“I suppose there’s also the idea of Israel expelling the Palestinians and annexing the West Bank and Gaza, but I don’t see anyone advocating this one, so I’ll skip it.”
C’mon man. Ben-Gurion himself advocated for the transfer of Palestinians to Jordan and out of Israel and there is a whole political party which has seats in the parliament that supports this policy.
Some of the parties, including Religious Zionism and Jewish Power, want to formally annex parts or all of the West Bank and expel (or kill) Palestinians who resist.
Noah - I don't think it's helpful to get snippy and defensive. The rest of the article is good but its clearly wrong to claim that nobody is suggesting the Palestinians are expelled from Palestine, and articles shouldn't include mistakes. It would also have strengthened the article by giving you a chance to address the argument that Israel's 1967 aren't defensible because it would give militants too strong a vantage point for rocket attacks
Ben-Gurion died in 1973, man. As for those fringe parties calling for ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, I have never heard of them before or seen their ideas expressed, so I don't consider them a faction worth mentioning; for any fringe belief, no matter how psychotic, it is possible to find *someone* advocating it.
I stand by my decision to skip over a rebuttal of the idea that Palestinians should be ethnically cleansed. 😉
Im sorry this is disingenuous. You didn't skip over the idea that Israelis being ethically cleansed. You are presenting a skewed view of the debate. It's okay to have missed it given it doesn't come up as much in the American debate, but now that people have told you that some people do hold the view in Israel, you should edit the article
And notice that I said "I don’t see anyone advocating this one". That's not a mistake; it's the simple truth. I can't be expected to have read the ideas of every fringe movement in the world. I'm sure that for any crazy idea, someone out there believes in it, but not all of these crazy ideas are prominent enough to rebut.
In this case, the arguments I made against ethnic cleansing are already perfectly sufficient to rebut the idea of ethnic-cleansing the Palestinians; no new arguments need to be added there. So I see the demands that I rebut this additional idea of ethnic cleansing as unreasonable.
If you think that's disingenuous on my part, go ahead. And if you think me calmly pointing out why I made the rhetorical choices I made is "snippy and defensive", go ahead. But what's really going on here is that you felt that my explicit rebuttal of one side's ethnic cleansing ideas and not the other's created a pro-Israel slant in my rhetoric, and that angered you.
Okay but that last thing is a really dumb argument, you don't get to annex your neighbors because they're at a higher elevation? Like, I'm sure Italy would be more defensible if they annexed the Italian speaking Cantons of Switzerland but that's not how the Westphalian system works.
But international relations don't work like a civilized society with police and punishment. That's exactly how people did behave (as you would) back in the day when might made right. Especially when you'd in fact been attacked that way before by the current allies of that neighbor.
Tho there are reasonable fixes such as allowing Israel a certain kind of defense access or getting Europeans and Americans to do it.
Yeah, anyone who hasn’t seen this rhetoric has never talked to like any reasonably conservative Israeli (the kind that calls the West Bank Judea and Samaria etc.). The mental gymnastics they do to explain how this could be done without letting any of the people who live there vote in Israeli elections are truly a sight to behold (because of course if they’re talking to an American they won’t say the “we want to kill them all” part out loud).
Don't put too much stock in public opinion polls. Large Palestinian majorities supported Oslo and a two state solution in the 1990's, but when the process failed to end the occupation, they have soured on it. What they tell pollsters now is mostly wish fulfillment and venting. Oslo was supposed to lead to a final status within five years, instead they got 30 more years of occupation and a tripling of settlements. If Israel was ever serious about peace with the Palestinians why did it never stop building settlements?
Actions speak louder than polls. When huge crowds of Arabs are dancing in the streets because 1000 Jews are dead, I don't need a poll to determine that they are people beset with evil.
Of course there is history between these groups. But that doesn't change a simple reality that one group of people is praising their god for helping them kill a thousand Jews, cheering when they see half naked Jewish women's bodies paraded around town. There is only one legitimate response to that kind of enemy.
Are there good people in the West Bank? Of course. And they need to leave. Because the wrath of Israel is about to come down on that place. To survive, Israel must rapidly re-establish its deterrence. This is a part of the world that does not tolerate weakness.
I found this bit in the article jarring because the restoration of Judea and Samaria is such a clear rhetorical parallel to “from the river to the sea.” If you talk to settlers and right wingers in Israel, or evangelicals in the US, the former comes up A LOT.
I think I feel similarly! Kind of a recovering activist, and much more critical of "the left" than I was years ago. Re: Ben-Gurion, I'm pretty ignorant, but Wikipedia said he envisioned full rights for Palestinian / Arab citizens of Israel, and was a little sympathetic as to why they would only view incoming Jews as land thieves. How would you compare or contrast his views to Bibi's?
In Rabin's memoir he recounts being ordered by Ben-Gurion to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian towns of Lydda and Ramle that had just been seized by Israeli forces. 50,000 people were forced from their homes at gunpoint.
I don’t know. Ben-Gurion is a complicated figure and a realist, so he evolved in his thinking. Bibi too.
Read Homage to Catalonia and Down and Out in Paris and London it you have not. Orwell is a lot more than just 1984 and Animal Farm. To Shoot An Elephant is outstanding and a brief read as well as The Politics of The English Language of course.
Don’t forget his wonderful fiction. Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Coming up for Air and The Clergyman’s daughter are superb studies of nostalgia, repression and political and social naïveté.
He obviously meant at the current time and within a certain implied community with a minimum degree of support. I bet if you asked a grand wizard of the KKK they'd have some out there ideas and if you go back to the 1940s people would have all sorts of ideas that are beyond the pale now.
This is true but by the same token the Arabs (barely Palestinian then) never had any intention of allowing for a Jewish presence either. Despite all land acquisitions before 1948 being done entirely legally and without force.
Jewish purchase of land before 1947 made up 7% of Palestine. You don't get to create your own country just cause you bought some land. If Palestine had been allowed to be a free country after WW1 instead of a British colony, they would have controlled their own borders, and probably looked poorly on a group of European Jews who wanted to migrate and create their own country. If there had been a vote of all the residents of Palestine in 1947, partition would have been voted down. Zionism is premised on the notion that Palestinians don't count as real human beings with rights to self-determination.
Regardless, what's done is done, at this point the only solution is two/three states and a return to the 1967 borders and a complete removal of the settlers on the West Bank. The rest is wishful thinking.
"If there had been a vote of all the residents of Palestine in 1947, partition would have been voted down." And? The fact is that Ottoman, Arab, and British authorities (the actual colonial powers) allowed for sizable Jewish immigration, and both sides desired national liberation. The fact that the Arab residents would have opposed it I find no more consequential than the fact that much of the US South would have supported Jim Crow.
