Netanyahu: Hitler didn't want to kill the Jews, Palestinian talked him into it

[ingemann]

Yes I'm sure the Grand Mufti was the main reason behind Palestinian anti-semitism and not the fact that the Jewish population in Mandatory Palestine had trippled from 6% to 18% from the end of WWI to 1933, and the fact that a large number of Palestine tenants had been displaced from their lands, as the Jewish immigrants bought land from the land owners (who often dwelled in Damascus).

[ingemann]

Yes I'm sure the Grand Mufti was the main reason behind Palestinian anti-semitism and not the fact that the Jewish population in Mandatory Palestine had trippled from 6% to 18% from the end of WWI to 1933, and the fact that a large number of Palestine tenants had been displaced from their lands, as the Jewish immigrants bought land from the land owners (who often dwelled in Damascus).

So blatant racism in response to demographic pressures is justified for "Palestinians" (who mysteriously were indistinguishable from Levantine Arabs prior to Jews wanting to live there), but even hinting that it may be advisable to reduce levels of immigration from the third-world into first-world nations is beyond the pale?

Yes let's call it racism that feudal serf/tenants blamed the people buying the land these people had lived on for centuries if not longer and expelled them from it, leaving them landless and in poverty.

...and the whole Palestinians being a new nationality is the most ridiculous and brain dead argument anybody have come with. The Palestinians like most pre-state groups defined themselves by language, religion and the region they lived in. So of course they didn't defined their nationality based on what the British renamed their proctectorate after it had been conquered, just as no Belgian would have defined themselves as Belgians before 1830 or no Canadians would have themselves as Canadians before 1791.

[ingemann]

For people who support annexing the West Bank, would you give voting rights to the Arabs? If so, are you comfortable with accepting that Israel would no longer be a Jewish state?

Am I correct in my understanding that if just the West Bank was annexed but not Gaza, then the new Israel+West Bank state would still have more Jews than Arabs?  Thus, even if the Arabs were given the right to vote in this scenario, they'd still be outnumbered (though it would be a lot closer).

Yes, of course. But that would also mean that forming an all-Zionist government using the current electoral system would become nearly impossible. Population of the combined Israel/Jerusalem/WestBank would be, give or take, 11 mln. people. Of these, a bit more than 6 mln would be Jewish - about 55% or a bit more. By including the non-Jewish ex-Soviets and taking into account the greater proportion of kids among the Arabs you might get to an electorate that is about 60% Jewish. I will be even more generous and suppose that Zionist parties get 75 seats (62.5% of the total). Assuming the two largest parties (say, these are still Labor and Likud) get half of that or a bit more (this is already not a given), this would still not get them to even 40 seats, where they need 61. So, they would necessarily have to attract a bunch of other parties. But there is no way on earth one can form a government that contains Meretz, Shas, UTJ, the Russians, the Religious Zionists, Lapidista types - and the  Labor/Likud combine at the same time. So, it is almost inevitable that every government would have to include non-Zionist parties. This may seem ok to you, but most Zionist Israelis would have a conniption at the thought.

Yes it's why I really don't get this obsession with trying to make it impossible to get rid of the West Bank with settlements. Annexing it result it the problem you mention and the existing Palestinian Bantustan will not be viable in the long term, and large scale ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians into Jordan will have some negative effects for Israel (I don't even see USA keep backing Israel if they do that).

[ingemann]

Could there be a sort of Notthern Irish power-sharing executive? Yes I know many will balk at the thought, but many would have been sceptical at the idea of orangemen and shinners managing to share government (yes I know the Norn government is hardly ideal, but...)

It's not going to happen, the problem is that for the average Israeli power-sharing will be more negative than continue status quo, while in NI power sharing was a improvement to status quo.

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I don't think a Belgium style federation would be a bad idea, with a federal government with limited power and strong sub-federal states, but it's hard to see how the Israeli will accept it.