Crisis in Israel/Palestine

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Biden just announced a ceasefire has been officially reached.

[GALeftist]

It's not a thing for Jewish people.  Jews spent the last 3000 years getting kicked out of one home or another -- if they were lucky enough to not simply be slaughtered in their beds.  When Israel was founded, Jews living in Muslim countries were kicked out en masse and told "you have a place to go now, get the hell out of here.  And leave all your stuff behind."  None of those states are offering the Jews "right of return."  WOJAC estimates that the property lost by Jews in Arab countries would be 4x the size of Israel and valued at over $300 billion.  How much wealth and land did the Jews of Europe forfeit to Nazi rule?  How much land and wealth did the Jews of the Soviet Union lose, both after the revolution (when they were the poster child for "urban bourgeoisie degenerates") and before the revolution when they were subjected to an endless series of pogroms?

I'm well aware of the persecution that Jews have experienced throughout history, thanks. For the record I would support the parties responsible for those injustices making amends, at least in many cases where the harms are recent and measurable.

In 1947, two years after the holocaust that the leader of the Palestinian Arabs applauded, the UN approved a partition plan to divide MP into two states.  One would be a Jewish state, home to the Jews, the other would be an Arab state.  The Arabs didn't like this so they immediately attacked the Jews, starting a civil war that would eventually spiral into the Arab-Israeli War, with Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and various non-state Arab actors all teaming up to destroy Israel.

I swear, the islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment that is tolerated on this site is astonishing. If I were to characterize, for example, the Nation of Islam as "the blacks" acting in x manner as a group I would rightly be called out, but say "the Arabs" didn't like something and chose to attack the Jews as a group and no one seems to care. I predict your retort is going to be that, unlike the Nation of Islam, "the Arabs" were actual states. However, which Palestinians voted for King Farouk I of Egypt, or King Abdallah I of Transjordan, or Azzam Pasha of the Arab League? For that matter, which Arabs did? This sort of guilt by association nonsense has done so much damage to so many marginalized people, including Jews, and it is so, so tiresome.

Also, I don't get why people pull out the UN partition plan as some sort of trump card. Why does the Un making such a plan mean that the plan is good? Even if I were to accept that the plan was good, why does that mean that so many innocent people ought to be forced from the only home they've ever known? It simply doesn't follow.

Now is the Nakba a great injustice?  Yes.  Most of the Palestinian Arabs evicted probably had nothing to do with the Black Hand, the Grand Mufti, the lynchings and riots and murders, or any of this other stuff the Palestinian Arabs as a whole were up to.

"The Palestinian Arabs as a whole" were not "up to" anything. Certainly, some were antisemites, but again, to place this blame on the entire Palestinian people is nothing less than outright bigotry.

My belief is that the PLO's main reason for insisting on right of return as the only acceptable form of reparations is that they want to re-occupy Israel with millions of Arabs, thus eliminating the concept of a Jewish state.  And this isn't really a matter of belief because plenty of Palestinians have openly said that this is the end goal.  The vast majority of villages lost in the Nakba were razed long ago and are now unrecognizable beneath 70 years of modern development.  Nobody seriously believes that the grandchildren of some citrus farmers are going to return to those agricultural villages, put their century-old key in the door, and pick up where they left off.  That's just a fantasy.  Right of return would be a humanitarian disaster if it was actually implemented in practice.  But the PLO rejected Israeli attempts to build housing and civil infrastructure in Palestine, which is a much more practical form of reparations.

I could counter with at least as much credibility that Israel's main reason for the right of return and settlements in the West Bank is to eliminate the concept of a Palestinian state. Why is one worse than the other in your mind? Also, I don't think that anyone actually thinks that people are going to "pick up where they left off." As you note, if every single Palestinian living abroad were to come back it would be a humanitarian disaster, which is why I suspect that most Palestinians would not elect to exercise their right of return. The ones who want to return, though, ought to be allowed to do so if they so choose. This would not result in the loss of a Jewish demographic majority unless Israel insists on maintaining the status quo of de facto sovereignty over all land in the former mandatory Palestine. If that's the choice they make, so be it.

[John Dule]

Biden just announced a ceasefire has been officially reached.

It wouldn't have taken this long if we still had experts like Jared Kushner handling things 

[afleitch]

https://mobile.twitter.com/ajplus/status/1395716586342948865

[It’s so Joever]

Can we just be honest and say that the real reason we are taking Israel’s side is because it benefits us? Allying with a high tech, powerful country with a natural tilt against China (our biggest rival) makes sense.