It was Britain that opened the door to significant Jewish immigration. The Ottomans allowed a very few in but before 1914 there was minimal Jewish presence. Palestine was never governed by an Arab authority so not sure what you mean.
British guns made large scale European Jewish immigration to Palestine possible.
Not at all, just to recognize that historically the Palestinians were screwed over and never given the right to self-determination. Outsiders with guns did this to them.
This was not discussed as a possibility in the essay but one likely outcome for the West Bank is a gradual displacement of the poorer and less powerful Palestinians in the West Bank by more powerful and wealthier Israelis. Not so much ethic cleansing but gentrification.
Israelis are not moving into Palestinian towns and cities. They have their own seperate settlements with its own road network etc. Apartheid not gentrification is what is happening.
Ireland tells us that there can be peace between Israelis and Palestinians; it also tells us that peace will be enormously difficult.
Dublin is no longer a base for terrorism against England, despite literal centuries of smugly oppressive English rule. But intermixed Northern Ireland is still barely resisting the abyss, and if sponsoring Irish paramilitaries was still popular in America's Irish communities I'm sure Ulster would be bloody still.
So Ireland gives me hope for the Palestinians and Israel, but that hope is narrow. As long as ambitious men in Gaza can win leadership by killing Israelis, and as long as foreign countries have money to send to help them do it, Gaza will be a base for anti-Israel terrorism. And so long as there is terrorism, there will be violence from Israel against Gaza, whether Gaza is a state or not. (Unless we're fantasizing a true independent powerful peacekeeping force into existence -- and then you might as well wish for a pony.) But that violence by Israel against the terrorists itself kills plenty of civilians -- and so fertilizes the appeal of future terrorism.
I know the problem is solvable, because Ireland exists, and prospers. Dublin is a wonderful place these days, and on many scales the Irish are doing better than Britain. Irish better off than English! Just think how that would croggle the old English elites, who took Irish backwardness as much for granted as an eastern sunrise. The hatreds in Ireland were if anything more deeply founded; there was money in America in plenty to sponsor violence; and yet look at Dublin today, and you can see peace and prosperity laughing in triumph over supposed endless hate.
But I don't see how to get from Gaza to Dublin. I fear it will take generations.
I suspect that one reason the Good Friday Agreement worked as well as it has is that it didn't require the Irish to say "We recognize Northern Ireland's right to exist as a British entity." To accept it not only pragmatically, but morally. Since Israel came into existence--could only have come into existence--by taking it from the people who were living there, the "right to exist" thing means that they're required to say "You had the right to take our homes." Not accept pragmatically that they're stuck with Israel, not even accept that the Jews did what they did under such terrible circumstances that they deserve a break. No, nothing short of "You had the right to fuck us over." That's just wrong.
The Jews in Palestine in 1948 were all people who “lived there”; they’d been immigrating legally to the region since at least the 1880s; and the Arab militias attacked them, not the other way round. The Palestinian Arabs had rejected two advantageous divisions of territory, at a time when former provinces of the empires that lost WWI were routinely being divided up into nation states along ethnic lines. It’s simply inaccurate to say “the Israelis came over and took the land off the people who were living there.” Would you characterise legal immigration to your own country in such a fashion? (And I know I’ve left out plenty the Israeli side did that was wrong; I’m sure you’re well aware of all of it, but it doesn’t bear on this question of calling the entire state of Israel “stolen land.”)
The Peel Commission recommended a majority of the land go to the Arabs. It also proposed that the Jewish area pay a long term financial subvention to the Arabs, and that the British fund large scale infrastructure investments in the Arab area, mainly for irrigation. Now, you can believe that the Jews were entitled to less, or that they were entitled to nothing at all. But this arrangement is certainly an advantageous one compared to what actually transpired (as indeed is the later, UN-backed proposal).
Yes, a 3 state solution may be best, though that means Egypt allowing meaningful trade with Gaza. However, coming up with a good solution isn't the sticking point.
I think a huge sticking point is that it's not in the interests of the leadership of either HAMAS or the PLO for a permanent settlement deal to go through. If these regions turn into functioning states their corrupt grip on power and prestige is put at risk. Or, less cynically, they rose to these positions because they made crusading against Israel their life's work and agreeing to a permanent compromise (which inevitably leaves both sides unhappy) will be very hard for them to do. Not to mention that many people who don't live there but support these groups and give them prestige and support don't want to see a compromise deal (either for selfish reasons or because it's easy to say you won't settle for less than you think you deserve when you aren't the one suffering).
Unfortunately, no one else can become a legitimate voice for the residents in Gaza w/o HAMAS allowing it.
This is a hugely overlooked point. Yassar Arafat was offered everything at Camp David in the 90's. He refused to sign on the dotted line. Because it's a lot more useful to be a terrorist leader who can complain about "the occupation" than it is to actually have to govern.
But for HAMAS and the destabilizing funding from places like Iran perhaps you could just do a gradual devolution with more powers and freedoms being devolved to these regions.
That seems like a workable solution for the west bank. The PLO leadership doesn't suddenly lose their cover for having election irregularities and corruption problems and things can just slowly head in the right direction with more powers/freedoms devolving w/o an explicit final deal.
Unfortunately, it seems like the leadership of HAMAS has a strong incentive not to let that happen and I don't see a way around that.
“The easiest industry to spin up would simply be tourism — Gaza has a lot of nice beaches, plenty of historical sites, etc.” Generally, Islamist run governments aren’t known for or too tolerant of beach resorts.
Lebanon, the Maldives, Indonesia, Jordan, and Egypt all have internationally renowned beach resorts. Majority Muslim countries do not automatically equate with Islamist (not Islamic) governments. Gaza is Islamist. Lebanon is not Islamist. Sayyid Qutb lays out these concepts very clearly in Milestones and his beliefs of why secularism is incompatible with Islam. Muslim Brotherhood aligned movements, including Hamas, are founded on these principles and do not tolerate Ottoman-style pluralism. Gender-mixed beach resorts with immodest dress and alcohol are simply incompatible under Islamist governments.
Islamist narrowly won one election in Gaza 17 years ago. Islamists won in Egypt more recently than that. Gaza isn't going to gain independence with Hamas in power. Maybe the next Gaza government will also be Islamist but we shouldn't automatically assume that.
Before critiquing, I commend you for taking a run at this.
One of the issues I have is that I cannot see Gaza being other than an economic basket case. For a whole lot of reasons, I can't see the hypothetical Gazan state taking the Bangladesh route out of poverty.
To tourism specifically:
1) Not sure how many non-Lebanese/Syrian tourists actually visit, beaches or elsewhere. Unlike Gaza, Lebanon has a reasonably wealthy diaspora. That applies to remittances too. Pre-2011 (Syrian Civil War startup) tourism to Lebanon did indeed appear to get a fair number of people from the First World.
