Israel and Gaza

[Voronwë the Faithful]

But there's no good outcome for Israel that doesn't end in a two-state solution, no matter how many times people claim that outcome is impossible.

Both those who think the only state should be Israel, and those who think the only state should not be Israel.

[Túrin Turambar]

But there's no good outcome for Israel that doesn't end in a two-state solution, no matter how many times people claim that outcome is impossible.

I'm actually wondering whether a two-state solution is possible. I'm not persuaded that a state incorporating Gaza and the West Bank would be sustainable and function in the long-term.

I think that a three-state solution could be more stable in the long run - returning Gaza to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan and restoring the pre-1967 status quo. The Palestinians would be citizens of states with the same language and culture, the governments of Egypt and Jordan would be powerful enough to stop Hamas rocket attacks from their territories, and IDF would think twice before firing rockets into Egypt and Jordan. The challenges are that those Palestinians whose families are originally from Israel proper would need to abandon a right of return, and the Jewish settlers in the West Bank would need to either become Jordanian or return to Israel proper. Plus the West Bank is heavily-integrated with Israel in terms of infrastructure and the economy.

Another option is a one-and-a-half state solution. The West Bank is incorporated into Israel and its residents given Israeli citizenship, joining Israel's Arab-speaking minority. The Palestinians can return and the settlers can stay. The problem is that the Palestinians would remain a disadvantaged minority and would need some sort of measure to improve their social position, and something would need to be done with Gaza. And the Israeli right wouldn't like it one bit.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I moved the posts about the removed post to the thread in Henneth Annûn so that the discussion here is not interrupted.

[Beorhtnoth]

But is it really an existential war?

For Palestine and its prospects as a functioning state, yes. For Palestinians, as a recognised people, again yes.
The inhabitants who peopled the Levant prior to 1948, and their descendants, are having their existence erased.
This is but the latest chapter in a 50+ year war to remake Palestine as an exclusively Jewish homeland. Palestinian identity is under existential threat.
Yes, this is an existential war.

The voices of Israeli citizens of Palestinian origin are seldom heard.

Many Palestinian-owned businesses in the Old City were shut as part of a “day of anger” over the eight-day conflict. Support for the general strike was high in towns inside Israel.

Muhammad Barakeh, one of the strike organisers, said Palestinians were expressing a “collective position” against Israel’s “aggression” in Gaza and Jerusalem, as well as the “brutal repression” by police across Israel.

“This is the first time we’re seeing almost everyone participate in the strike,” Castro Othman, a resident of Tamra in northern Israel, told the Times of Israel. “We feel like we’re in an existential struggle.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... nd-strikes

[Beorhtnoth]

I wanted to repost this video here, because I believe it applies to Israel/Palestine. Sometimes, the obvious gets lost in the noise.

[N.E. Brigand]

But is it really an existential war?

For Palestine and its prospects as a functioning state, yes. For Palestinians, as a recognised people, again yes.
The inhabitants who peopled the Levant prior to 1948, and their descendants, are having their existence erased.
This is but the latest chapter in a 50+ year war to remake Palestine as an exclusively Jewish homeland. Palestinian identity is under existential threat.
Yes, this is an existential war.

The voices of Israeli citizens of Palestinian origin are seldom heard.

Many Palestinian-owned businesses in the Old City were shut as part of a “day of anger” over the eight-day conflict. Support for the general strike was high in towns inside Israel.

Muhammad Barakeh, one of the strike organisers, said Palestinians were expressing a “collective position” against Israel’s “aggression” in Gaza and Jerusalem, as well as the “brutal repression” by police across Israel.

“This is the first time we’re seeing almost everyone participate in the strike,” Castro Othman, a resident of Tamra in northern Israel, told the Times of Israel. “We feel like we’re in an existential struggle.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... nd-strikes

And not long ago, someone in real life told me that because his employer had not (yet) extended its support of the Black Lives Matter movement to include a full-throated apology for the company's past racist actions (which mostly amount to not hiring people of color in a proportion that reflects the ethnic breakdown of the city where it's located), he felt like he was being put back in chains.

