The USA and Israel

[phyllo]

Nobody's said that.

You just said it's Israel's own land.

A two-state solution is fairest, and it's been offered multiple times...and every time, rejected, unfortunately, by one side.

It's been sabotaged by the Israelis as well. Let's not get too one-sided.

This from Dec 18, 2023 :

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday that he was “proud” to have prevented the establishment of a Palestinian state, putting him at odds with what for decades has been the United States’ policy priority for the region.

“I’m proud that I prevented the establishment of a Palestinian state because today everybody understands what that Palestinian state could have been, now that we’ve seen the little Palestinian state in Gaza,” Netanyahu said at a news conference.

He then talked about the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which he referred to using the biblical term “Judaea and Samaria.”

“Everyone understands what would have happened if we had capitulated to international pressures and enabled a state like that in Judaea and Samaria, surrounding Jerusalem and on the outskirts of Tel Aviv,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu also took aim at the Palestinian Authority, the governing authority in Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank. He described the Oslo Accords ― the 1993 diplomatic agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization that led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority ― as a “mistake,” and said he had “inherited” the agreements.

Reaction to Netanyahu’s remarks was swift.

“So all those promises to world leaders about his commitment to a 2 state solution were a bunch of lies,” Martin Indyk, the United States’ former ambassador to Israel, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “And all those enablers who swore Bibi was serious about peace have some [e]xplaining to do.”

The United States has for decades prioritized the “two-state solution,” which would involve the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state, facilitated by various land swaps and other concessions from both sides. U.S. President Joe Biden has repeatedly called for a two-state solution in recent months.

“As we strive for peace, Gaza and the West Bank should be reunited under a single governance structure, ultimately under a revitalized Palestinian Authority, as we all work toward a two-state solution,” Biden wrote in The Washington Post on Nov. 18.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) characterized Netanyahu’s comments as a “direct response” to Biden’s calls for a two-state solution.

“[Netanyahu] has continued to weaken the Palestinian Authority — this is the organization that recognized Israel’s right to exist decades and decades ago,” Van Hollen said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “Instead of trying to find peace or at least preventing the conditions on the ground from changing with additional settlements to allow a two-state solution, he has shut the door on that effort.”

Netanyahu has long tried to undercut the prospect of a two-state solution. Ahead of winning reelection in 2015, for example, he declared: “I think that anyone who is going to establish a Palestinian state today and evacuate lands is giving attack grounds to the radical Islam against the state of Israel.”

Netanyahu and others in Israel’s hard-right governing coalition have for years supported the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, a major obstacle to any peace talks. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis now live on land that might otherwise be considered part of a potential future Palestinian state. In 2019, Netanyahu claimed to have told then-President Donald Trump that he would not agree to evacuate “a single person” from Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Earlier this year, he reportedly said during a meeting with lawmakers that Israel needed to “crush” Palestinian ambition for an independent state.

Netanyahu’s remarks Saturday also came just hours after the Israeli military acknowledged killing three Israeli hostages who’d been held in Gaza. The New York Times noted that Netanyahu “appeared to be trying to change the subject.”

Since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that claimed the lives of some 1,200 Israelis and allowed Hamas and other Gazan militants to take some 240 hostages, Israel has killed nearly 20,000 Palestinians with air strikes and a ground invasion, according to Gaza health authorities. The military action has displaced millions of Palestinians within Gaza.

Following the Oct. 7 attacks, observers have noted Netanyahu and his allies’ occasional expressions of support over the years for Hamas, the governing party in the Gaza Strip. As prime minister, Netanyahu allowed millions of dollars to flow into Gaza, though he claimed Saturday that the money was used for humanitarian purposes and did not benefit Hamas.

In 2015, Bezalel Smotrich, who is now Israel’s far-right finance minister, said: “The Palestinian Authority is a burden, and Hamas is an asset.” Referring to Hamas, he pointed out that “no one will let it put forth a resolution at the U.N. Security Council.”

Netanyahu himself reportedly said in 2019 that “whoever opposes a Palestinian state must support the delivery of funds to Gaza, because maintaining separation between the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza will prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/benjamin ... 42c0bed60b

[Immanuel Can]

Nobody's said that.

