Biden and the US stand alone against Palestinian statehood

[Libertas Vel Mors]

This is a great example of one reason why I am so extremely proud to be an American. This vote reminds me of the vote against declaring food a right, in that the US and Israel stood together both then and now against an evil but (in that body) popular cause for the benefit of humanity.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Good, terrorism shouldn’t be rewarded with statehood. They can wait longer until everyone understands terrorism isn’t acceptable.

Frankly, there should never be Palestinian statehood. Palestinians should accept equal rights under Israeli sovereignty, excluding Gaza, which can be an independent city-state after it promises not to attack Israel.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

This is a great example of one reason why I am so extremely proud to be an American. This vote reminds me of the vote against declaring food a right, in that the US and Israel stood together both then and now against an evil but (in that body) popular cause for the benefit of humanity.

How can you be against feeding people? That's just cartoonish.

I'm not against food, I'm against declaring something that isn't a right a right. People don't have a right to food produced by others, even if they're hungry.

Good, terrorism shouldn’t be rewarded with statehood. They can wait longer until everyone understands terrorism isn’t acceptable.

Frankly, there should never be Palestinian statehood. Palestinians should accept equal rights under Israeli sovereignty, excluding Gaza, which can be an independent city-state after it promises not to attack Israel.

Giving Palestinians in the West Bank full equal rights to Jews in Israel is more radical (in the sense of being closer to a one-state solution) than most Democratic elected officials, I’ll give you that.

Exactly. (This would also mean integrating Judea and Samaria into Israel.)

Frankly, there should never be Palestinian statehood. Palestinians should accept equal rights under Israeli sovereignty, excluding Gaza, which can be an independent city-state after it promises not to attack Israel.

So you're in support of a state, in which Palestinians are free, stretching from the river to the sea?

Well, no -- it shouldn't include Gaza, and thus wouldn't include the former territory of the full British mandate. But in a way, yes! Many pro-Palestinian activists seem to be unaware of the actual demographics on the ground (or favor genocide) because a simple merger of Judea and Samaria and Israel today would be easily majority Jewish. Even with Gaza included, I believe there would be a slight Jewish majority, actually.

Good, terrorism shouldn’t be rewarded with statehood. They can wait longer until everyone understands terrorism isn’t acceptable.

Frankly, there should never be Palestinian statehood. Palestinians should accept equal rights under Israeli sovereignty, excluding Gaza, which can be an independent city-state after it promises not to attack Israel.

Thankfully, the people of Palestine, and the rest of world, don't care for the opinions of some bloodthirsty teenager, and will continue the struggle for self-determination.

This is a great example of one reason why I am so extremely proud to be an American. This vote reminds me of the vote against declaring food a right, in that the US and Israel stood together both then and now against an evil but (in that body) popular cause for the benefit of humanity.

Astaghfirallah, do you even hear the nonsense coming out your mouth?

Probably they will. Luckily, the history of the last 127 years has tended to be far closer to that envisioned by Theodore Herzl than the Grand Mufti, so my dream of freedom and equality under the law will probably come true.

I'm not sure what that weird word you used means. But I don't think its nonsense at all: after all, there are many people I respect who do reject or would have rejected the idea that food is right, such as Milton Friedman, John Locke, and Thomas Jefferson. And I live in a country where our government voted in favor of my stance. As our mission to Geneva, rarely a source of moral wisdom, stated:

Domestically, the United States pursues policies that promote access to food, and it is our objective to achieve a world where everyone has adequate access to food, but we do not treat the right to food as an enforceable obligation.

https://geneva.usmission.gov/2017/03/24/u-s-explanation-of-vote-on-the-right-to-food/

[Libertas Vel Mors]

The idea that food-a basic need to sustain life-is not a right is emblematic of the insanity of Social Darwinism.

Huh? Why do you presume that because something is necessary to sustain life it is a right? Also, how can it be reflective of the inanity of social darwinism if the conception of natural rights not including food dates back centuries before that -- for example, to Locke?

[Libertas Vel Mors]

The idea that food-a basic need to sustain life-is not a right is emblematic of the insanity of Social Darwinism.

Huh? Why do you presume that because something is necessary to sustain life it is a right? Also, how can it be reflective of the inanity of social darwinism if the conception of natural rights not including food dates back centuries before that -- for example, to Locke?