2) The main services in Lebanon over the last couple of decades have not been tourism, although if you apply a low pass filter with say a five year time constant, tourism does appear to be growing faster than most other service sectors.
3) Who _does_ run Lebanon? Until a few years ago, the answer was sort of "Syria". Hezbollah is certainly a political power there (gained three seats in the 2022 elections) but does not AFAIK run the local government in the tourist parts.
Palestine being such a cause celebre would probably bring flocks of Europeans that want to show solidarity or whatever for the first year or two and then after that who knows, it could become a nice destination that draws people
I'm thinking of how the Maldives solved the "sunbathing and Sharia don't mix" problem by having the locals and tourists on separate islands, although that solution obviously only works for archipelagos.
One thing to add is that at some point the international community has to get tougher on this absurd spectacle of millions of people having lived their entire lives in refugee camps. The camps should be dismantled, people given homes in Gaza/West Bank or elsewhere. Israel could even pay some of the costs. But right to return isn't happening
I wonder if one reason why Gazans tend to be more extremist than West Bankers is because they became stateless in 1948 (they were never Egyptian citizens) while West Bankers were Jordanian citizens prior to 1967?
Anyone who thinks that Arab/Muslim countries actually care about the Palestinians (or Uyghurs or Rohingya) instead of using them as props or distractions is deluded.
This sounds about right. But I do think that Israel is unlikely to give up the Jordan Valley anytime soon, let alone evacuate the farthest out settlements. Legitimate security concerns exist if the West Bank is given up, although this in no way justified population transfers of settlers into that area.
As Benny Morris said on his recent podcast with Coleman Hughes, the West Bank population would be extremely likely to vote Hamas into power, who would then set up their missle shops on that territory. (As a side note, this is a good reason for Israel to absolutely decimate Hamas now.)
> Legitimate security concerns exist if the West Bank is given up
But this was going to be a concern in a 2 state solution as well, right?
The whole idea was that the Palestinians deserve to have their own state, even if it's run by crazy fundamentalist islamist lunatics. Once they get their state, it's up to them what they do with it. If they start shooting rockets into Israel, they will be the aggressor, Israel will be completely in the right to shoot back, and the Palestinians will get no sympathy in the international community like they are getting now as oppressed peoples.
You might remember that Israel withdrew from Gaza and let the Palestinians be responsible for it.
Now everyone associated with Hamas must die. Whether in Gaza, Lebanon, Qatar, Iran, Syria, West Bank, etc. quarter. I’d call it the “rave treatment” except Hamas are armed terrorists rather than partying civilians. Maybe just call it justice.
Israel did not recognize Gaza as an independent state. They remained the sovereign power and imposed a harsh blockade. Gaza has no airport or seaport. It is entirely cut off from the rest of the world and is functionally a giant open air prison. Noah is suggesting that Gaza actually be allowed to function free from Israeli control.
Gaza is ruled by a gang of thugs, I wouldn't call it a government. Hamas has done tremendous harm to the Palestinians, and this latest episode just adds to their legacy of terror and stupidity. I have nothing positive to say about Hamas.
Wouldn’t that result in the West Bank being fully landlocked by Israel? That obviously doesn’t work (also the idea that they simply must control some area or another has never made any sense, that’s not the way this works anywhere else, you start with borders and you make security work given those borders).
Isn’t the intractable problem that there are so any darn Israeli settlers already in the Palestinian territories, too many to be displaced and many ideologically driven to remain where they are not wanted, with the substantial support of conservative Israelis in Israel?
But that's nonsense. Palestinians have NEVER EVER suggested that dismantling the settlements would be the end to hostilities. It's one among a list of many demands, and not even #1.
I'm not a fan of the settlers, but I don't think it remotely justifies Palestinian terrorism against non-settler civilians. There are no settlers in Gaza.
I don't know about this from the local perspective, but to me the main point about the settlements is that the US has been telling Israel to stop expansion for decades and they continually thumb their noses at us but then expect our support. That's not how being the junior partner in a relationship with a superpower is supposed to work and the fact that the US just stands for it and continues to supply unconditional support is embarrassing and makes us look weak. It's probably hurt our ability to act not just in the region but all over the world.
George W Bush actually halted aid money to Israel at one point, demanding a settlement freeze. On the other hand, Trump was the first president to abandon the traditional anti-settlement position in the US. Trump officially adopted the right-wing Israeli view that settlements are not illegal because the West Bank isn't "occupied territory". Rather, they argue that it is "disputed territory".
On a purely technical level, Trump and Israel's rightists are not really wrong. There was never a Palestinian state in the West Bank. The sequence of powers controlling that piece of land is Ottoman -> Britain -> Jordanian -> Israeli. Jordan relinquished her claim to the West Bank years ago. Israel can't really be occupying land in a non-state. International law is not as simple as the Pro-Palestine camp always thinks it is.
Israel should not be expanding settlements (or at least not build new ones) because that is the right thing to do. You are right that their continued building has been an embarrassment to Israel and the US. I think you need to also understand though that, at least in recent years, it was Trump that gave crucial support to the right-wing Israeli settler movement. So it's hard to blame Israel there, when our own government empowered the Israeli right against their peacenik opponents.
Finally, you should understand that Israelis absolutely expect to dismantle settlements as part of a peace deal. They did that in Gaza during disengagement. WB settlements are much more populous so it will be much more difficult, but they expect to do it. There are questions about how many will be dismantled, but there is no question some will be. A lot of the settlers themselves are pretty extreme and will fight the IDF to remain in them. If/when an Israel-Palestine peace comes, there will be Jews fighting Jews over the settlements. Ehud Barak (the last Israeli PM to engage deeply in the peace process) was very explicit that the deal would almost certainly lead to Jews killing Jews as the price for peace with the Palestinians.
You should think about the settlers as a one-issue special interest group that, although a minority in Israel, is able to get traction on their specific issue. It's not "Israel's" commited policy position anymore than terrorism is the Palestinians. These are two different extremist groups that achieve their ends despite protest from their fellow nationals and the destructive consequences for all. It's easier to see the evil on the other side..
I am not the most knowledgeable about the conflict, but my
only point is that the proposed 3 state solution would involve repatriating those settlers (or somehow convincing the new state to accept them as permanent residents or citizens). It seems
The generally agreed-upon framework is that the settlements that are close to Israel proper will be part of Israel, with different land from Israel proper given to the Palestinian state as compensation. The furthest out settlements, or those surrounded by Palestinian populations, would need to be dismantled.