You just said it's Israel's own land.

A two-state solution is fairest, and it's been offered multiple times...and every time, rejected, unfortunately, by one side.

It's been sabotaged by the Israelis as well.

Oh? When? When did the Israeli government shaft any such proposal? I'd be interested in that.

[henry quirk]

My efforts are in my control. The result is not.

Of course not. But you are making efforts, yes? You call and write your congress folk, yes? You've repeatedly contacted the White House, yes? You've written multiple letters to the editor, yes? You march for your side/against the other side, yes? Your name is on multiple petitions, yes? You vote in every election, yes? You engage friends and family in regular conversation for your side/against the other side, yes?

You are committed, yes?

[phyllo]

Nobody's said that.

You just said it's Israel's own land.

A two-state solution is fairest, and it's been offered multiple times...and every time, rejected, unfortunately, by one side.

It's been sabotaged by the Israelis as well.

Oh? When? When did the Israeli government shaft any such proposal? I'd be interested in that.

Netanyahu admits that he has prevented a two-state solution. I post the article.

And I get this absurd reply.

Wow.

You are something.

[Immanuel Can]

You just said it's Israel's own land.

It's been sabotaged by the Israelis as well.

Oh? When? When did the Israeli government shaft any such proposal? I'd be interested in that.

Netanyahu admits that he has prevented a two-state solution. I post the article.

I don't share your interpretation of the article. You seem surprised that Netanyahu doesn't want a hostile Islamic state established on his borders. Would you want a psychopath to move in next door to you? It's not even remotely surprising.

It's funny how all you say reverses itself when it comes to the Russians and Ukraine. You believe Russia did a terrible thing when it invaded and claimed the Crimea as its territory; and yet Hamas did a laudable thing when it invaded Israel and murdered its citizens. Russians claim historic injustice, and so does Hamas. Does Ukraine have a right to defend itself against aggression, but Israel not?

You might need to get your story straight before you try to claim some high ground.

[Age]

Oh? When? When did the Israeli government shaft any such proposal? I'd be interested in that.

Netanyahu admits that he has prevented a two-state solution. I post the article.

I don't share your interpretation of the article. You seem surprised that Netanyahu doesn't want a hostile Islamic state established on his borders. Would you want a psychopath to move in next door to you? It's not even remotely surprising.

It's funny how all you say reverses itself when it comes to the Russians and Ukraine. You believe Russia did a terrible thing when it invaded and claimed the Crimea as its territory; and yet Hamas did a laudable thing when it invaded Israel and murdered its citizens. Russians claim historic injustice, and so does Hamas. Does Ukraine have a right to defend itself against aggression, but Israel not?

You might need to get your story straight before you try to claim some high ground.

you are completely blinded here by your onesidedness "immanuel can".

The two wars started from completely different circumstances.

[bahman]

Israel occupied the land of Palestinians unjustly. Stop occupation so Hamas has nothing to blame.

Ah. So the Palestinians get carte blanche to murder, rape, kidnap, and shoot rockets because you don't want to acknowledge Israel returning to its own land?

I see.

OK, so Israel is responsible for people's loss of both sides, suffering...

[phyllo]

I don't share your interpretation of the article. You seem surprised that Netanyahu doesn't want a hostile Islamic state established on his borders. Would you want a psychopath to move in next door to you? It's not even remotely surprising.

I see what you did there.

Instead of simply admitting that the Israelis have been sabotaging a two-state solution, that the Palestinians were not always refusing to accept fair offers, you try to rationalize why the Israelis avoid and sabotage a two-state solution.

The rationalization is itself absurd since the the Israelis channel funds to Hamas and undermine the Palestinian Authority with the intention of having an excuse for rejecting a two-state solution.

[Immanuel Can]

Israel occupied the land of Palestinians unjustly. Stop occupation so Hamas has nothing to blame.

Ah. So the Palestinians get carte blanche to murder, rape, kidnap, and shoot rockets because you don't want to acknowledge Israel returning to its own land?

I see.

OK, so Israel is responsible for people's loss of both sides, suffering...

How do you get that?