This comes pretty close to implying that people don't have a right to life.

You should really read more political philosophy. In the Lockean conception, the right to life refers to the right not to have your life taken from you, not the right to be sustained in life. Thus, there is no contradiction between rejecting a right to food and believing in a right to life.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

The idea that food-a basic need to sustain life-is not a right is emblematic of the insanity of Social Darwinism.

Huh? Why do you presume that because something is necessary to sustain life it is a right? Also, how can it be reflective of the inanity of social darwinism if the conception of natural rights not including food dates back centuries before that -- for example, to Locke?

This comes pretty close to implying that people don't have a right to life.

You should really read more political philosophy. In the Lockean conception, the right to life refers to the right not to have life taken from you, not the right to be sustained in life. Thus, there is no contradiction between rejecting a right to food and believing in a right to life.

You're saying someone has a right to life, but not the right to sustain life.

You have the right to sustain your life with your own actions (ie, growing food on your own land, buying food, etc.) You don't have a right to be sustained by others (ie, a farmer doesn't have an obligation to give you food for free, even if you're starving.)

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Good, terrorism shouldn’t be rewarded with statehood. They can wait longer until everyone understands terrorism isn’t acceptable.

Indeed…

FYI George III never accused the American revolutionaries of terrorism, nor did they engage in it.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Good, terrorism shouldn’t be rewarded with statehood. They can wait longer until everyone understands terrorism isn’t acceptable.

Indeed…

FYI George III never accused the American revolutionaries of terrorism, nor did they engage in it.

One man’s terrorist is another man’s traitor.

No, they're literally two different terms. Liberal moral relativism is a curse upon this world -- neither George III or the British government ever called the Americans terrorists. Admit that you are wrong, stop comparing George Washington to a Hamas rapist, and move on.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Good, terrorism shouldn’t be rewarded with statehood. They can wait longer until everyone understands terrorism isn’t acceptable.

Indeed…

FYI George III never accused the American revolutionaries of terrorism, nor did they engage in it.

One man’s terrorist is another man’s traitor.

No, they're literally two different terms. Liberal moral relativism is a curse upon this world -- neither George III or the British government ever called the Americans terrorists. Admit that you are wrong, stop comparing George Washington to a Hamas rapist, and move on.

The original version of "One man’s terrorist is another man’s traitor" was "One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter" and it made sense (somewhat) because it pointed out the reality that the term "terrorist" was used almost solely for ones enemies/neutrals, and never for ones friends. But here George III was an enemy of the Americans, so his (and Burke's, and parliament's, and so on) decision not to use the term terrorist to describe the Americans goes against your point -- it suggests that we were so non-terroristic that the thought of using the term didn't even cross our enemies minds.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

The term terrorist didn't become popular until the nineteen seventies. It didn't even exist as a term in its present usage until the French revolution.

Precisely. It was coined by Edmund Burke to condemn the French Revolution -- a revolution he negatively contrasted with the American Revolution, which he also lived through and did not apply the term to, even retroactively. Hard to get much more clear that the Americans were not terrorists than that -- the author of the term being a contemporary who didn't think it applied, and who actually thought positively of America/Americans and their actions.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Good, terrorism shouldn’t be rewarded with statehood. They can wait longer until everyone understands terrorism isn’t acceptable.

Indeed…

FYI George III never accused the American revolutionaries of terrorism, nor did they engage in it.

One man’s terrorist is another man’s traitor.

No, they're literally two different terms. Liberal moral relativism is a curse upon this world -- neither George III or the British government ever called the Americans terrorists. Admit that you are wrong, stop comparing George Washington to a Hamas rapist, and move on.

George Washington was a rapist now that you mention it. He had children by some of the women he enslaved. But I didn’t compare him to Hamas. It’s not nice to put words in people’s mouths. And I know the difference between a terrorist and a traitor, I was being facetious (hint: “freedom fighter”).

As for moral relativism, I’m not the one defending Israel and the US thwarting Palestinian self-determination. How many more Palestinians have to die before they “earn” the right to a sovereign state? Definitely not morally bankrupt to attempt to pound people into submission and say it’s ok because they as a population deserve it, because they’re terrorists or support terrorists.