There was a time when more moderate Israelis supported settlements as a way to non-violently put pressure on the Palestinians to seek peace. That hasn't worked and the mainstream has dropped the concept. The right sees the settlement as a means of blocking a Palestinian state. So in that sense, they are quite a dangerous, ongoing, development.
Just as I am sympathetic to Palestinians despite their sometimes going terrorist, I am also sympathetic to Israeli's on this issue. Do not forget that, when Israel came to control the West Bank and Gaza, in 1967, she agreed to give these territories back immediately for a peace deal, as part of a UN resolution. The Palestinians and Arabs flatly rejected this. No dealing with Israel. They were not satisfied with a Palestinian state in the WB and Gaza. It had to be "from the river to the sea", i.e. no Israel. These are facts.
So, given the reality of being surrounded by hostile enemies that would not seek peace, Israel took actions to gain leverage and secure her lands, including establishing settlements. People need to wrap their head around Israel needing to do nasty things to survive. Again, I don't support this policy, but I understand why their pursuing is complicated an not just simple "evil".
This is an amazing often overlooked fact that I just listened/learned about recently (podcast attached - overall a great podcast BTW) - includes the Russian colony in California! Imagine that. https://spotify.link/AMjRKVUXKDb
Why is it ethnic cleansing to remove Israeli settlers from illegal West Bank settlements?
It might not be viable for many reasons, but I was confused about your language there. You used “ethnic cleansing” in reference to removing Israelis from the internationally recognized borders of Israel, which makes sense.
But why would it be ethnic cleansing to expel illegal settlements, and not an appropriate use of state force?
I’d think that the removal would be on the basis that a number of these settlements are violations of the Oslo Accords.
If an enclave of Russians or Canadians took up in Alaska, it wouldn’t be ethnic cleansing to remove them. Their relocation would be in accordance with agreed upon borders.
Finally, you still might think it’s fair to characterize removal of Israeli settlers as ethnic cleaning. But doesn’t this definition imply that these settlers are ethnic cleansing Palestinians? If so, why should we prefer the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians?
I always wonder what would happen if a bunch of fundamentalist Mormons showed up and started building houses in a reservation somewhere in Utah because Bringham Young told them that all of Utah was supposed to be theirs or something. We would just throw them all in prison right? Like that's not even a hard call?
Noah, thank you for an excellent write up as usual. As a liberal, longtime follower, I've been waiting to hear your thoughts on this conflict.
First, I feel that merely by acknowledging the openly genocidal tendencies of the Palestinians you're being more fair than almost anyone in our political side of the map in the US. Thank you for that.
In regards to the three state solution: the only problem is that it is not a solution. It won't prevent recurring wars because each of the three nations would be so small that any military presence in the others would be a dire threat. The capitals, and most major population centers, of each of them, are always within missile range of the others, and an armored vehicle that breaks from the border can reach almost anywhere in the invaded territory in say an hour. This isn't a sustainable situation. So what you'll get is Israel, currently the strongest military, squashing it's neighbors whenever they try to build military force - especially after the current war, that taught Israel an extremely painful lesson about allowing your rival to build out their strength. Any actual solution must involve strong international security guarantees - from the UN and neighboring Arab countries.
I have a hard time seeing Gaza as a viable state. 2.3 million people in an area smaller than some Texas ranches. No economy to speak of. No functional government. A neighbor that's its mortal enemy and that certainly (and understandably) isn't going to let Gaza form any sort of military force.
An independent West Bank could presumably access seaborne trade via Jordan's port of Aqaba on the Red Sea. Israel wouldn't want Palestinian trucks carrying goods to their ports for export (too much risk of truck bombs), but I can't think of any reason the Jordanians would have a problem with them.
"If you have a better idea that doesn’t involve massive ethnic cleansing or unrealistic assumptions about Israelis and Palestinians joining together as one people, I’d love to hear it."
I don't think it's "better" by any stretch, but based on the direction things have been moving for the last ~50 years, it seems like the most *realistic* long-term evolution of this conflict is for Israel to continue grabbing more territory in the west bank, continuing to increase this military presence both there and in Gaza, and just generally expelling the locals and engulfing the territory piecemeal until there's nothing left.
This is why I don't follow the news on this conflict. Because I don't see another plausible long-term trajectory, and the likely trajectory is just a slow motion train wreck happening over decades.
“I suppose there’s also the idea of Israel expelling the Palestinians and annexing the West Bank and Gaza, but I don’t see anyone advocating this one, so I’ll skip it.”
C’mon man. Ben-Gurion himself advocated for the transfer of Palestinians to Jordan and out of Israel and there is a whole political party which has seats in the parliament that supports this policy.
Some of the parties, including Religious Zionism and Jewish Power, want to formally annex parts or all of the West Bank and expel (or kill) Palestinians who resist.
I mean, did you want me to seriously consider the option of ethnic-cleansing the Palestinians?
It's bad.
There, hope that clears that up... ;-)
Noah - I don't think it's helpful to get snippy and defensive. The rest of the article is good but its clearly wrong to claim that nobody is suggesting the Palestinians are expelled from Palestine, and articles shouldn't include mistakes. It would also have strengthened the article by giving you a chance to address the argument that Israel's 1967 aren't defensible because it would give militants too strong a vantage point for rocket attacks
Ben-Gurion died in 1973, man. As for those fringe parties calling for ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, I have never heard of them before or seen their ideas expressed, so I don't consider them a faction worth mentioning; for any fringe belief, no matter how psychotic, it is possible to find *someone* advocating it.
I stand by my decision to skip over a rebuttal of the idea that Palestinians should be ethnically cleansed. 😉
Im sorry this is disingenuous. You didn't skip over the idea that Israelis being ethically cleansed. You are presenting a skewed view of the debate. It's okay to have missed it given it doesn't come up as much in the American debate, but now that people have told you that some people do hold the view in Israel, you should edit the article
Not to be snippy and defensive, but I think my statement that ethnic cleansing is both immoral and unrealistic covers this idea as well. 😉
And notice that I said "I don’t see anyone advocating this one". That's not a mistake; it's the simple truth. I can't be expected to have read the ideas of every fringe movement in the world. I'm sure that for any crazy idea, someone out there believes in it, but not all of these crazy ideas are prominent enough to rebut.
In this case, the arguments I made against ethnic cleansing are already perfectly sufficient to rebut the idea of ethnic-cleansing the Palestinians; no new arguments need to be added there. So I see the demands that I rebut this additional idea of ethnic cleansing as unreasonable.
If you think that's disingenuous on my part, go ahead. And if you think me calmly pointing out why I made the rhetorical choices I made is "snippy and defensive", go ahead. But what's really going on here is that you felt that my explicit rebuttal of one side's ethnic cleansing ideas and not the other's created a pro-Israel slant in my rhetoric, and that angered you.
Those parties have 7 and 6 seats in parliament.