Just because someone feels a certain way doesn't make it true.

There are four times as many Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank as there were in 1967. If Israel really has been trying to end Palestinian existence, they've done a shoddy job at it.

Which doesn't mean that Israel hasn't behaved pretty horribly toward the Palestinians.

[Beorhtnoth]

And not long ago, someone in real life told me that because his employer had not (yet) extended its support of the Black Lives Matter movement to include a full-throated apology for the company's past racist actions (which mostly amount to not hiring people of color in a proportion that reflects the ethnic breakdown of the city where it's located), he felt like he was being put back in chains.

Just because someone feels a certain way doesn't make it true.

There are four times as many Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank as there were in 1967. If Israel really has been trying to end Palestinian existence, they've done a shoddy job at it.

Which doesn't mean that Israel hasn't behaved pretty horribly toward the Palestinians.

I think the rise of the ethno-nationalist Settler movement has changed what was whispered to what is shouted. The writing was on the wall for Israeli citizens of Palestinian origin with the implementation of the Nation State Law, which specifically stated only Israeli Jews had the right to self-determination.
I suggest Palestinians have been written out of history, and now they are being written out of the present.

My quote was from somebody describing their life as experienced now. I treat their commentary with the respect I think it deserves.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I think the rise of the ethno-nationalist Settler movement has changed what was whispered to what is shouted.

I strongly agree with this.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Cycling back to the question about how AOC and other progressive Democrats are responding.



Even some of the strongest Democrat supporters of Israel in Congress such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler have at least made some effort to break with Biden on the conflict.

I still am doubtful that it will influence Biden that much. I think he thinks he can "negotiate" with Netanyahu and influence him incrementally.

He is, in my opinion, wrong.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Whether because of pressure from progressives in his party or not, it appears that Biden is losing patience with Netanyahu.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/19/politics ... index.html

And yet I still don't think it is going to make any significant difference.

[Alatar]

This is hard to watch. But it needs to be seen.

https://www.independent.ie/videos/pales ... 44051.html

Not graphic, but very heartbreaking.

[Sunsilver]

Breaking news: Israel approves unilateral cease-fire: https://apnews.com/article/israel-pales ... gzjc5ignxc

Israel on Thursday announced a cease-fire in the bruising 11-day war against Hamas militants that caused widespread destruction in the Gaza Strip and brought life in much of Israel to a standstill.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced the cease-fire after a late-night meeting of his Security Cabinet. It said the group had unanimously accepted an Egyptian proposal, though the sides were still determining exactly when it was to take effect.

Senior defense officials, including the military chief of staff and national security adviser, recommended accepting the proposal after claiming “great accomplishments” in the operation, the statement said.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz wrote on Twitter that “the reality in the field will determine the continuation of operations.”

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Whether because of pressure from progressives in his party or not, it appears that Biden is losing patience with Netanyahu.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/19/politics ... index.html

And yet I still don't think it is going to make any significant difference.

Or maybe it did. Netanyahu has now agreed to the ceasefire. We will see if it holds.

[Beorhtnoth]

Whether because of pressure from progressives in his party or not, it appears that Biden is losing patience with Netanyahu.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/19/politics ... index.html

And yet I still don't think it is going to make any significant difference.

Or maybe it did. Netanyahu has now agreed to the ceasefire. We will see if it holds.

You were right first time. Whether there is or isn't a ceasefire is immaterial. The persecution of Palestinians will continue unabated.

[N.E. Brigand]

Whether because of pressure from progressives in his party or not, it appears that Biden is losing patience with Netanyahu.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/19/politics ... index.html

And yet I still don't think it is going to make any significant difference.

Or maybe it did. Netanyahu has now agreed to the ceasefire. We will see if it holds.

You were right first time. Whether there is or isn't a ceasefire is immaterial. The persecution of Palestinians will continue unabated.

