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
Gaza has escaped the virus so far...but if it gets there, everyone's screwed.
Professional Forum Ninja
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
/headdesk
So I'm sure everyone's seen this by now, but Gantz and Netanyahu have reached a power-sharing agreement. Israel will begin annexing West Bank settlement blocs beginning in July.
Where does this go now?
ok boomer
At this point, it's clear that Israel is fundamentally sick and will never get better on its own. The only path forward is the Democrats taking power in the US and working to move away from our previously supportive attitude towards Israel.
I'm not sure how plausible it is, the Democrats have gotten colder towards Israel but sadly there is still strong strong support in the party that will need to be overcome. I don't know Biden's position on it, but he certainly isn't as reliably critical of Israel as Sanders would've been.
If we can implement sufficient pressure then Israel can follow the path of Apartheid South Africa and move away from its unjust policies.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Apr 25th 2020 at 9:25:19 AM
"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn
but then where will the Jews that live in it go once the state is destroyed? If it implodes they’re basically fucked, which is one reason why the scumbags in power have been able to get away with this shit for so long.
I don't think anyone here is suggesting that Israel should be destroyed.
I mean, Israel being supported by the United States is pretty much the only reason it hasn't. A lot of people would (understandably) argue that the whole idea of the state itself is inherently corrupt to the core. Not saying this is necessarily the correct worldview, mind, but it’s understandable that the people oppressed by Israel would want the (perceived) Occupiers Out of Our Country.
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
I mean, South Africa didn't explode after their Western backers stopped supporting the apartheid government. Israel's a wealthy, well-armed state with the world's most poorly-hidden independent nuclear deterrent. They're not at an existential risk if they stop treating Palestinians as second-class citizens, no matter what the more rabid Likudniks will tell you. The worst that can happen is that they have to sacrifice some of the elements of their 'Jewish state' provisions to remain a democracy, and secularisation of institutions to accommodate multiple ethnoreligious groups is not genocide or destruction of a country.
Edited by Iaculus on Apr 25th 2020 at 7:49:37 PM
What's precedent ever done for us?
Foreign Troper
Also, Israel has nukes and by far the most powerful military in the region.
In the 60s the country fought 4 arabic nations at the same time and it was more or less a completely one-sided conflict in their favour.
Edited by Forenperser on Apr 25th 2020 at 9:03:36 PM
Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian
Exactly, Israel does not face any credible threats to its existence. And if it did this would just be a reason to protect its independence, what I'm proposing is the US ceasing any and all support beyond that.
This kind of mixing up of terms is something that really irks me about right-wing Israel supporters. They deliberately conflate a reorganizing of political entities with bombs falling on Tel Aviv and Always Chaotic Evil Arabs massacring Jewish people. But it's no more meaningful to say that one state solution advocates seek the "destruction of Israel" any more than it is to say that German unionists in the 1980's wanted the "destruction of East Germany."
ok boomer
Foreign Troper
I mean, Israel has a booming economy, it is a hugely properous nations, I really don't get why the US gives billions of dollars of foreign aid to them when the third world is in much more need of it.
Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian
In the 60s the country fought 4 arabic nations at the same time and it was more or less a completely one-sided conflict in their favour.
In fact, the only Muslim country able to attack Israel with nukes is Pakistan, and while they also hate them, the Pakistanis are more worried about India than a country located half a continent way, since India is its inmediate neighbor and has nukes, not to mention both countries have fought many wars in the past.
Outside that country, the only two Asian countries able to be a direct threat to Israel are China and North Korea, through the latter barely can shoot missiles able to reach Japan, much less Israel, but China could be a more realistic threat to that country, considering its ambitions and the Chinese probably having more nukes than Israel.
And relations between China and Israel are lukewarm at worse.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Oh, bother.
The CCP has been trying to worm its way into Israel for a while. Israel does not have to worry about the CCP’s nukes.
Israel should be worrying about its money.
Edited by M84 on Apr 26th 2020 at 1:28:40 AM
Disgusted, but not surprised
Agree with above posters; I think that supporters of Israel often misconstrue (whether maliciously or unintentionally) the ideals of people who don't support the state. Like, barring some antisemitic outliers, most reasonable people who fundamentally oppose the state just want one state in the region that treats all of its citizens equally, not to get rid of the Jewish inhabitants.