Okay but that last thing is a really dumb argument, you don't get to annex your neighbors because they're at a higher elevation? Like, I'm sure Italy would be more defensible if they annexed the Italian speaking Cantons of Switzerland but that's not how the Westphalian system works.
I'm not saying its a valid argument. But it is *the* argument that gives Israelis pause about giving up the occupied territories
But international relations don't work like a civilized society with police and punishment. That's exactly how people did behave (as you would) back in the day when might made right. Especially when you'd in fact been attacked that way before by the current allies of that neighbor.
Tho there are reasonable fixes such as allowing Israel a certain kind of defense access or getting Europeans and Americans to do it.
Of course you don’t, because you are a decent human being, Noah.
I hope so, anyway. :-)
Yeah that was a weird aside in the article. It's absolutely a desire of the Israeli right.
Yeah, anyone who hasn’t seen this rhetoric has never talked to like any reasonably conservative Israeli (the kind that calls the West Bank Judea and Samaria etc.). The mental gymnastics they do to explain how this could be done without letting any of the people who live there vote in Israeli elections are truly a sight to behold (because of course if they’re talking to an American they won’t say the “we want to kill them all” part out loud).
You are right. Ethnic cleansing is indeed a policy supported by a minority of Israelis.
It's supported by a majority of Palestinians, though.
Don't put too much stock in public opinion polls. Large Palestinian majorities supported Oslo and a two state solution in the 1990's, but when the process failed to end the occupation, they have soured on it. What they tell pollsters now is mostly wish fulfillment and venting. Oslo was supposed to lead to a final status within five years, instead they got 30 more years of occupation and a tripling of settlements. If Israel was ever serious about peace with the Palestinians why did it never stop building settlements?
Actions speak louder than polls. When huge crowds of Arabs are dancing in the streets because 1000 Jews are dead, I don't need a poll to determine that they are people beset with evil.
Of course there is history between these groups. But that doesn't change a simple reality that one group of people is praising their god for helping them kill a thousand Jews, cheering when they see half naked Jewish women's bodies paraded around town. There is only one legitimate response to that kind of enemy.
Are there good people in the West Bank? Of course. And they need to leave. Because the wrath of Israel is about to come down on that place. To survive, Israel must rapidly re-establish its deterrence. This is a part of the world that does not tolerate weakness.
I found this bit in the article jarring because the restoration of Judea and Samaria is such a clear rhetorical parallel to “from the river to the sea.” If you talk to settlers and right wingers in Israel, or evangelicals in the US, the former comes up A LOT.
It's interesting that it takes being a hyper-leftist (apparently) to acknowledge what the Israeli right is openly saying themselves.
I suppose so. I think my take on politics is pretty close to George Orwell’s but maybe he is a hyper-leftist too.
“To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.”
I think I feel similarly! Kind of a recovering activist, and much more critical of "the left" than I was years ago. Re: Ben-Gurion, I'm pretty ignorant, but Wikipedia said he envisioned full rights for Palestinian / Arab citizens of Israel, and was a little sympathetic as to why they would only view incoming Jews as land thieves. How would you compare or contrast his views to Bibi's?
In Rabin's memoir he recounts being ordered by Ben-Gurion to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian towns of Lydda and Ramle that had just been seized by Israeli forces. 50,000 people were forced from their homes at gunpoint.
I don’t know. Ben-Gurion is a complicated figure and a realist, so he evolved in his thinking. Bibi too.
Read Homage to Catalonia and Down and Out in Paris and London it you have not. Orwell is a lot more than just 1984 and Animal Farm. To Shoot An Elephant is outstanding and a brief read as well as The Politics of The English Language of course.
Any recommendations?
"Notes on Nationalism" is excellent. https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/
Don’t forget his wonderful fiction. Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Coming up for Air and The Clergyman’s daughter are superb studies of nostalgia, repression and political and social naïveté.
He obviously meant at the current time and within a certain implied community with a minimum degree of support. I bet if you asked a grand wizard of the KKK they'd have some out there ideas and if you go back to the 1940s people would have all sorts of ideas that are beyond the pale now.
This is true but by the same token the Arabs (barely Palestinian then) never had any intention of allowing for a Jewish presence either. Despite all land acquisitions before 1948 being done entirely legally and without force.
Jewish purchase of land before 1947 made up 7% of Palestine. You don't get to create your own country just cause you bought some land. If Palestine had been allowed to be a free country after WW1 instead of a British colony, they would have controlled their own borders, and probably looked poorly on a group of European Jews who wanted to migrate and create their own country. If there had been a vote of all the residents of Palestine in 1947, partition would have been voted down. Zionism is premised on the notion that Palestinians don't count as real human beings with rights to self-determination.
Regardless, what's done is done, at this point the only solution is two/three states and a return to the 1967 borders and a complete removal of the settlers on the West Bank. The rest is wishful thinking.
"If there had been a vote of all the residents of Palestine in 1947, partition would have been voted down." And? The fact is that Ottoman, Arab, and British authorities (the actual colonial powers) allowed for sizable Jewish immigration, and both sides desired national liberation. The fact that the Arab residents would have opposed it I find no more consequential than the fact that much of the US South would have supported Jim Crow.
It was Britain that opened the door to significant Jewish immigration. The Ottomans allowed a very few in but before 1914 there was minimal Jewish presence. Palestine was never governed by an Arab authority so not sure what you mean.
British guns made large scale European Jewish immigration to Palestine possible.
I'm not sure what your point is. Are you asking me to sympathize with Arab subjugation and xenophobia towards Jews?
Not at all, just to recognize that historically the Palestinians were screwed over and never given the right to self-determination. Outsiders with guns did this to them.
Agree with your conclusions though. 2/3 states seems like the only feasible solution.
Jordan is not interested in them. They already fought one civil war with internal Palestinians in the 1970s.
This was not discussed as a possibility in the essay but one likely outcome for the West Bank is a gradual displacement of the poorer and less powerful Palestinians in the West Bank by more powerful and wealthier Israelis. Not so much ethic cleansing but gentrification.
Israelis are not moving into Palestinian towns and cities. They have their own seperate settlements with its own road network etc. Apartheid not gentrification is what is happening.
That’s just the status quo.
Which is what will happen but over decades
Well, I admire you for giving this a try.
Ireland tells us that there can be peace between Israelis and Palestinians; it also tells us that peace will be enormously difficult.
Dublin is no longer a base for terrorism against England, despite literal centuries of smugly oppressive English rule. But intermixed Northern Ireland is still barely resisting the abyss, and if sponsoring Irish paramilitaries was still popular in America's Irish communities I'm sure Ulster would be bloody still.