I don’t mind us doing that, I don’t mind our weapon sales to foreign countries for our gain, but do we really have to pretend Bloody Bibi has some fictional moral high ground here?

I get why politicians can’t say it outright, but none of that applies to any Atlas poster.

If you really still think Israel has some high ground here despite putting the entire World at greater risk by bombing Covid testing sites...I pity you and those near you.

This is easy for you to say not living in Israel.

Imagine having to wake up every night to sirens, and get a text on your phone that missiles are inbound to your location.  Having to wake up your family quickly and rush them to the nearest bomb shelter.  As you sleepily hurry down the street in your bare feet in the middle of the night you look up and see a criss-cross of gold sparks in the sky as hundreds of Palestinian missiles are intercepted by the Iron Dome, missiles that were intended to destroy your city.  And you know that despite the IDF's best efforts, some of the missiles will get through, maybe falling on your house, your school, your hospital, your COVID testing lab.

Every night.  For over a week now it's been happening.  It's reached the point where you don't even bother to sleep anymore because you just expect to be woken up.  You just lie awake waiting for the inevitable sirens, thinking about what you'd do if your house was blown up.

But even during the day you're not safe.  Every time you get on a bus or a train you hope there's not a Hamas suicide bomber.  Every time you send your children off to school you hope there's not a kidnapping.  Every time you cross over a bridge you hope Hamas hasn't put a bomb underneath it.  This is your daily life.



Israel didn't start this conflict.  Palestine started it.  Israel didn't do anything to Palestine.  All the riots and clashes were Israeli police vs. Israeli Arabs.  Hamas chose to get involved.  They made the choice to fire thousands of rockets into Israel.  They made the choice to try and murder thousands of Israeli civilians.

Israel also didn't start the internal conflict.  Arabs decided to throw rocks, set fires, and attack police officers, totally unprovoked, because they were upset about Sheikh Jarrah.  Then after they got their asses kicked a few times (as happens when one picks a fight with the police), they decided to have more riots, and marched around burning buildings and vehicles and attacking Jews.  And chanted "Strike Tel Aviv!  Strike Tel Aviv!" calling on Hamas to attack civilians in Israel's largest city.



So much of the discourse around this conflict really boils down to this disturbing leftist orthodoxy about violence.  Most people believe that when you use violence, you are in the wrong, and that if someone then uses violence back at you to defend themselves, they have the moral high ground because they were provoked.  Leftists believe that in a case of more powerful vs. less powerful, the less powerful person always has the moral high ground, and their violence is excusable (even laudable) because it is being deployed against the more powerful.  And the more powerful should simply lie down and take it, and not retaliate, because the only moral outcome of a power struggle is victory for the weak at the expense of the mighty.

You can see this sort of morality play out over and over again in far-left political discourse.  My neighborhood of Capitol Hill is still covered in "KILL COPS" graffiti that people justified using the exact same logic.  We all remember this logic being used to justify violent riots and looting last summer.

And that's that.

The Arab rioters who started violent riots are automatically in the right because they have less power, and the police should have lain down and let the rioters do whatever they want, because police have more power and suppressing a riot is immoral.  Rioters good, police bad.

The Palestinian terrorist organization that launched thousands of rockets into Israel is automatically in the right because they did it on behalf of the less powerful.  Israel should have lain down and let Hamas do whatever they want, because the IDF has more power, and retaliating with violence is immoral.  Palestine good, Israel bad.

This is easy for you to say not living in Palestine.

Imagine having to wake up every night to rocket blasts, and hear a scream from the room nearby. Having to carry your children through the rubble to safety.  As you sleepily hurry down the ruined street in your bare feet in the middle of the night you hear the sounds of Israeli rockets crashing into the earth, entire apartments turned to oblivion, rockets that are destroying your city.  And you know that because of the IDF’s efforts, the missiles will fall on your house, your school, your hospital, your COVID testing lab.

Every night.  For over a week now it's been happening.  It's reached the point where you don't even bother to sleep anymore because you just expect to be woken up.  You just lie awake waiting for the inevitable blasts, thinking about what you'd do if your child died in front of your eyes laying bloody in the rubble, like the others you see and hear about each day. Your only love taken away, like your wife and your father.

But even during the day you're not safe.  Every time you get on a bus or a train you hope there's not a strike.  Every time you send your children off to school you hope there's not another blast.  Every time you cross over a bridge you hope that rocket in the air doesn’t become the next family funeral.  This is your daily life.