That's a lie. George Washington never had biological children of any sort.

https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/family/did-george-washington-have-kids

But it is revealing that you love to slander our Founding Fathers so much that you have gone out of your way to make things up.

Not about earning. It's about security. If the Palestinians tomorrow pledged to accept the Israeli state and never launch terrorist attacks again and to accept the integration of the settlements into Israel (the Kushner Plan) and they meant it and it was clear they could be trusted (lets say there was, for whatever reason, a mass cultural shift) then I would favor Palestinian statehood. Until then, though, the Israeli interest in/right to not be attacked outweighs their right to self-determination.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Good, terrorism shouldn’t be rewarded with statehood. They can wait longer until everyone understands terrorism isn’t acceptable.

Indeed…

FYI George III never accused the American revolutionaries of terrorism, nor did they engage in it.

One man’s terrorist is another man’s traitor.

No, they're literally two different terms. Liberal moral relativism is a curse upon this world -- neither George III or the British government ever called the Americans terrorists. Admit that you are wrong, stop comparing George Washington to a Hamas rapist, and move on.

The Brits may not have called the Americans "terrorists" but they absolutely called the Zionist proto-Israelis terrorists because they absolutely engaged in terrorism. Menachem Begin may not have been a Hamas rapist but he was an Irgun rapist.

So it's pretty absurd to talk about not rewarding the Palestinians for terrorism when they're fighting against a rogue state that itself was founded through terrorism and that has only ever made concessions on the basis of military and political setbacks (eg. handing back the Sinai, evacuating South Lebanon).

That's a different claim. But yes, I don't deny that the Irgun were terrorists, although of a very different type and strategem compared to Hamas/Al Qaeda etc. I would make a different argument for why they were still in the right, but the point I was making above was that "Progressive Realist" was engaged in a classic dumb progressive thing -- being morally relativistic about our Founding Fathers in a factually wrong way. (Which is really bad, because our Founding Fathers were great and having doofuses go around believing that George Washington was a rapist whose modern day analogy is Hamas is a great way to falsely tar their legacy, and thinking that "terrorist" is just a slur without any factual meaning is a great way to meme yourself into being sympathetic to evil groups like Hamas.)

[Libertas Vel Mors]

And BTW Progressive Realist, I observe you recommending RussianBear's post. You should own up to your mistakes and reconsider your worldview, rather than shifting the goalposts. The point RussianBear is making is a valid one, but it is totally different from the (objectively false) claims you made. I don't say that to blame you or shame you, but rather because the nature of a forum such as this one is that no one ever has an obligation to continue a conversation. But if you always leave conversations when you are clearly losing/wrong, and never adjust your priors after, you will stay wrong and have an incorrect view of the world. In this case, you should be less morally relativistic.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Good, terrorism shouldn’t be rewarded with statehood. They can wait longer until everyone understands terrorism isn’t acceptable.

Indeed…

FYI George III never accused the American revolutionaries of terrorism, nor did they engage in it.

One man’s terrorist is another man’s traitor.

No, they're literally two different terms. Liberal moral relativism is a curse upon this world -- neither George III or the British government ever called the Americans terrorists. Admit that you are wrong, stop comparing George Washington to a Hamas rapist, and move on.

The Brits may not have called the Americans "terrorists" but they absolutely called the Zionist proto-Israelis terrorists because they absolutely engaged in terrorism. Menachem Begin may not have been a Hamas rapist but he was an Irgun rapist.

So it's pretty absurd to talk about not rewarding the Palestinians for terrorism when they're fighting against a rogue state that itself was founded through terrorism and that has only ever made concessions on the basis of military and political setbacks (eg. handing back the Sinai, evacuating South Lebanon).

Also, Menachem Begin couldn't be an Irgun rapist at Deir Yassin because

A. Begin wasn't present at Deir Yassin

B. There was no rape at Deir Yassin. Note how even Wikipedia is careful to state that there "may have been cases of mutilation and rape." And what does the actual evidence say? Well, here's what the doctor to Jacques de Reynier, head of the Red Cross in Palestine, stated:

In the houses there were dead, in all about a hundred men, women and children. It was terrible. I did not see signs of mutilation or rape. It was clear that they had gone from house to house and shot the people at close range. I was a doctor in the German army for 5 years, in WWI, but I had not seen such a horrifying spectacle.