So Ireland gives me hope for the Palestinians and Israel, but that hope is narrow. As long as ambitious men in Gaza can win leadership by killing Israelis, and as long as foreign countries have money to send to help them do it, Gaza will be a base for anti-Israel terrorism. And so long as there is terrorism, there will be violence from Israel against Gaza, whether Gaza is a state or not. (Unless we're fantasizing a true independent powerful peacekeeping force into existence -- and then you might as well wish for a pony.) But that violence by Israel against the terrorists itself kills plenty of civilians -- and so fertilizes the appeal of future terrorism.
I know the problem is solvable, because Ireland exists, and prospers. Dublin is a wonderful place these days, and on many scales the Irish are doing better than Britain. Irish better off than English! Just think how that would croggle the old English elites, who took Irish backwardness as much for granted as an eastern sunrise. The hatreds in Ireland were if anything more deeply founded; there was money in America in plenty to sponsor violence; and yet look at Dublin today, and you can see peace and prosperity laughing in triumph over supposed endless hate.
But I don't see how to get from Gaza to Dublin. I fear it will take generations.
I suspect that one reason the Good Friday Agreement worked as well as it has is that it didn't require the Irish to say "We recognize Northern Ireland's right to exist as a British entity." To accept it not only pragmatically, but morally. Since Israel came into existence--could only have come into existence--by taking it from the people who were living there, the "right to exist" thing means that they're required to say "You had the right to take our homes." Not accept pragmatically that they're stuck with Israel, not even accept that the Jews did what they did under such terrible circumstances that they deserve a break. No, nothing short of "You had the right to fuck us over." That's just wrong.
It literally did -- Ireland amended its constitution to remove an irredentist claim to the whole island as part of the agreement
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteenth_Amendment_of_the_Constitution_of_Ireland
The Jews in Palestine in 1948 were all people who “lived there”; they’d been immigrating legally to the region since at least the 1880s; and the Arab militias attacked them, not the other way round. The Palestinian Arabs had rejected two advantageous divisions of territory, at a time when former provinces of the empires that lost WWI were routinely being divided up into nation states along ethnic lines. It’s simply inaccurate to say “the Israelis came over and took the land off the people who were living there.” Would you characterise legal immigration to your own country in such a fashion? (And I know I’ve left out plenty the Israeli side did that was wrong; I’m sure you’re well aware of all of it, but it doesn’t bear on this question of calling the entire state of Israel “stolen land.”)
The Peel Commission recommended a majority of the land go to the Arabs. It also proposed that the Jewish area pay a long term financial subvention to the Arabs, and that the British fund large scale infrastructure investments in the Arab area, mainly for irrigation. Now, you can believe that the Jews were entitled to less, or that they were entitled to nothing at all. But this arrangement is certainly an advantageous one compared to what actually transpired (as indeed is the later, UN-backed proposal).
Two thirds of the population assigned 45% of Palestine? Maybe not as "advantageous" as you make it out to be.
From Gaza to Dublin. Great name for a song.
Two philosophically different cultures. However, I like to subscribe the this optimism one day.
Yes, a 3 state solution may be best, though that means Egypt allowing meaningful trade with Gaza. However, coming up with a good solution isn't the sticking point.
I think a huge sticking point is that it's not in the interests of the leadership of either HAMAS or the PLO for a permanent settlement deal to go through. If these regions turn into functioning states their corrupt grip on power and prestige is put at risk. Or, less cynically, they rose to these positions because they made crusading against Israel their life's work and agreeing to a permanent compromise (which inevitably leaves both sides unhappy) will be very hard for them to do. Not to mention that many people who don't live there but support these groups and give them prestige and support don't want to see a compromise deal (either for selfish reasons or because it's easy to say you won't settle for less than you think you deserve when you aren't the one suffering).
Unfortunately, no one else can become a legitimate voice for the residents in Gaza w/o HAMAS allowing it.
This is a hugely overlooked point. Yassar Arafat was offered everything at Camp David in the 90's. He refused to sign on the dotted line. Because it's a lot more useful to be a terrorist leader who can complain about "the occupation" than it is to actually have to govern.
But for HAMAS and the destabilizing funding from places like Iran perhaps you could just do a gradual devolution with more powers and freedoms being devolved to these regions.
That seems like a workable solution for the west bank. The PLO leadership doesn't suddenly lose their cover for having election irregularities and corruption problems and things can just slowly head in the right direction with more powers/freedoms devolving w/o an explicit final deal.
Unfortunately, it seems like the leadership of HAMAS has a strong incentive not to let that happen and I don't see a way around that.
“The easiest industry to spin up would simply be tourism — Gaza has a lot of nice beaches, plenty of historical sites, etc.” Generally, Islamist run governments aren’t known for or too tolerant of beach resorts.
Yea this was a major fail by Noah. Westerners aren’t going to visit Gaza for the beaches and those from the MENA region can go to Turkey or Lebanon.
People go to the beaches in Lebanon, and guess who runs Lebanon!
Lebanon, the Maldives, Indonesia, Jordan, and Egypt all have internationally renowned beach resorts. Majority Muslim countries do not automatically equate with Islamist (not Islamic) governments. Gaza is Islamist. Lebanon is not Islamist. Sayyid Qutb lays out these concepts very clearly in Milestones and his beliefs of why secularism is incompatible with Islam. Muslim Brotherhood aligned movements, including Hamas, are founded on these principles and do not tolerate Ottoman-style pluralism. Gender-mixed beach resorts with immodest dress and alcohol are simply incompatible under Islamist governments.
Islamist narrowly won one election in Gaza 17 years ago. Islamists won in Egypt more recently than that. Gaza isn't going to gain independence with Hamas in power. Maybe the next Gaza government will also be Islamist but we shouldn't automatically assume that.
I would even say this scenario only happens with Hamas either becoming a less hardcore organization or being replaced altogether
Before critiquing, I commend you for taking a run at this.
One of the issues I have is that I cannot see Gaza being other than an economic basket case. For a whole lot of reasons, I can't see the hypothetical Gazan state taking the Bangladesh route out of poverty.
To tourism specifically:
1) Not sure how many non-Lebanese/Syrian tourists actually visit, beaches or elsewhere. Unlike Gaza, Lebanon has a reasonably wealthy diaspora. That applies to remittances too. Pre-2011 (Syrian Civil War startup) tourism to Lebanon did indeed appear to get a fair number of people from the First World.
2) The main services in Lebanon over the last couple of decades have not been tourism, although if you apply a low pass filter with say a five year time constant, tourism does appear to be growing faster than most other service sectors.
3) Who _does_ run Lebanon? Until a few years ago, the answer was sort of "Syria". Hezbollah is certainly a political power there (gained three seats in the 2022 elections) but does not AFAIK run the local government in the tourist parts.