Palestinians didn’t choose to be thrown off their land because Europeans couldn’t treat Jewish people with basic dignity for centuries. Palestinians have no say today in their remaining allotted zones being stolen by Israeli illegal immigrants. The Israeli far right made the choice to continue to push further and further into land that wasn’t there’s, with support from Bloody Bibi.

Palestine also didn’t start the unprovoked conflict. Israeli courts refused to look at evidence of Palestinian ownership of homes in courts, denying basic property rights to human beings.
Then they cheered as Palestinian apartments were bombed, as IDF rockets were flung across the border. Cheering and laughing at the slaughter of innocent civilians across the border they don’t respect.

So much of the discourse really boils down to the far right (and apparently GMAC left) idea that a poor choice in the past gives a free pass for your enemies to punish you for eternity.
GMAC communists believe this as their justification for everything goes to “Arabs started it”. Every single thing Israel has done in this conflict is automatically okay because Arabs started it. Someone starting something means they have no rights according to the GMAC wing. This way of thinking is akin to how little children think. I’ve worked with little kids before (those volunteer hours won’t get themselves) and whenever a conflict happens, the excuse is always “but he started it” as if that act alone justifies literally everything done afterwards.

It doesn’t matter who started it, a few Arab teens throwing rocks is enough to warrant mass destruction of residential buildings because “they” started it. Proportional response means nothing to them.
Does it matter those families being blasted had nothing to do with it? Well according to the GMAC left, it doesn’t.
If he had his way, all conflicts would be solved based on who began the first escalation. Your sister got murdered? Well she started it by staring at the killer the wrong way.

The Israelis (you used Arab so the correct comparison would be me saying Jews, but that would obviously get modded) are automatically in the right because the scary Arabs threw rocks at the start. As soon as one Arab teen threw a rocks, every single act done under Bibi is okay, even applaudable. Screw the international law, screw common sense, what matters is making sure the side that started it is destroyed to oblivion, at all costs, no matter how many civilians die. After all, Palestine bad, Israel good.

[GeneralMacArthur]

You tried, but it doesn't really work.

Israel hasn't attacked Palestine in years.  It's been seven years since the last large-scale Israeli attack on Palestine.  Israel resisted the urge to do so both in 2015 (when Palestinian leaders encouraged a wave of lone-wolf attacks on Jews) and 2018 (when Hamas launched hundreds of rockets into Israel in response to a botched spy operation).  Palestinians do not have to lie awake at night in fear that Israel is going to randomly blow up their house.  Even this week, when Israel is destroying property, they are sending out warnings to avoid civilian casualties.

In contrast, Palestine attacks Israel hundreds of times every year.  Hamas will randomly decide to launch rockets into Israel just because they have some rockets and want to use them.  They'll randomly kidnap or murder Jews, blow up civil infrastructure, and other sorts of terrorist activity.  It's just a part of daily life in Israel.  And if not for the strength of the IDF, it would be far more impactful and make life in Israel virtually unlivable.

This conflict isn't "a few teens throw rocks and Israel launches airstrikes."  I honestly don't know whether you understand that or not because there's so much disinformation out there right now trying to make this the narrative.  This started with the Israeli court ruling that the squatters of Sheikh Jarrah have to leave.  In response a bunch of Arabs rioted in the al-Aqsa mosque, attacking Israeli police.  Israeli police responded with force to quell the riot.  Palestinian agitators used this to incite violent riots across Israel that caused a lot of damage and bloodshed.  When the Israeli police suppressed those riots, that's when Hamas broke out the rockets and launched thousands of strikes into Israel.  Only then did the Israeli military respond by bombing Hamas military targets.

[It’s so Joever]

You tried, but it doesn't really work.

Israel hasn't attacked Palestine in years.  It's been seven years since the last large-scale Israeli attack on Palestine.  Israel resisted the urge to do so both in 2015 (when Palestinian leaders encouraged a wave of lone-wolf attacks on Jews) and 2018 (when Hamas launched hundreds of rockets into Israel in response to a botched spy operation).  Palestinians do not have to lie awake at night in fear that Israel is going to randomly blow up their house.  Even this week, when Israel is destroying property, they are sending out warnings to avoid civilian casualties.

In contrast, Palestine attacks Israel hundreds of times every year.  Hamas will randomly decide to launch rockets into Israel just because they have some rockets and want to use them.  They'll randomly kidnap or murder Jews, blow up civil infrastructure, and other sorts of terrorist activity.  It's just a part of daily life in Israel.  And if not for the strength of the IDF, it would be far more impactful and make life in Israel virtually unlivable.