I doubt the families of the 248 Palestinians (and 11 Israelis) killed by aerial assault in the past two weeks think that it's immaterial whether or not they have rockets and bombs dropping on their heads.

(I have no idea whether the current ceasefire will hold. Last night I heard that in the last major Israel-Gaza conflict in 2014, there were ten ceasefires declared and then abandoned before the eleventh finally stuck, until now.)

[Beorhtnoth]

(I have no idea whether the current ceasefire will hold. Last night I heard that in the last major Israel-Gaza conflict in 2014, there were ten ceasefires declared and then abandoned before the eleventh finally stuck, until now.)

Not directed at you, NEB, but I genuinely despair at how this conflict is framed. Apparently, there was a ceasefire in 2014.
Tell that to Gaza, which has suffered regular attacks by Israel, throughout the intervening seven years.
And, ultimately, it will remain irrelevant until the narrative, of Israel's "right" as opposed to Palestinian "wrong", is changed.
As far as I can determine, Zionism is a racist ideology, its consequences are racist, and there will ever be a resistance to this racism from those who are victims.

There appears a simple decision for every observer to make.
Either endorse racism, and champion Zionism, or confront racism, and deplore Zionism.

I know that appears overly reductive, but I cannot see any merit for any argument to the contrary.

Zionism is inherently racist. It is predicated on the elevation of one group at the expense of another, purely on racist invocations.

I, genuinely, cannot fathom support for Zionism, knowing it requires the dispossession of a people purely on racial imperatives.

What am I missing?

[N.E. Brigand]

I can never forget this video, which I first saw eight years ago. The music, for those who don't know it, is Andy Williams's cover of the theme from the 1960 film Exodus, based on the Leon Uris book of the same name, which starred Paul Newman and Eva Marie-Saint in a story about the founding of modern Israel. (The screenplay was one of two that year by Dalton Trumbo -- the other was for Spartacus -- which were the first movies credited to his real name since he he was blacklisted and served a prison term for refusing to name names to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947.)



The animator's guide to the characters can be found here.

[Beorhtnoth]

I can never forget this video, which I first saw eight years ago. The music, for those who don't know it, is Andy Williams's cover of the theme from the 1960 film Exodus, based on the Leon Uris book of the same name, which starred Paul Newman and Eva Marie-Saint in a story about the founding of modern Israel. (The screenplay was one of two that year by Dalton Trumbo -- the other was for Spartacus -- which were the first movies credited to his real name since he he was blacklisted and served a prison term for refusing to name names to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947.)



The animator's guide to the characters can be found here.

Does it present the contrarian indigenous perspective, of those who were made "unhuman" to justify the sudden creation of a nation whose being required the Nakba?

I have seen few videos that portray the creation of Israel from the Palestinian perspective. Why do you think that is? My missing a catalogue of productions, or a video library that is skewed?

[N.E. Brigand]

I can never forget this video, which I first saw eight years ago. The music, for those who don't know it, is Andy Williams's cover of the theme from the 1960 film Exodus, based on the Leon Uris book of the same name, which starred Paul Newman and Eva Marie-Saint in a story about the founding of modern Israel. (The screenplay was one of two that year by Dalton Trumbo -- the other was for Spartacus -- which were the first movies credited to his real name since he he was blacklisted and served a prison term for refusing to name names to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947.)

The animator's guide to the characters can be found here.

Does it present the contrarian indigenous perspective, of those who were made "unhuman" to justify the sudden creation of a nation whose being required the Nakba?

Can you clarify what you mean by "indigenous"? And does "it" refer to Exodus or to this cartoon?

(Also I should note that the words to the song were written later. They aren't included in the 1960 movie.)

[Beorhtnoth]

N.E. you just asked me to define something that is indefinable...

But...

"indigenous" is like string length; how long?

However, I will use a utilitarian definition; indigenous describes those who have no recollection of living elsewhere, and whose forbears are not alien to the general locality.

I do not think Golda Meir was indigenous to Palestine.