[bahman]

Ah. So the Palestinians get carte blanche to murder, rape, kidnap, and shoot rockets because you don't want to acknowledge Israel returning to its own land?

I see.

OK, so Israel is responsible for people's loss of both sides, suffering...

How do you get that?

Occupation.

[Immanuel Can]

OK, so Israel is responsible for people's loss of both sides, suffering...

How do you get that?

Occupation.

I occupy my house. It's mine. I own it. I have every right to it.

What makes you say that people who verifiably lived on that Land since no less than 2,000 BC have no right to live on it anymore?

[bahman]

How do you get that?

Occupation.

I occupy my house. It's mine. I own it. I have every right to it.

But that place that you call home is a place that others call home. Don't you see the tension?

What makes you say that people who verifiably lived on that Land since no less than 2,000 BC have no right to live on it anymore?

According to history, both Arabs and Hebrews were living on that land. So the land belongs to both. Until Abraham comes with his nonsense putting Arabs and Hebrews in trouble!

[Immanuel Can]

Occupation.

I occupy my house. It's mine. I own it. I have every right to it.

But that place that you call home is a place that others call home. Don't you see the tension?

And yet, it really is MY home. And if they claim it, it's not theirs. I may agree to share some of it with them, but it's not theirs to claim.

What makes you say that people who verifiably lived on that Land since no less than 2,000 BC have no right to live on it anymore?

According to history, both Arabs and Hebrews were living on that land. So the land belongs to both.

Let's say that's all there is to it. (I don't believe that, but let me give that to you anyway.) Then the only thing that makes sense is a two-state solution, or else an amalgamated single state. The former has been repeatedly offered by the Israelis, and always rejected by the Palestinians. The latter has been tried in places like Jerusalem, but not by the whole nation...always, again, because the Palestinians want everything and the Muslims hate the Jews being there.

So let's say it belongs to both. Then it's the duty of the Muslims and Palestinians to grow up into that reality.

[bahman]

I occupy my house. It's mine. I own it. I have every right to it.

But that place that you call home is a place that others call home. Don't you see the tension?

And yet, it really is MY home. And if they claim it, it's not theirs. I may agree to share some of it with them, but it's not theirs to claim.

Based on what? How do you get the right to call other people home your home?

What makes you say that people who verifiably lived on that Land since no less than 2,000 BC have no right to live on it anymore?

According to history, both Arabs and Hebrews were living on that land. So the land belongs to both.

Let's say that's all there is to it. (I don't believe that, but let me give that to you anyway.) Then the only thing that makes sense is a two-state solution, or else an amalgamated single state. The former has been repeatedly offered by the Israelis, and always rejected by the Palestinians. The latter has been tried in places like Jerusalem, but not by the whole nation...always, again, because the Palestinians want everything and the Muslims hate the Jews being there.

So let's say it belongs to both. Then it's the duty of the Muslims and Palestinians to grow up into that reality.

Their land was confiscated by Jews. They want their land back.

[Immanuel Can]

But that place that you call home is a place that others call home. Don't you see the tension?

And yet, it really is MY home. And if they claim it, it's not theirs. I may agree to share some of it with them, but it's not theirs to claim.

Based on what?

Based on the fact that I own the title for it.

Their land was confiscated by Jews.

You can't say that Jews lived on the Land for 4,000 years, and also that they "confiscated" it. In point of historical fact, the whole idea of a "Palestinian" is relatively new -- the beginning of the 20th Century, really; although the Jews are more generous in their telling of the history, and freely acknowledge that precedents to the idea might exist as early as the 12th Century, among Aegean raiders coming to the coast. So by even the most generous accounts, the Palestinians are not the original residents, but newcomers.

As for the present history, the Palestinians were actually driven out by the Arabs in 1948, in their big push to eliminate Israel. The Palestinians, like other Arab Israelis who stayed, could have stood by Israel; but they fled, abandoning their homes...though many clearly hoped that they would shortly return, as soon as the other Arab neighbours had massacred all the Jews.

That didn't work out. By abandoning Israel, they abandoned their own homes, and have not gotten them back since. Do they deserve them back? Maybe. But if they do, it's got to be on a combined or two-state basis, not on the promise of eliminating the Jews.