This conflict isn't "a few teens throw rocks and Israel launches airstrikes."  I honestly don't know whether you understand that or not because there's so much disinformation out there right now trying to make this the narrative.  This started with the Israeli court ruling that the squatters of Sheikh Jarrah have to leave.  In response a bunch of Arabs rioted in the al-Aqsa mosque, attacking Israeli police.  Israeli police responded with force to quell the riot.  Palestinian agitators used this to incite violent riots across Israel that caused a lot of damage and bloodshed.  When the Israeli police suppressed those riots, that's when Hamas broke out the rockets and launched thousands of strikes into Israel.  Only then did the Israeli military respond by bombing Hamas military targets.

Got it, the Covid test site blew up by itself. So did the apartments. Looks like a lot of self destructing buildings.

And calling residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood “squatters” when they had evidence to prove ownership of the house (which was ignored by the Israeli court) is a deliberate twist on your part. Nice try, Rupert MacArthur.

With your logic, Palestine was only defending its people.
Forceful removal of property rights and Israeli (Again I should use the word Jewish in the same way you use Arab, but that would get modded) mob violence against the residents caused all of this.

What’s ironic is that if Trump acted the same way towards BLM protestors this summer as Bibi does against Palestinian protestors today, you would be frothing at the mouth about the US being fascist and Trump being a murderer. I guess the standards don’t apply when it’s not your country, when it’s not your people.

[Suburbia]

It's clear that it is time for either a two-state solution, or some type of segregation.

Give Israel some type of land where they can be left alone, and give Palestine some type of land and they can be left alone as well.....

[GeneralMacArthur]

It's clear that it is time for either a two-state solution, or some type of segregation.

Give Israel some type of land where they can be left alone, and give Palestine some type of land and they can be left alone as well.....

So the Oslo Accords?  The PLO rejects any two-state solution without right of return, and Israel rejects right of return.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It's clear that it is time for either a two-state solution, or some type of segregation.

Give Israel some type of land where they can be left alone, and give Palestine some type of land and they can be left alone as well.....

So the Oslo Accords?  The PLO rejects any two-state solution without right of return, and Israel rejects right of return.

Right of return, in a just world, would be good policy and good human rights, as would a right of Jewish people to live in places like Hebron and Nablus. The practical impossibility of a binational solution is a genuine tragedy for the world.

[KoopaDaQuick 🇵🇸]

It's clear that it is time for either a two-state solution, or some type of segregation.

Give Israel some type of land where they can be left alone, and give Palestine some type of land and they can be left alone as well.....

Bronz supports segregation. Shocking.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

It's clear that it is time for either a two-state solution, or some type of segregation.

Give Israel some type of land where they can be left alone, and give Palestine some type of land and they can be left alone as well.....

So the Oslo Accords?  The PLO rejects any two-state solution without right of return, and Israel rejects right of return.

Right of return, in a just world, would be good policy and good human rights, as would a right of Jewish people to live in places like Hebron and Nablus. The practical impossibility of a binational solution is a genuine tragedy for the world.

I suppose the silver lining in the current set-up is that a two state solution is also a practical impossibility--and immutable geographic and economic constraints make this more so into the future than the present-day political dynamics. Given this, an undemocratic, imperfect binational solution seems increasingly inevitable. The long-term possibilities this opens are, in my view, potentially more beneficial than getting locked into two-state dogma.

[Ancestral Republican]

You tried, but it doesn't really work.

Israel hasn't attacked Palestine in years.  It's been seven years since the last large-scale Israeli attack on Palestine.  Israel resisted the urge to do so both in 2015 (when Palestinian leaders encouraged a wave of lone-wolf attacks on Jews) and 2018 (when Hamas launched hundreds of rockets into Israel in response to a botched spy operation).  Palestinians do not have to lie awake at night in fear that Israel is going to randomly blow up their house.  Even this week, when Israel is destroying property, they are sending out warnings to avoid civilian casualties.

In contrast, Palestine attacks Israel hundreds of times every year.  Hamas will randomly decide to launch rockets into Israel just because they have some rockets and want to use them.  They'll randomly kidnap or murder Jews, blow up civil infrastructure, and other sorts of terrorist activity.  It's just a part of daily life in Israel.  And if not for the strength of the IDF, it would be far more impactful and make life in Israel virtually unlivable.