There is no war in Ba Sing Se.
There's a grand difference between taking issue with the ideology or history of a state's foundation, and actually supporting the dismantling of that state decades or centuries later.
Take the United States. It's not inaccurate to say that it was founded via the violent conquest of imperialist powers against native peoples who previously inhabited those territories. But while you'd be right to condemn the various crimes committed during the forging of the state, any attempt to reverse the effects of those crimes by asking the conquerers' descendants to leave and return the land to the descendants of the conquered is, well, ridiculous. It'd be both a logistical impossiblity and, if it were actually attempted, a humanitarian nightmare.
On one hand, yes that is true.
But comparing Israel and the US in that manner is highly questionable. Through disease and genocide, the Native American population has been thoroughly displaced (though obviously not eliminated) as the majority ethnic group, the same is not true of the Palestinians who still exist in large numbers in Israel. The demographics are fundamentally different.
Furthermore, the vast majority of non-terrorist supporters of Palestinian rights support a one-state solution as the means that Israel would be dissolved. Not ethnic cleansing, obviously that would be inhumane.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Apr 26th 2020 at 6:20:48 AM
"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn
If Israel were a "standard" state, one with clearly defined borders and population, that would be true. But they've been keeping Palestine in a kind of Schrodinger's-sovereignty-limbo for decades now, for far longer than they existed as that "standard" state that has become the legal default for the 2-state solution. It's more akin to advocating for Puerto Rican statehood in a lot of ways.
To put it another way, the question isn't what to do about Israel, it's what to do about Palestine.
And this is precisely what the other posters were saying wouldn't happen, for both those reasons. Yes, some Palestinian hardliners do advocate for ethnically cleansing Israeli Jews, but they should not be listened to, nor do they represent most Palestinians. As I've put it before, Disney dubs movies in Hebrew, they aren't going anywhere.
Edited by somerandomdude on Apr 27th 2020 at 12:49:16 PM
ok boomer
I think there's a middle ground here, and it needs to be explored, because the situation in Palestine is different in a few key ways than the situation in other countries founded on colonialism and violence.
The biggest issue is that many people who've been directly affected by Israel's crimes are still alive. The two largest Palestinian exoduses happened in 1948 and 1967 — well within a lifetime. My grandparents, who were affected by both, are still barred from returning home. These people deserve some form of direct reparations. I'm a big proponent of right to return, but even if that's not possible, they deserve some form of economic compensation for their stolen property and livelihoods.
There is no war in Ba Sing Se.
Mainly because Israel use the money to buy American weapons. The real purpose of the aid is to support the American weapons industry, Israel is basically just the mediator here
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
Not really, Israel has a booming domestic arms industry that exports to a lot of foriegn customers
Oh really when?
which is exactly why the US has to bribe them to buy american products instead of competing with them.
The director of Magen David Adom, the Israeli Red Cross, says they will not be engaging in further testing for COVID-19 in Israeli Arab communities for the time being.
There are 38 patients diagnosed in Arab communities (according to figures published on March 27). Arabs constitute 20 percent of Israel’s population, and in addition are an at-risk population, due to the high percentage of those suffering from chronic illnesses, and to the crowded living conditions and problematic socioeconomic situation.
Therefore, according to a very rough calculation, there should be at least 800 Arabs now suffering from the coronavirus. And if there are six carriers for every diagnosed patient, we are talking about approximately 4,800 patients and carriers in Arab communities who are likely to infect others without being aware of it. At present the 38 patients comprise less than 1 percent of all those infected. That is a very low percentage, which contradicts the claims of the Health Ministry director general (on March 27) about Arab violations of home quarantine directives.
An in-depth examination seems to indicate that the presumably low morbidity in the Arab communities does in fact stem from absence of testing there. According to various reports, Magen David Adom reaches the Arab communities infrequently, and lacks a good infrastructure there. Emergency services in Arab communities are usually provided by private companies, which operate about 600 ambulances. The employees of these companies have not been trained by MDA to administer coronavirus tests, and the ambulance drivers have not been trained to evacuate coronavirus patients from the communities to hospitals, which are usually distant.