So, by no means a positive account -- but notably, even though it accuses the Irgun/Lehi of committing a massacre, it does not accuse them of committing rape(s). The only sources that do are secondhand, particularly those spread by the Arab emergency committee. As the page notes:

Gelber writes that the stories of rape angered the villagers, who complained to the Arab emergency committee that it was "sacrificing their honour and good name for propaganda purposes."[91] Abu Mahmud, who lived in Deir Yassin in 1948, was one of those who complained. He told the BBC: "We said, 'There was no rape.' He [Hussayn Khalidi] said, 'We have to say this so the Arab armies will come to liberate Palestine from the Jews.'"[92] "This was our biggest mistake," said Nusseibeh. "We did not realize how our people would react. As soon as they heard that women had been raped at Deir Yassin, Palestinians fled in terror. They ran away from all our villages."[92] He told Larry Collins in 1968: "We committed a fatal error, and set the stage for the refugee problem."[93]

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Good, terrorism shouldn’t be rewarded with statehood. They can wait longer until everyone understands terrorism isn’t acceptable.

Indeed…

FYI George III never accused the American revolutionaries of terrorism, nor did they engage in it.

One man’s terrorist is another man’s traitor.

No, they're literally two different terms. Liberal moral relativism is a curse upon this world -- neither George III or the British government ever called the Americans terrorists. Admit that you are wrong, stop comparing George Washington to a Hamas rapist, and move on.

The Brits may not have called the Americans "terrorists" but they absolutely called the Zionist proto-Israelis terrorists because they absolutely engaged in terrorism. Menachem Begin may not have been a Hamas rapist but he was an Irgun rapist.

So it's pretty absurd to talk about not rewarding the Palestinians for terrorism when they're fighting against a rogue state that itself was founded through terrorism and that has only ever made concessions on the basis of military and political setbacks (eg. handing back the Sinai, evacuating South Lebanon).

Also, Menachem Begin couldn't be an Irgun rapist at Deir Yassin because

A. Begin wasn't present at Deir Yassin

B. There was no rape at Deir Yassin. Note how even Wikipedia is careful to state that there "may have been cases of mutilation and rape." And what does the actual evidence say? Well, here's what the doctor to Jacques de Reynier, head of the Red Cross in Palestine, stated:

In the houses there were dead, in all about a hundred men, women and children. It was terrible. I did not see signs of mutilation or rape. It was clear that they had gone from house to house and shot the people at close range. I was a doctor in the German army for 5 years, in WWI, but I had not seen such a horrifying spectacle.

So, by no means a positive account -- but notably, even though it accuses the Irgun/Lehi of committing a massacre, it does not accuse them of committing rape(s). The only sources that do are secondhand, particularly those spread by the Arab emergency committee. As the page notes:

Gelber writes that the stories of rape angered the villagers, who complained to the Arab emergency committee that it was "sacrificing their honour and good name for propaganda purposes."[91] Abu Mahmud, who lived in Deir Yassin in 1948, was one of those who complained. He told the BBC: "We said, 'There was no rape.' He [Hussayn Khalidi] said, 'We have to say this so the Arab armies will come to liberate Palestine from the Jews.'"[92] "This was our biggest mistake," said Nusseibeh. "We did not realize how our people would react. As soon as they heard that women had been raped at Deir Yassin, Palestinians fled in terror. They ran away from all our villages."[92] He told Larry Collins in 1968: "We committed a fatal error, and set the stage for the refugee problem."[93]

Yahya Sinwar wasn't present in Israel on October 7th and the overwhelming majority of Hamas members didn't commit any rape in Israel either but surely you see what my point is. If you want a massacre where even the perpetrators even admitted there was rape there's Tantura. Point is, violent terrorism was rewarding for the Israelis so why wouldn't Palestinians try the same methods? Particularly when attempts at peaceful settlements have completely backfired on the Palestinians whereas armed resistance has forced actual concessions.

Also, the idea that the Arabs fled because of some fantastic message from "Arab leadership" (something that hardly existed in 1948) as opposed to the brutal massacres of civilians and forced depopulation of hundreds of villages is pure propaganda, on the level of "Hitler wanted to send the Jews elsewhere but nobody would take them in so he had to put them in camps for their own safety where they tragically died of cholera". Go read literally any of the Israeli New Historians, Ilan Pappé destroys this garbage and even arch-Zionist Benny Morris doesn't push this stuff anymore.