This conflict isn't "a few teens throw rocks and Israel launches airstrikes."  I honestly don't know whether you understand that or not because there's so much disinformation out there right now trying to make this the narrative.  This started with the Israeli court ruling that the squatters of Sheikh Jarrah have to leave.  In response a bunch of Arabs rioted in the al-Aqsa mosque, attacking Israeli police.  Israeli police responded with force to quell the riot.  Palestinian agitators used this to incite violent riots across Israel that caused a lot of damage and bloodshed.  When the Israeli police suppressed those riots, that's when Hamas broke out the rockets and launched thousands of strikes into Israel.  Only then did the Israeli military respond by bombing Hamas military targets.

Got it, the Covid test site blew up by itself. So did the apartments. Looks like a lot of self destructing buildings.

And calling residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood “squatters” when they had evidence to prove ownership of the house (which was ignored by the Israeli court) is a deliberate twist on your part. Nice try, Rupert MacArthur.

With your logic, Palestine was only defending its people.
Forceful removal of property rights and Israeli (Again I should use the word Jewish in the same way you use Arab, but that would get modded) mob violence against the residents caused all of this.

What’s ironic is that if Trump acted the same way towards BLM protestors this summer as Bibi does against Palestinian protestors today, you would be frothing at the mouth about the US being fascist and Trump being a murderer. I guess the standards don’t apply when it’s not your country, when it’s not your people.

He really does think he's some kind of strategic expert and armchair diplomat while parroting the worst anti-Arab talking points.

[GeneralMacArthur]

He really does think he's some kind of strategic expert and armchair diplomat while parroting the worst anti-Arab talking points.

Could you just stop?  All you do is follow me around on threads to insult me while pretending you're having a conversation with other people.  You're not the first person to try out being a GMA reply guy, it's not original, it's not clever or insightful, you're not "owning" me, literally a dozen other Atlas users have tried pulling this shtick since I joined and none of them do it anymore.  Just save everyone the trouble (but especially yourself), grow up and knock it off.

[Just the facts]

You have to give it to the Republicans. At least with them you know where you stand - they're scumbags and they're very obvious about it. The Democrats on the other hand are scumbags with preferred pronouns.

[lfromnj]

You tried, but it doesn't really work.

Israel hasn't attacked Palestine in years.  It's been seven years since the last large-scale Israeli attack on Palestine.  Israel resisted the urge to do so both in 2015 (when Palestinian leaders encouraged a wave of lone-wolf attacks on Jews) and 2018 (when Hamas launched hundreds of rockets into Israel in response to a botched spy operation).  Palestinians do not have to lie awake at night in fear that Israel is going to randomly blow up their house.  Even this week, when Israel is destroying property, they are sending out warnings to avoid civilian casualties.

In contrast, Palestine attacks Israel hundreds of times every year.  Hamas will randomly decide to launch rockets into Israel just because they have some rockets and want to use them.  They'll randomly kidnap or murder Jews, blow up civil infrastructure, and other sorts of terrorist activity.  It's just a part of daily life in Israel.  And if not for the strength of the IDF, it would be far more impactful and make life in Israel virtually unlivable.

This conflict isn't "a few teens throw rocks and Israel launches airstrikes."  I honestly don't know whether you understand that or not because there's so much disinformation out there right now trying to make this the narrative.  This started with the Israeli court ruling that the squatters of Sheikh Jarrah have to leave.  In response a bunch of Arabs rioted in the al-Aqsa mosque, attacking Israeli police.  Israeli police responded with force to quell the riot.  Palestinian agitators used this to incite violent riots across Israel that caused a lot of damage and bloodshed.  When the Israeli police suppressed those riots, that's when Hamas broke out the rockets and launched thousands of strikes into Israel.  Only then did the Israeli military respond by bombing Hamas military targets.

Got it, the Covid test site blew up by itself. So did the apartments. Looks like a lot of self destructing buildings.

And calling residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood “squatters” when they had evidence to prove ownership of the house (which was ignored by the Israeli court) is a deliberate twist on your part. Nice try, Rupert MacArthur.

With your logic, Palestine was only defending its people.
Forceful removal of property rights and Israeli (Again I should use the word Jewish in the same way you use Arab, but that would get modded) mob violence against the residents caused all of this.

What’s ironic is that if Trump acted the same way towards BLM protestors this summer as Bibi does against Palestinian protestors today, you would be frothing at the mouth about the US being fascist and Trump being a murderer. I guess the standards don’t apply when it’s not your country, when it’s not your people.

