intends to hold Netanyahu to account for going full fash in the latest election.
Beware the Crazy Man.
I'm looking at the Israeli central election commission website, and a full third of the vote is yet to be counted. Given how close it is, is it necessarily a given that Bibi is back in full power?
Final Fantasy, Foreign Policy, and Bollywood. Helluva combo, that...
It's likely that Bibi will get enough of a bloc behind him.
But.
The opposition is still very strong and those indictments aren't about to poof into the ether, either. Even if Bibi gets immunity for himself passed, any info around those investigations that leaks could still blow up on him to wreck any coalition he puts together. Big time.
And, if it comes out that projected future acquired Palestinian land maybe-might-perhaps have been used as a political bribe/ promise in any way to any specific body in the smaller right wing parties to personally profit from... that's a very messy can of worms to explode on the region. Beyond even the proposed and very highly illegal land grab, should he come through on that.
It's... a mess. A frikking massive mess.
Edited by Euodiachloris on Apr 11th 2019 at 8:33:11 PM
O Sleepless Mustelid
...as one of the guys in the command center put it, “We are the fourth country to bring a spacecraft to the surface of the moon, it’s just not in one piece.”
We borked it at the last moment. Main engine failed at a critical moment and Beresheet crashed into the moon.
"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent."
Oops. Well, Mars sports a crash site or two. We shouldn't leave Luna out. 
Beware the Crazy Man.
The path to success is painted in failures, especially when it comes to outer space. I expect Israel will get there soon enough successfully.
And hey, at least it didn't happen with a manned craft.
Final Fantasy, Foreign Policy, and Bollywood. Helluva combo, that...
Hey, look at the Soviet Venera program. They knew those landers were going to die and rather unpleasantly, it was just a question of "how long?"
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
Those were sent to Venus. You know, the planet with atmosphere pressure that's on average 90 times heavier than ours, literally rains sulfric acid almost all the time and its surface is too volcanic on a global scale for us to be sure that its topography is anything similar to the last time we imaged it. It's obviously a foregone conclusion that they were doomed to die.
Edited by MarqFJA on Apr 11th 2019 at 3:06:10 PM
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Yeah. If you're not an icy chunk of rock the size of a city block or preferably larger, you're never going to leave a scratch on Venus. And, even one of those won't leave anything remotely long-term in her standards.
Heck any country hoping to leave a crash site would have to put years into developing the tank of a probe/missile so it could survive long enough to reach the ground with enough force. You know, before entirely imploding/ exploding/ dissolving/ melting.
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Israel's Channel 13 obtained footage from inside Bnei David, the oldest and most famous religious mechina (military academy) in the country (for a loose definition of 'country' - it's in the West Bank settlement of Eli). What they found was, uh, pretty wild.
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
... When did I step into the Twilight Zone???
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
It's nice of our enemies to make themselves so evident.
By us I mean pluralist humanists who are against slavery and genocide.
I'm assuming that's everyone here?
Wow, talk about a pagetopper.
Edited by kkhohoho on Apr 10th 2019 at 6:21:55 AM
Doctor Who — Long Way Around: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13536044/1/Doctor-Who-Long-Way-Around