* I would agree that George Washington was no terrorist and that by the standards of revolutionary/secessionist wars the American Revolution was fairly tame and brutality was the exception rather than the rule.

1. Yep, hence why Yahya Sinwar isn't a rapist. He is responsible for rape as the leader of a rapist gang that he encouraged in rape, to be sure, but he's not a rapist.

2. The documentary costs $3 to purchase, so you'll have to forgive me for doubting the subtitles of a video titled "Israeli War Criminals Laughing - Tantura (2022 Documentary)." More broadly, though, I don't doubt that at least one rape happened. That kind of thing is unfortunately hard to avoid in war. What I doubt is that the Israelis ever engaged endorsed rape as Hamas has done or even engaged in ethnic cleansing. And I really doubt that 92 year old men (at the youngest, presuming no child soldiers) from a first world country would laugh about rape on camera.

3. The label terrorism here hides more than it reveals. The Israelis blew up the King David Hotel because it was the British Mandate's Central Office and thus a legitimate target. They placed a call before to let the British know, but the warning call to the hotel itself was ignored. (The ones to the French consulate and Palestine Post were not, saving lives and showing the seriousness of these calls.) The Israelis can't be blamed for attacking a legitimate military target because that target chose not to act on their warning. Similarly, Israeli attacks on British soldiers made sure not to attack civilians. Was there collateral damage? Of course. But on a continum ranging from the francs-tireurs to Hamas, the Israelis were squarely in the francs-tireur tier.

4. That wasn't my point in sharing, but sure, why not? It is a lie to say that there was no Arab leadership in 1948: Syria, Jordan, and Egypt were all independent countries with strong leadership and in one case even a competent army. More importantly, there was the Arab Higher Committee, which had been the de facto leadership of Palestinian Arabs for the last 30 years, and which repeatedly spread false rumors such as those of rape at Deir Yassin (which I notice you have, without acknowledging that you were wrong on rape there, dropped) in an attempt to encourage Arabs to flee for self-interested, political reasons. I'm well aware of the Israeli New Historians: they are wrong and "new" for a reason.

5. Your language re: Morris is really funny because you are implying he was a Zionist who accepted the New Historians points, when it is in fact the opposite: Benny Morris was a New Historian who became a Zionist after the failure of the 2000 peace process. Citing him as an example of how even "arch-Zionists" are coming around to the New Historians doesn't make any sense because he was a New Historian before he was an arch-Zionist.*

*He's still a peacenik who signs letters calling the Israeli presence in the West Bank apartheid, so he's not really an arch-Zionist at all. He is in the unique camp of saying that expulsion happened but was good, though.

You should really read more political philosophy. In the Lockean conception, the right to life refers to the right not to have your life taken from you, not the right to be sustained in life. Thus, there is no contradiction between rejecting a right to food and believing in a right to life.

But we know God hath not left one man so to the mercy of another, that he may starve him if he please: God, the Lord and Father of all, has given no one of his children such a property in his peculiar portion of the things of this world, but that he has given his needy brother a right to the surplusage of his goods; so that it cannot justly be denied him, when his pressing wants call for it: and therefore no man could ever have a just power over the life of another by right of property in land or possessions; since it would always be a sin, in any man of estate, to let his brother perish for want of affording him relief out of his plenty. As justice gives every man a title to the product of his honest industry, and the fair acquisitions of his ancestors descended to him; so charity gives every man a title to so much out of another’s plenty as will keep him from extreme want, where he has no means to subsist otherwise.

In other words, Locke quite literally says that starving people have a right to the surplus food of others who already have enough to eat, i.e. the exact opposite of what you claimed he believed. It’s unfortunate how badly Locke is misunderstood by right-libertarians; maybe you should actually read him.

You are misreading Locke here. He is making a moral claim here about sin (ie it is a sin not to donate). He is endorsing charity, not the confiscation of private property by random beggars.

Good, terrorism shouldn’t be rewarded with statehood. They can wait longer until everyone understands terrorism isn’t acceptable.

Frankly, there should never be Palestinian statehood. Palestinians should accept equal rights under Israeli sovereignty, excluding Gaza, which can be an independent city-state after it promises not to attack Israel.