Do you have the source for the court just fully ignoring the Palestinian claim to right of land?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-settlements/israels-top-court-rules-for-removal-of-settler-homes-from-palestinian-land-idUSKBN25N2LI

The Israeli supreme court generally hasn't been exceptionally pro settler. Last year they sided with Palestinians in a more clear cut case regarding property. Enforcing said order is usually a tougher task though.

[It’s so Joever]

You tried, but it doesn't really work.

Israel hasn't attacked Palestine in years.  It's been seven years since the last large-scale Israeli attack on Palestine.  Israel resisted the urge to do so both in 2015 (when Palestinian leaders encouraged a wave of lone-wolf attacks on Jews) and 2018 (when Hamas launched hundreds of rockets into Israel in response to a botched spy operation).  Palestinians do not have to lie awake at night in fear that Israel is going to randomly blow up their house.  Even this week, when Israel is destroying property, they are sending out warnings to avoid civilian casualties.

In contrast, Palestine attacks Israel hundreds of times every year.  Hamas will randomly decide to launch rockets into Israel just because they have some rockets and want to use them.  They'll randomly kidnap or murder Jews, blow up civil infrastructure, and other sorts of terrorist activity.  It's just a part of daily life in Israel.  And if not for the strength of the IDF, it would be far more impactful and make life in Israel virtually unlivable.

This conflict isn't "a few teens throw rocks and Israel launches airstrikes."  I honestly don't know whether you understand that or not because there's so much disinformation out there right now trying to make this the narrative.  This started with the Israeli court ruling that the squatters of Sheikh Jarrah have to leave.  In response a bunch of Arabs rioted in the al-Aqsa mosque, attacking Israeli police.  Israeli police responded with force to quell the riot.  Palestinian agitators used this to incite violent riots across Israel that caused a lot of damage and bloodshed.  When the Israeli police suppressed those riots, that's when Hamas broke out the rockets and launched thousands of strikes into Israel.  Only then did the Israeli military respond by bombing Hamas military targets.

Got it, the Covid test site blew up by itself. So did the apartments. Looks like a lot of self destructing buildings.

And calling residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood “squatters” when they had evidence to prove ownership of the house (which was ignored by the Israeli court) is a deliberate twist on your part. Nice try, Rupert MacArthur.

With your logic, Palestine was only defending its people.
Forceful removal of property rights and Israeli (Again I should use the word Jewish in the same way you use Arab, but that would get modded) mob violence against the residents caused all of this.

What’s ironic is that if Trump acted the same way towards BLM protestors this summer as Bibi does against Palestinian protestors today, you would be frothing at the mouth about the US being fascist and Trump being a murderer. I guess the standards don’t apply when it’s not your country, when it’s not your people.

Do you have the source for the court just fully ignoring the Palestinian claim to right of land?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-settlements/israels-top-court-rules-for-removal-of-settler-homes-from-palestinian-land-idUSKBN25N2LI

The Israeli supreme court generally hasn't been exceptionally pro settler. Last year they sided with Palestinians in a more clear cut case regarding property. Enforcing said order is usually a tougher task though.

Thanks for asking.
I looked and saw I mixed up this current court case with a previous one from 2005 where the Israeli Supreme Court did refuse to look at evidence of ownership (from Ottoman documents) in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. This was a serious blunder on my part and I do apologize for confusing/potentially misleading in my above posts.
That being said, that doesn’t disprove any of the actual claims I have made, GMacs characterization of Palestinian residents in Sheikh Jarrah as lawless “squatters” is still a gross misinterpretation of the facts, given the lopsided right to return policies and a complex historic precedent.

It also doesn’t exactly go against my initial claim (which started all of this) that neither side really is in the right here and that we only support Israel for geopolitical reasons (not that I am against that’s it I just want honesty on here)

[Geoffrey Howe]

He really does think he's some kind of strategic expert and armchair diplomat while parroting the worst anti-Arab talking points.

Could you just stop?  All you do is follow me around on threads to insult me while pretending you're having a conversation with other people.  You're not the first person to try out being a GMA reply guy, it's not original, it's not clever or insightful, you're not "owning" me, literally a dozen other Atlas users have tried pulling this shtick since I joined and none of them do it anymore.  Just save everyone the trouble (but especially yourself), grow up and knock it off.

