Israel General Discussion: Dawn of the Post-Netanyahu Era

[(no subject)]

The Haredim are literally a law unto themselves. They are exempt from military service, they control their own areas and everything that happens there, they run their own schools without state supervision (but with state funding), and they get paid by the secular majority to study Torah all day and not work. When these concessions were granted in 1948, they were a tiny minority and nobody minded indulging them. But because of their very high birthrate they are now close to 20% of the Jewish population of Israel, and this has become a serious issue.

Yes, a serious issue and one that raises all kinds of other issues (ie how does the nation promote gender equality or respect for LGBTIQ community when 20% of your population actively disagrees).

I doubt the 20% Arab minority cares much for gender equality or respect for LGBTIQ community either, and they are also exempt from military service. This means that 65% of the Israeli population is carrying 100% of the defence burden, while subsidising the other 35% to stay safely at home.

[(no subject)]

There is a broad national consensus in Israel that there will be no further concessions to the Palestinians unless and until they admit defeat, enter direct negotiations without preconditions, and accept Israel's terms. As far as most Israelis are concerned, this debate is over. That's one of the reasons Netanyahu lost the election. Despite Hamas obliging him with a rocket attack, he was unable to persuade a majority of voters that the election was all about security.

[(no subject)]

Since Israel is in possession of all land of Mandate Palestine, has the only functional economy in the region, and has vast military superiority, this continuing impasse suits Israel's interests much more than it suits the interests of the Palestinian people. The longer Israel is in possession of Judaea and Samaria, the harder it will be, politically and demographically, to create a Palestinian state on any part of it.
This makes the continuing refusal of the Palestinian leadership to face facts all the more self-defeating. People who consider themselves to be the friends of the Palestinians should tell them that, rather the encouraging them in their delusions.

[(no subject)]

Viewed in the longer perspective, the 2000-04 intifada was typical of the self-defeating tactics the Palestinians and their sometime allies in the Arab states, Iran and the former Soviet bloc have followed for over a century. In that time they have rejected every proposed territorial settlement that would have required them to accept the permanent and legitimate existence of a Jewish state in the shared territory of Mandate Palestine. Instead they have repeatedly resorted to wars, riots, intifadas and terrorism. Every time they have done so, they have been defeated. Each defeat has made their situation worse, and has reduced the likelihood of a Palestinian state ever being created.
I can't think of another people who have allowed themselves to be led into repeated disastrous (and completely predictable) defeats by three such catastrophic leaders as Amin al-Husseyni, Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas. No wonder Abbas is afraid of facing the Palestinian voters at an election.
But the real question here is for my friends in the left. (If you are still reading this, congratulations.) How much longer will self-styled "friends of the Palestinians" go on encouraging the failed tactics of "resistance" and "armed struggle" and echoing the futile rhetoric of "liberating Palestine" "from the river to the sea" ? These tactics and this rhetoric have brought the Palestinians nothing but defeat and disaster for over a century. With Israel now wealthier and more powerful than ever, despite its dysfunctional politics, there's no reason to suppose that these tactics will be any more successful in the future. A genuine friend of the Palestinians would be telling them to come to a settlement with Israel, on whatever terms Israel is willing to offer, while a settlement is still to be had, because that may not be even theoretically possible for much longer.

[(no subject)]

And don’t forget that the Palestinian Arabs voided the 1947 UN Partition Plan by embarking on their war of wanna-be genocide against the Jewish community of the British Mandate. Lest anyone be inclined to challenge this assertion, we refer them to the words of the Arab League Secretary General Azzam Pasha as published just a few weeks before the UN partition vote in the Egyptian newspaper Akhbar al-Yom.

The creation of a Jewish state, warned Pasha, ‘will lead to a war of extermination and momentous massacre that will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.’ If there’s a singular salient lesson to be learned from 20th century Jewish history, it’s that if people say they intend to kill you, it’s wise to take them seriously.

[(no subject)]

Velasco ignores the Arab states plan to mass murder the Jewish population had they won in 1948, which they openly stated at the time and there is no reason to think they would not have gone through with it. You think they would have let the UN stop them?

He also portrays their all the land or none of the land gamble as noble even though it meant that if they lost that gamble they would get nothing.

Had they accepted the Partition plan, not only would there have been a Palestinian state alongside Israel these past seventy three years but this state would have been FAR larger than anything the Palestinians can hope to achieve now or in the future.

[(no subject)]

The Palestinian leadership provides a good example of what happens when they (reflecting Arab-Islamic history) always insist on an all or nothing gamble - if you lose, you get nothing. Which is what the Palestinians now have.

[(no subject)]

In order to dismantle the toxic "Honour killings et al" culture in most Muslim majority countries, i think you would have to reform modern Islam and *rebuild it from the ground up* as well.

[(no subject)]

Thankfully for world Jews, the more years that pass, the longer this sort of thing keeps happening and the continuing Palestinian refusal to face reality and to come to terms, the stronger Israel's demographic position becomes.

https://www.australianjewishnews.com/usyd-student-council-passes-anti-israel-motion/