If there is a serious outbreak of the virus in the Arab communities, there will be no way of transferring patients in a protected manner without the risk of infecting others.
At the time of writing not a single drive-through station for coronavirus tests has been set up in Arab communities. The original plan for the drive-through points included seven Jewish communities, and not a single Arab one. Therefore, information about the drive-through plan was published only in Hebrew. The Arabs didn’t hear about these points on time, and due to the distance and the information delay, only a small number of Arabs asked to be tested in the Jewish communities. The paucity of requests led to a decision not to establish drive-through points in Arab communities. Only after the intervention of Arab members of Knesset was a promise made to set them up, but this is being delayed. Arabs serving on medical teams − doctors, nurses, caregivers, laboratory workers and others − are now at the forefront of the war against the coronavirus in Israel’s hospitals, but they cannot be at ease about the level of protection of their families from the virus.
The health maintenance organizations have decided to establish initial coronavirus clinics, which treat patients in the community, and other clinics are testing people who show symptoms of the illness. But in the Arab communities there are very few such clinics. Clalit Medical Services, to which more than half of the Arabs who are insured belong, prepared only one clinic, compared to 45 in Jewish communities. Moreover, very few clinics have been prepared to test patients who are suffering from symptoms of the illness.
That raises a big question mark regarding the Health Ministry’s handling of the coronavirus crisis in Arab society. After the first coronavirus patient was discovered, in February, an emergency team was set up to handle the crisis. This team is in charge of planning the national emergency program, which includes crucial steps for diagnosing and treating coronavirus patients whose condition worsens. They include preparing hospitals, quarantining patients and carriers, testing, and a gradual stoppage of economy activity, like closing cafes and restaurants, and discontinuing work in places that are not vital for the economy, a well as studies in universities and schools.
But this team in charge of the emergency program does not include a single Arab expert who could explain the unique nature of Arab society when it comes to handling the coronavirus crisis. The emergency infrastructures in Israel’s Jewish communities are based for the most part on security emergencies, with little infrastructure for civilian emergencies. That puts the Arab communities in an inferior position in terms of their ability to deal with the virus.
Therefore, immediately with the outbreak of the crisis, it was vital to set up an emergency team for the fight against the coronavirus in Arab communities, but this did not happen. What’s more, the Health Ministry refrained from meeting with the Arab national health committee, which was established by professionals (doctors, nurses, researchers of public health and other health-related fields) in order to help in the war against the virus in these communities.
The committee’s staff worked from the start of the crisis to make the information about the coronavirus and the importance of quarantine available in Arabic. But the Health Ministry information in Arabic failed to arrive, or was delayed, and when it did come, it was worded in incorrect Arabic, which caused a lack of trust. That created a delay in the arrival of authorized information to the Arab communities, and in its internalization. The lack of trust only intensified the panic.
Today the illness is harshly stigmatized in Arab society, and people treat patients like lepers. This situation could have been avoided had the information come on time and in a rational manner, from experts in the Arab community, immediately at the start of the outbreak in Israel.
In terms of public health, due to the present situation the Arab communities are likely to become epicenters of the coronavirus outbreak, which will threaten the health of the entire population.
Even in the separate Arab communities (and there are quite a few cities with mixed Arab-Jewish populations) it won’t be easy to isolate many of the people, because they include some who are vital to the health care system and to other Israeli institutions. Policymakers and the emergency team must understand that there can be no end to the coronavirus crisis without serious intervention addressing the needs of about one fifth of the population.
There must be a significant increase in the number of tests in Arab communities, and the private companies’ emergency workers must be trained so that they can evacuate patients when necessary. Initial clinics should already be prepared for receiving and treating coronavirus patients, who will probably arrive en masse; the hospitals in Nazareth should be reinforced and provided with the necessary equipment to treat the patients, and of course there must be a suitable streaming of information.
That can be done in a special media campaign. All of these steps could help to reduce the spread of the illness in both Arab and Jewish communities, and to contribute to a better exit strategy from the coronavirus crisis.
Dr. Daoud is a senior public health lecturer at Ben Gurion University of the Negev.