He’s a very tiresome user. Recently he has rather rudely been asking people not to tell him ‘about [his] own country,’ while in the same thread lecturing people about their country (along with the claim that AI, one of our most dedicated Labour supporters, has been spreading right wing conspiracy theories).

[Conservatopia]

He really does think he's some kind of strategic expert and armchair diplomat while parroting the worst anti-Arab talking points.

Could you just stop?  All you do is follow me around on threads to insult me while pretending you're having a conversation with other people.  You're not the first person to try out being a GMA reply guy, it's not original, it's not clever or insightful, you're not "owning" me, literally a dozen other Atlas users have tried pulling this shtick since I joined and none of them do it anymore.  Just save everyone the trouble (but especially yourself), grow up and knock it off.

He’s a very tiresome user. Recently he has rather rudely been asking people not to tell him ‘about [his] own country,’ while in the same thread lecturing people about their country (along with the claim that AI, one of our most dedicated Labour supporters, has been spreading right wing conspiracy theories).

He's Schrodinger's poster.  Amongst the best and worst posters on the forum.  Can be hilarious and interesting but apt at going off the rails if one of his heroes (Corbyn, de Blasio etc) is insulted.

[(no subject)]

I'm amused sometimes that anti-Israel commentators claim sympathy for the "oppressed" Middle East and North African Jews in Israel, without apparently realising that they are Likud's voting base and the main force resisting any territorial concessions to the Arabs. It's the old Ashkenazic elite who used to run the country who make up what's left of the "peace camp.". Also why is the Arabs total refusal to compromise in 1947 praised when if they had, not only would there have been an Arab/Palestinian state for over seventy years but it would have been far larger than anything the Palestinians can hope to achieve now.

[(no subject)]

These six facts the story of more than 80 years of efforts to create an Arab or Palestinian state in the former territory of Mandate Palestine
.
* In 1936 the Peel Commission first recommended the partition of Mandate Palestine, with a Jewish state running along the coast from Tel Aviv to Akko and inland to Galilee, with an Arab state taking the rest, except Jerusalem, which would be internationalised. The Jews (reluctantly) accepted this, the Arabs rejected it.
* In 1947 UNSCOP again recommended partition, but by then the Jewish population had doubled and the plan split Palestine roughly 50-50, although the Jewish state included the Negev desert. Again, Jerusalem was to be internationalised. The Jews again (reluctantly) accepted this, and the Arabs rejected it, instead launching the 1948 war, which they lost.
* After the 1967 war, in which Israel captured all of what had been Mandate Palestine, Israel offered to withdraw from everything except the Old City of Jerusalem in exchange for recognition and a peace treaty. At their Khartoum summit, the Arabs rejected this.
* The Israelis then put forward the Allon Plan, which would have partitioned the West Bank with Jordan. The Arabs rejected this too. (Note that all this was before a single Jewish settlement was established in what is now the Palestinian Territories.)
* In 2000, at Camp David, Clinton and Barak offered the Palestinians a state taking in 94% of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Arafat rejected this and launched the First Intifada instead.
* In 2008, Olmert made Abbas an even more generous offer, which Abbas literally walked out on.
* Trump came up with a plan which allows Israel to annex all the Jewish communities in Judaea and Samaria, plus the Jordan Valley, leaving the Palestinians with a convoluted border, but still a contiguous state, plus several new enclaves along the Egyptian border. The Palestinians rejected this plan before it was even announced, although most of the Arab states indicated their acceptance of it.

There is a pattern here. Each successive plan reflects the balance of power between the Jews and the Arabs at the time. That means that each successive plan has offered the Palestinians less, because each time they reject a plan and resort to war, terrorism, intifada and other forms of "resistance", they are defeated and left weaker than they were before. So the next offer is less generous than the one they previously rejected. The Jewish/Israeli response (reflecting Jewish history) has always been to take what they can get and hope for more later. The Arab/Palestinian response (reflecting Arab-Islamic history) has always been to reject all compromise and gamble on all-or-nothing. Since they always lose this gamble, they always get nothing.