Giving Palestinians in the West Bank full equal rights to Jews in Israel is more radical (in the sense of being closer to a one-state solution) than most Democratic elected officials, I’ll give you that.

Exactly. (This would also mean integrating Judea and Samaria into Israel.)

Frankly, there should never be Palestinian statehood. Palestinians should accept equal rights under Israeli sovereignty, excluding Gaza, which can be an independent city-state after it promises not to attack Israel.

So you're in support of a state, in which Palestinians are free, stretching from the river to the sea?

Well, no -- it shouldn't include Gaza, and thus wouldn't include the former territory of the full British mandate. But in a way, yes! Many pro-Palestinian activists seem to be unaware of the actual demographics on the ground (or favor genocide) because a simple merger of Judea and Samaria and Israel today would be easily majority Jewish. Even with Gaza included, I believe there would be a slight Jewish majority, actually.

I don’t think pro-Palestinian activists, as a whole, care whether the state has a slight Jewish or Arab majority or what, as long as Jews and Arabs have full equality. Do you? I think your position on this is closer to Rashida Tlaib’s than most posters.

Of course they do. That's why they regularly demand that Israel let in millions of Arabs with even partial descent from the region, to secure a demographic majority. And yes, of course I do. History has shown that majority Muslim states, whether in Lebanon or Algeria or Iraq, often descend into relentless persecution of religious minorities. Just as Lebanon was better off when it was majority Christian, I think that Israel will be better off if it remains majority Jewish.

Good, terrorism shouldn’t be rewarded with statehood. They can wait longer until everyone understands terrorism isn’t acceptable.

Israel's terrorism and massive ethnic cleansing was rewarded with statehood, so why not Palestinian statehood as well? In any case, self-determination is a well established right and collective punishment is an abomination, so Palestine's independence should be supported regardless of the actions of some Palestinians.

Frankly, there should never be Palestinian statehood. Palestinians should accept equal rights under Israeli sovereignty, excluding Gaza, which can be an independent city-state after it promises not to attack Israel.

Israel would never accept that, so when you oppose Palestinian statehood you in fact support endless continuation of Israel's apartheid rule in the occupied Palestinian territories.

1. Israel did not engage in massive ethnic cleansing; see above. Nor did it engage in any definition of terrorism comparable to Hamas, ISIS, or Al Qaeda.

2. Self-determination is a well established right, and if Palestinians were willing to renounce violence against Israel I would support them in establishing their own state, as would Benjamin Netanyahu, Gantz, and many others. But that is not the case, nor are the sentiments of more than 90% of a population merely a reflection of "some Palestinians."

3. There's little reason to think Israel wouldn't, particularly if this occurred in 10-15 years. For example, the annexation of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights both included citizenship grants to the Arabs living there.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

1. Israel did not engage in massive ethnic cleansing; see above. Nor did it engage in any definition of terrorism comparable to Hamas, ISIS, or Al Qaeda.

You did not provide any evidence that Israel didn't carry out massive ethnic cleansing. Not that of course there's any evidence, since no one but pro-Israeli propagandists would deny this. This includes Israeli historians. Especially Benny Morris, who's far from a liberal since he criticized David Ben-Gurion  for not expelling all Palestians. Israeli archives also indicate that direct or indirect actions were the most important factors in the mass flight. For this reason and also due to the many reports of atrocities by Israeli forces against Palestinians these archives are now top secret. But even if the Israeli narrative was true, by refusing the return of the Palestinians after the 1948 war ended, they most certainly committed ethnic cleansing.

2. Self-determination is a well established right, and if Palestinians were willing to renounce violence against Israel I would support them in establishing their own state, as would Benjamin Netanyahu, Gantz, and many others. But that is not the case, nor are the sentiments of more than 90% of a population merely a reflection of "some Palestinians."

Precisely because self-determination is a well established right, it can't be denied due to violent actions of some Palestinians (let alone of dubious claims of mass Palestinian support for them). Plenty of other peoples have committed even greater atrocities in their fight for liberation and hardly anyone (certainly not the US, as they have demonstrated many times) thinks that they should be denied self-determination for this reason. This of course includes Israel which is far worse than the Palestinians, being built on ethnic cleansing. It should furthermore be pointed out that blaming Jews as a whole for the actions of some Jews is considered an obvious example of anti-semitism. Why is doing exactly the same to Palestinians justified?

