The Anti-Semitic Left Remains Alive and Well

[Former President tack50]

I will say this, if for some reason you think the establishment of a Jewish state should have been prevented, the moment to act was probably some time in the early 20th century, before even WW1 (let alone the Holocaust and WW2).

Nowadays, the Israel-Palestine issue is an almost impossible one to solve. I can't think of any solution that would make everyone happy and fulfill the requirements of both sides. Trying to think of some ideas:

a) A 2 state solution that makes Israel a Jewish/ Israeli state and Palestine a Palestinian state. This should have been done back in 1970 or so, but the settlements now make it impossible. It would require ethic cleansing and/or lots of border changes so it's an easy no go. In practice this proposal might look a bit like the Lieberman Plan.

b) A 2 state solution or loose EU-like confederation under current borders that avoids any sort of ethnic cleansing. Of course this is easier said than done. Israel has a decent track record with its Arab minority (ie no terrorism or genocide), but would the reverse be true of an independent Palestine with a Jewish minority?

c) A 1 (federal) state solution. This looks a lot like modern day Bosnia or Lebanon, both very dysfunctional countries. Even the "ideal, rainbows and sunshine" version looks like Belgium or Northern Ireland at best. So you know what this means, powersharing, lots of compromises, a dysfunctional country, etc.

This also might require Israel dropping the "Jewish state" slogan (I don't think Bosnia markets itself as the Bosniak state), becoming some sort of bi-national state. Since it's a 1 state solution you can also get away with border gore, keeping all the Israeli settlements inside the Jewish half of the state (again, look at the borders of the Republika Srpska, though even that would probably look tame compared to the final outcome of this)

Worth noting that under C you could theoretically keep a Jewish majority state if you leave Gaza out of it (so settlement-free Gaza becomes independent while the West Bank does not). However the Jewish minority would be extremely slim (iirc something like 51-49).

I imagine b would be extremely unlikely. A requires ethnic cleansing so again a no go. C might be the most likely but even then it is remote. It is fairly clear to everyone that the status quo is not morally right, but the alternatives are either worse (a; requiring ethnic cleansing in the year 2019!) or politically unfeasable (b or c).

Either way, back on topic there are definitely antisemites on the left just like there are on the right. Critizising Israel by itself does not make you an antisemite though, but most (all?) left wing antisemites are also Israel critics.

[Former President tack50]

Speaking of the so-called "right to return", how many Palestinians would actually make use of that? I wonder if the numbers would be a lot smaller than we think considering the large amount of time that has passed (and yes, half a century is an extremely long time)

You could make a comparison with the Germans living in current Western Poland or the Czech Republic, who were expelled from those territories after WW2 for the most part. In 2004, so "only" 59 years after the end of WW2, Poland and the Czech Republic (and much of Eastern Europe) entered the EU.

Among the consequences of that was essencially the establishment of literal open borders between those countries and Germany. Yet there were no Germans moving en masse to Poland and the Czech Republic.

Granted, Israel is a richer country than wherever the Palestinians are currently located while that was not the case for Germany and Poland in 2004 (even for East Germany), but still. In the end economic and simply pragmatic concerns matter more than anything else I would argue.