The biggest tourist industry for Lebanon is indeed the Lebanese diaspora. But Beirut still brings in a lot of westerners too.
And sure, an Islamist Gaza would be poor and angry. Their beaches unused. That's still better than the status quo.
Palestine being such a cause celebre would probably bring flocks of Europeans that want to show solidarity or whatever for the first year or two and then after that who knows, it could become a nice destination that draws people
Hezbollah has a great deal of influence, but they don’t completely run Lebanon the way Hamas runs Gaza.
I'm thinking of how the Maldives solved the "sunbathing and Sharia don't mix" problem by having the locals and tourists on separate islands, although that solution obviously only works for archipelagos.
Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt, too. All the beaches and booze you could want, far from the locals. I'd go there long before I went to the beach at Gaza.
Egypt doesn't have the Sharia as the state law though, while the Maldives do (for the locals).
One thing to add is that at some point the international community has to get tougher on this absurd spectacle of millions of people having lived their entire lives in refugee camps. The camps should be dismantled, people given homes in Gaza/West Bank or elsewhere. Israel could even pay some of the costs. But right to return isn't happening
The camps exist because Arab states oppose normalization and refuse to make the people in them citizens.
Correct. Someone born in Lebanon. Their parents born in Lebanon. Is still counted as a Palestinian refugee.
My family was murdered in Poland/Ukraine and the few survivors re-established in the USA. I am still waiting for the EU to recognize my citizenship.
What about the 2 million Palestinians in Gaza and the 2.5 million in the West Bank? What country should they belong to?
I wonder if one reason why Gazans tend to be more extremist than West Bankers is because they became stateless in 1948 (they were never Egyptian citizens) while West Bankers were Jordanian citizens prior to 1967?
Those aren't refugees. There are some from Green Line Israel who are but it's pretty unique to have that status inherit.
Anyone who thinks that Arab/Muslim countries actually care about the Palestinians (or Uyghurs or Rohingya) instead of using them as props or distractions is deluded.
So Palestinians ethnically cleansed by Israel, and it is Morocco's fault? Don't follow the logic.
Yes. Why i said the international community needs to call time on this farce
Or maybe the international community needs to destroy the countries, princes, mullahs, etc that support terrorists?
This sounds about right. But I do think that Israel is unlikely to give up the Jordan Valley anytime soon, let alone evacuate the farthest out settlements. Legitimate security concerns exist if the West Bank is given up, although this in no way justified population transfers of settlers into that area.
As Benny Morris said on his recent podcast with Coleman Hughes, the West Bank population would be extremely likely to vote Hamas into power, who would then set up their missle shops on that territory. (As a side note, this is a good reason for Israel to absolutely decimate Hamas now.)
> Legitimate security concerns exist if the West Bank is given up
But this was going to be a concern in a 2 state solution as well, right?
The whole idea was that the Palestinians deserve to have their own state, even if it's run by crazy fundamentalist islamist lunatics. Once they get their state, it's up to them what they do with it. If they start shooting rockets into Israel, they will be the aggressor, Israel will be completely in the right to shoot back, and the Palestinians will get no sympathy in the international community like they are getting now as oppressed peoples.
You might remember that Israel withdrew from Gaza and let the Palestinians be responsible for it.
Now everyone associated with Hamas must die. Whether in Gaza, Lebanon, Qatar, Iran, Syria, West Bank, etc. quarter. I’d call it the “rave treatment” except Hamas are armed terrorists rather than partying civilians. Maybe just call it justice.
Israel did not recognize Gaza as an independent state. They remained the sovereign power and imposed a harsh blockade. Gaza has no airport or seaport. It is entirely cut off from the rest of the world and is functionally a giant open air prison. Noah is suggesting that Gaza actually be allowed to function free from Israeli control.
No- Israel does not recognize itself as the sovereign power. Read the legislation passed by Sharon,
As for the varying degrees of blockade over the past 20ish years, that is the path Hamas chose, not what Israel hoped would be needed.
For instance, up until last week 25,000 Gazans were crossing the border each day to work in Israel.
Gaza's government isn't interested in an independent state. They're interested in importing arms from Iran and killing Israelis.
Gaza is ruled by a gang of thugs, I wouldn't call it a government. Hamas has done tremendous harm to the Palestinians, and this latest episode just adds to their legacy of terror and stupidity. I have nothing positive to say about Hamas.
Agree conditions in Gaza are terrible and now will get much worse
Wouldn’t that result in the West Bank being fully landlocked by Israel? That obviously doesn’t work (also the idea that they simply must control some area or another has never made any sense, that’s not the way this works anywhere else, you start with borders and you make security work given those borders).
Why wouldn't it work? There are lots of landlocked states.
I'm not sure it obviously doesn't work anymore than anything else. Perhaps the Jordan Valley security corridor could be phased out over time.
Isn’t the intractable problem that there are so any darn Israeli settlers already in the Palestinian territories, too many to be displaced and many ideologically driven to remain where they are not wanted, with the substantial support of conservative Israelis in Israel?
That's the left wing position, sure.
But that's nonsense. Palestinians have NEVER EVER suggested that dismantling the settlements would be the end to hostilities. It's one among a list of many demands, and not even #1.
I'm not a fan of the settlers, but I don't think it remotely justifies Palestinian terrorism against non-settler civilians. There are no settlers in Gaza.
Go read up about "right of return"...
I don't know about this from the local perspective, but to me the main point about the settlements is that the US has been telling Israel to stop expansion for decades and they continually thumb their noses at us but then expect our support. That's not how being the junior partner in a relationship with a superpower is supposed to work and the fact that the US just stands for it and continues to supply unconditional support is embarrassing and makes us look weak. It's probably hurt our ability to act not just in the region but all over the world.
Agree.
George W Bush actually halted aid money to Israel at one point, demanding a settlement freeze. On the other hand, Trump was the first president to abandon the traditional anti-settlement position in the US. Trump officially adopted the right-wing Israeli view that settlements are not illegal because the West Bank isn't "occupied territory". Rather, they argue that it is "disputed territory".
On a purely technical level, Trump and Israel's rightists are not really wrong. There was never a Palestinian state in the West Bank. The sequence of powers controlling that piece of land is Ottoman -> Britain -> Jordanian -> Israeli. Jordan relinquished her claim to the West Bank years ago. Israel can't really be occupying land in a non-state. International law is not as simple as the Pro-Palestine camp always thinks it is.
Israel should not be expanding settlements (or at least not build new ones) because that is the right thing to do. You are right that their continued building has been an embarrassment to Israel and the US. I think you need to also understand though that, at least in recent years, it was Trump that gave crucial support to the right-wing Israeli settler movement. So it's hard to blame Israel there, when our own government empowered the Israeli right against their peacenik opponents.