3. There's little reason to think Israel wouldn't, particularly if this occurred in 10-15 years. For example, the annexation of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights both included citizenship grants to the Arabs living there.

This is why Israel isn't going to annex the Palestinian territories and will try to continue maintain the status quo which leaves them with de-facto control of Palestine but with none of the rights due to citizens of Israel for the Palestinians.

1. I mean, I didn't because the burden of proof is on the claim-makers to prove the claim, not the claim-deniers to disprove it, barring rare exceptions? But I'm glad to provide some pretty basic empirical analysis: after the 1948 war, hundreds of thousands of Arabs remained within Israeli territory, while not a single Jew remained in Judea and Samaria/Gaza. Compare that to actual examples of successful ethnic cleansing (the removal of Germans from the Sudetenland/Western Poland, the removal of Greeks from Turkey, etc) and that seems on its face to both definitely refute claims of massive ethnic cleansing and probably indicate against claims of substantial ethnic cleansing whatsoever. Heck, it's pretty abnormal even for cases of non-forced flight: when the Armenians fled NK, for example, almost all left, so it is in the scheme of things a pretty profound indicator of the tolerance that Arab-Israelis knew they could expect under Israeli sovereignty that so many chose to remain.

As for the rest of your first point, this is a well trod historical debate. Benny Morris is definitely a liberal: he has co-signed letters calling Israeli occupation "apartheid," and while he has now adopted a relatively unique "It happened but it was good" stance he definitely did not come to that stance originally and he remains on the left today. Again, the burden of proof lies on the claimants. It is not accepted that Israeli archives support the Nakba claims: as the article you link to itself notes, actual expulsion orders were listed as merely the 6th most important factor (out of 11) in explaining Arab flight, after factors such as psychological operations, Arab orders and proximity to conflict, and were limited to unique circumstances, such as Lod, where the IDF ordered Arab inhabitants to leave after (having surrendered the previous day) they opened fire and attacked Israeli soldiers in breach of prior agreement, and even then only because of Lod's strategic location and the inability of the IDF to hold the city otherwise.

As to your final point, it is not true that refusing the return of those who have voluntarily fled (continuing your hypothetical) constitutes ethnic cleansing. For example, Croatia has not allowed Serbs who fled following Operation Storm to return, but no one, not even the Serbian government, has argued that this is ethnic cleansing: there is some debate over whether Operation Storm itself did, but no one disputes that if the Serbs voluntarily fled it was not ethnic cleansing to block their return.

2. Sure it can. Also, those claims are in no way dubious, but that's besides the point. Bosnia-Herzegovina has for decades denied Serbs self-determination under the justification of national security with the full support of the international community (including the US): this is widely accepted because, like in Israel, it is accepted that Serb self-determination could lead to genocide within the Serb areas and could threaten Bosnian national security. In my view, this is actually pretty unjustifiable: I don't think there's much reason to think the Serbs would commit genocide within their territories, let alone attack Bosnia proper, but that only strengthens the point vis a vis Israel, because it suggests that even if Israel were not reasonably concerned (as it is) about Palestinian attacks on Israel itself, it would still have the right to deny self-determination if it was afraid that an independent Palestinian state would expel Israeli settlers.

You are right that it would be unjustified bigotry to blame all Palestinians for the actions of militants, which is why I don't, and why most supporters of Israel don't. But it's reasonable to note that on a continuum of popular support for terrorism ranging from Northern Irish Catholic support for the IRA to Democratic support for the Weathermen, Palestinian support for Hamas is much closer (if not exceeding) to the former than the latter. More importantly, it is reasonable to note that every single major Palestinian political faction supports genocide against Jews in Judea and Samaria, and that most openly support further attacks upon Israel even after establishing a state (and probably all, depending on your belief in Fatah's honesty.)

3. Israel will probably one day annex the West Bank for the same reason it has annexed Jerusalem and the Golan Heights: to bind them into the Israeli state and make it impossible for a future government (probably a left wing one, but not necessarily: Sharon was a right winger) or difficult for an international coalition to force Israel to cede the territory.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

1. Yep, hence why Yahya Sinwar isn't a rapist. He is responsible for rape as the leader of a rapist gang that he encouraged in rape, to be sure, but he's not a rapist.