The Trump plan went the way of all previous plans, because the Palestinian leadership cannot bring itself to admit defeat in its century-long campaign to expel the Jews from Eretz Israel. This of course suits Israel just fine, because the longer the present situation endures, the further the Jewish resettlement of Judaea and Samaria will progress, and the less likely it will be that a viable Palestinian state will ever be created. So this may well be the last serious "peace plan" ever offered. People who consider themselves Friends of Palestine should have considered advising their Palestinian friends to take what was on offer, because this might have been been the last chance at a state they get.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Of course "we kept offering a two state solution and they kept rejecting it!" makes the Palestinians sound unreasonable when you ignore key context, like the fact that Jews constituted less than 10% of the total population of Palestine prior to WW1 and even up to the dawn of the Nakba owned less than 10% of the land. The Palestinians have never been offered any deal representative of the actual demographic reality on the ground, they're been offered comically one sided deals, whether it was the UN agreement that gave Israel vast territory that had next to no Jewish settlement or the Oslo Accord in which the Palestinian "state" was a puppet that didn't even have sovereignty over its own airspace.

It's like if you let a homeless person into your house to recover from past hardships and then suddenly he brings his friends and demands full ownership and control of half of your house. When you refuse he starts smashing things and beats you up (turns out he wasn't a guy down on his luck but a hardened criminal). He then locks you in the basement but continually comes down with a contract formally signing the house over to him with a clause that you can live as a tenant in the basement, and each time you refuse to sign he beats you bloody and reduces the area within the basement which you're allowed to occupy. Then he has the nerve to complain about this unreasonable person who won't just make a compromise.

[(no subject)]

Lustration: Pity it is just colonial propaganda

Me: Which factual statements made in that piece do you dispute?

Lustration: you know interpretation of history is not just about what facts you include

Me: So you don't dispute any of the factual statements. That being so, you cannot avoid the conclusion I came to.

Lustration: I am not going to engage in a response to any of your pieces because I have other more productive obligations

Me: Yes, that is always how these discussions end.

I have had variants of this conversation many times over the years, about various subjects, but most commonly about Israel-Palestine. The conversation usually begins with a rhetorical statement ("Israel is an apartheid state" or "Israel commits genocide"). I respond by setting out the facts of the issue in the most dispassionate way I can. The other person never engages with these facts, but responds with more rhetorical statements. When I insist on focusing on the facts, I get accused of being a propogandist or some other ad hominem term. Finally the other person says "I'm not going to engage with you on this any more."

I am told by people who study human behaviour that this is a very common pattern of conversation. I don't have any climate denialists among my friends, so I don't often have arguments on that subject, but I'm told such arguments usually follow this pattern. When a climate denialist is presented with facts that prove their arguments to be false, they simply disengage and walk away. They have too much emotional investment in their false beliefs to allow them to be challenged.

We like to think we are a rational species, but sadly most of the time we are not. How else to explain the fact that most of the world's population hold religious beliefs which are not only absurd in themselves, and which are easily refutable by anyone with primary-school science, but which also contradict each other and cannot possibly all be true?

All of this makes me quite pessimistic about our future. We are facing several very grave crises, crises entirely of our own making. The solutions to these crises are easy to describe, although certainly not easy to implement. But most people most of the time simply do not want to hear the truth about any of these matters.

[Donerail]

Me: So you don't dispute any of the factual statements. That being so, you cannot avoid the conclusion I came to.

If you are looking for help — as you seem to be doing quite badly here — this is the part where your argument falls apart. The facts are what they are, and you have done a good job of selecting the most favorable ones for your side — well done! — but you do need an "argument" connecting the facts to your conclusion. Lustration is pointing out that your selections from the factual record are incomplete. If that's the case, your conclusion does not necessarily stand.

Your implicit argument here is that Israel is entitled to the lands they have occupied through right of conquest — they won the war, they are the "stronger nation," and thus they are entitled to a greater share of the lands they have conquered. Not an uncommon argument, usually made implicitly given how the world has changed over the past century, but not a good one.

[(no subject)]

This war makes no profits and no economic sense for anyone. It's an old-fashioned war of religion, and wars of religion frequently last for decades. On both the Israeli and the Arab side, over the past 30 years, secular nationalist parties have lost ground to religious parties. On the Israeli side, Netanyahu, although secular himself, is a prisoner of the religious parties, and they want to redeem all of Judaea and Samaria which God promised to Abraham and Moses. On the Arab side, Hamas and Hezbollah have taken leadership from Fatah and the PFLP etc. They want Palestinian statehood, but more than that they want to kill all the Jews and erect an Islamic theocracy. In a war between two such parties, there is really no ground for dialogue or compromise. It's a war to the death. I don't like religious fundamentalism of any kind, and there is plenty to dislike about Jewish extremists. But if I have to chose, I will choose the Jews over the Islamists every day, if only because they have no interest in anyone else, whereas Islam has always aimed to conquer and convert the whole world, and kill unbelievers like me.