Finally, you should understand that Israelis absolutely expect to dismantle settlements as part of a peace deal. They did that in Gaza during disengagement. WB settlements are much more populous so it will be much more difficult, but they expect to do it. There are questions about how many will be dismantled, but there is no question some will be. A lot of the settlers themselves are pretty extreme and will fight the IDF to remain in them. If/when an Israel-Palestine peace comes, there will be Jews fighting Jews over the settlements. Ehud Barak (the last Israeli PM to engage deeply in the peace process) was very explicit that the deal would almost certainly lead to Jews killing Jews as the price for peace with the Palestinians.
You should think about the settlers as a one-issue special interest group that, although a minority in Israel, is able to get traction on their specific issue. It's not "Israel's" commited policy position anymore than terrorism is the Palestinians. These are two different extremist groups that achieve their ends despite protest from their fellow nationals and the destructive consequences for all. It's easier to see the evil on the other side..
I am not the most knowledgeable about the conflict, but my
only point is that the proposed 3 state solution would involve repatriating those settlers (or somehow convincing the new state to accept them as permanent residents or citizens). It seems
non- trivial unless I’m mistaken
The generally agreed-upon framework is that the settlements that are close to Israel proper will be part of Israel, with different land from Israel proper given to the Palestinian state as compensation. The furthest out settlements, or those surrounded by Palestinian populations, would need to be dismantled.
There was a time when more moderate Israelis supported settlements as a way to non-violently put pressure on the Palestinians to seek peace. That hasn't worked and the mainstream has dropped the concept. The right sees the settlement as a means of blocking a Palestinian state. So in that sense, they are quite a dangerous, ongoing, development.
Just as I am sympathetic to Palestinians despite their sometimes going terrorist, I am also sympathetic to Israeli's on this issue. Do not forget that, when Israel came to control the West Bank and Gaza, in 1967, she agreed to give these territories back immediately for a peace deal, as part of a UN resolution. The Palestinians and Arabs flatly rejected this. No dealing with Israel. They were not satisfied with a Palestinian state in the WB and Gaza. It had to be "from the river to the sea", i.e. no Israel. These are facts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_242
So, given the reality of being surrounded by hostile enemies that would not seek peace, Israel took actions to gain leverage and secure her lands, including establishing settlements. People need to wrap their head around Israel needing to do nasty things to survive. Again, I don't support this policy, but I understand why their pursuing is complicated an not just simple "evil".
Aside: Imagine (especially as a Canadian) that Alaska was still a Russian territory. Hoo boy. Might encourage us to support our military better eh.
This is an amazing often overlooked fact that I just listened/learned about recently (podcast attached - overall a great podcast BTW) - includes the Russian colony in California! Imagine that. https://spotify.link/AMjRKVUXKDb
Why is it ethnic cleansing to remove Israeli settlers from illegal West Bank settlements?
It might not be viable for many reasons, but I was confused about your language there. You used “ethnic cleansing” in reference to removing Israelis from the internationally recognized borders of Israel, which makes sense.
But why would it be ethnic cleansing to expel illegal settlements, and not an appropriate use of state force?
Any mass forced relocation of population based on ethnic, racial, or religious grounds is ethnic cleansing.
Thanks for the reply!
I’d think that the removal would be on the basis that a number of these settlements are violations of the Oslo Accords.
If an enclave of Russians or Canadians took up in Alaska, it wouldn’t be ethnic cleansing to remove them. Their relocation would be in accordance with agreed upon borders.
Finally, you still might think it’s fair to characterize removal of Israeli settlers as ethnic cleaning. But doesn’t this definition imply that these settlers are ethnic cleansing Palestinians? If so, why should we prefer the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians?
I always wonder what would happen if a bunch of fundamentalist Mormons showed up and started building houses in a reservation somewhere in Utah because Bringham Young told them that all of Utah was supposed to be theirs or something. We would just throw them all in prison right? Like that's not even a hard call?
Noah, thank you for an excellent write up as usual. As a liberal, longtime follower, I've been waiting to hear your thoughts on this conflict.
First, I feel that merely by acknowledging the openly genocidal tendencies of the Palestinians you're being more fair than almost anyone in our political side of the map in the US. Thank you for that.
In regards to the three state solution: the only problem is that it is not a solution. It won't prevent recurring wars because each of the three nations would be so small that any military presence in the others would be a dire threat. The capitals, and most major population centers, of each of them, are always within missile range of the others, and an armored vehicle that breaks from the border can reach almost anywhere in the invaded territory in say an hour. This isn't a sustainable situation. So what you'll get is Israel, currently the strongest military, squashing it's neighbors whenever they try to build military force - especially after the current war, that taught Israel an extremely painful lesson about allowing your rival to build out their strength. Any actual solution must involve strong international security guarantees - from the UN and neighboring Arab countries.
Israeli blood sure is cheap to you, Noah.
You know full well that Palestinians are in a long-term genocidal war against Israel, backed by foreign powers. Israel should enable that, though.
Israel's contribution to peace at present is *not* ethnically cleansing the Palestinians. What is the Palestinian's contribution?
Why should the Palestinians not unilaterally stop awarding terrorists or acquiring missile systems to attack Israel?
I have a hard time seeing Gaza as a viable state. 2.3 million people in an area smaller than some Texas ranches. No economy to speak of. No functional government. A neighbor that's its mortal enemy and that certainly (and understandably) isn't going to let Gaza form any sort of military force.
Yes, Palestinians need to clean up their house, run elections, etc.
It's viable if they want it to be. Look at Singapore.
Gaza doesn't occupy a strategic maritime chokepoint like Singapore does.
It has a government. Unfortunately it wants to impoverish the Gazans it doesn’t get killed
Hi Noah
Check this out
https://www.rand.org/multimedia/video/2008/08/26/the_arc.html
Thanks!
An independent West Bank could presumably access seaborne trade via Jordan's port of Aqaba on the Red Sea. Israel wouldn't want Palestinian trucks carrying goods to their ports for export (too much risk of truck bombs), but I can't think of any reason the Jordanians would have a problem with them.
"If you have a better idea that doesn’t involve massive ethnic cleansing or unrealistic assumptions about Israelis and Palestinians joining together as one people, I’d love to hear it."
I don't think it's "better" by any stretch, but based on the direction things have been moving for the last ~50 years, it seems like the most *realistic* long-term evolution of this conflict is for Israel to continue grabbing more territory in the west bank, continuing to increase this military presence both there and in Gaza, and just generally expelling the locals and engulfing the territory piecemeal until there's nothing left.
This is why I don't follow the news on this conflict. Because I don't see another plausible long-term trajectory, and the likely trajectory is just a slow motion train wreck happening over decades.