3. The label terrorism here hides more than it reveals. The Israelis blew up the King David Hotel because it was the British Mandate's Central Office and thus a legitimate target. They placed a call before to let the British know, but the warning call to the hotel itself was ignored. (The ones to the French consulate and Palestine Post were not, saving lives and showing the seriousness of these calls.) The Israelis can't be blamed for attacking a legitimate military target because that target chose not to act on their warning. Similarly, Israeli attacks on British soldiers made sure not to attack civilians. Was there collateral damage? Of course. But on a continum ranging from the francs-tireurs to Hamas, the Israelis were squarely in the francs-tireur tier.

You're clearly holding Irgun and Hamas to different standards; you're practically acting like a lawyer for the former while blaming the latter for crimes it never committed.

If I were to do the same for Hamas, I could just as easily say that Sinwar has never "encouraged rape". That in fact Hamas has denounced rape as "un-Islamic conduct", that on October 7th their actual targets were legitimate military bases, that they generally didn't just rape and slaughter everyone they saw because their civilian-combatant ratio was around 2-1 and was actually better than the ratio of the "world's most moral army" in Gaza. Certainly Hamas has used tactics more brutal than those of Irgun but they're also facing an enemy that's far more brutal than the British authorities of Mandatory Palestine ever were.
/snip

2. The documentary costs $3 to purchase, so you'll have to forgive me for doubting the subtitles of a video titled "Israeli War Criminals Laughing - Tantura (2022 Documentary)." More broadly, though, I don't doubt that at least one rape happened. That kind of thing is unfortunately hard to avoid in war. What I doubt is that the Israelis ever engaged endorsed rape as Hamas has done or even engaged in ethnic cleansing. And I really doubt that 92 year old men (at the youngest, presuming no child soldiers) from a first world country would laugh about rape on camera.

Clearly you've never seen the interviews of Nazi war criminals. Regardless, the evidence of the Tantura massacre is pretty overwhelming at this point and whether you doubt it or not is as relevant as whether someone doubts whether a wealthy, first world country would really try to wipe out the Jews. Also, again, when has Hamas "endorsed rape"?

4. That wasn't my point in sharing, but sure, why not? It is a lie to say that there was no Arab leadership in 1948: Syria, Jordan, and Egypt were all independent countries with strong leadership and in one case even a competent army. More importantly, there was the Arab Higher Committee, which had been the de facto leadership of Palestinian Arabs for the last 30 years, and which repeatedly spread false rumors such as those of rape at Deir Yassin (which I notice you have, without acknowledging that you were wrong on rape there, dropped) in an attempt to encourage Arabs to flee for self-interested, political reasons. I'm well aware of the Israeli New Historians: they are wrong and "new" for a reason.

/snip

5. Your language re: Morris is really funny because you are implying he was a Zionist who accepted the New Historians points, when it is in fact the opposite: Benny Morris was a New Historian who became a Zionist after the failure of the 2000 peace process. Citing him as an example of how even "arch-Zionists" are coming around to the New Historians doesn't make any sense because he was a New Historian before he was an arch-Zionist.*

*He's still a peacenik who signs letters calling the Israeli presence in the West Bank apartheid, so he's not really an arch-Zionist at all. He is in the unique camp of saying that expulsion happened but was good, though.

/snip

Good, terrorism shouldn’t be rewarded with statehood. They can wait longer until everyone understands terrorism isn’t acceptable.

Frankly, there should never be Palestinian statehood. Palestinians should accept equal rights under Israeli sovereignty, excluding Gaza, which can be an independent city-state after it promises not to attack Israel.

Thankfully, the people of Palestine, and the rest of world, don't care for the opinions of some bloodthirsty teenager, and will continue the struggle for self-determination.

The people of Palestine already achieved independence partially in 1948 and fully in 1967, returning the region from its colonial name to its native name of Israel.

Nowadays, there are some antisemites wishing to revive the colonial "Palestine" name and ensure Jews are never able to live safely in their homeland– they have already ensured that no Jews are able to live in some regions like the Gaza Strip. It's an absolute travesty that the world isn't united in condemning this movement.

/snip

Separately, wanted to say that I just saw this. I don't have time to reply right now but I intend to respond and am not ignoring it: it simply slipped my notice. I appreciate the detailed reply.