Israel General Discussion: Annus Horribilis

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Seventy-five years since the UN partition plan for Mandate Palestine. If the Arabs had accepted the plan, there would have been a Palestinian state for the past 74 years. But no, they decided to go to war instead, gambling on an all-or-nothing bet. When you gamble for all-or-nothing, and then lose, you get nothing, which is what the Palestinians now have.

Israel started the 1967 war though.

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When Binyamin Netanyahu forms his new right-wing Israeli government, it seems likely that the extreme right leader Itamar Ben-Gvir will become internal security minister. This may have severe consequences for Israel's Arab minority, since Ben-Gvir has spoken in the past of deporting them. (He now denies this is his position). If you are wondering how this could come to pass, these photos are all the explanation you need. Every time the Palestinians do stuff like this, they drive the Israeli electorate to the right, strengthen support for politicians like Ben-Gvir, and make any kind of peace settlement, let alone a Palestinian state, less likely. This has been true (and obvious to most people) for the past 40 years, but the Palestinians and their false friends in the Western left never seem to learn this lesson.

By that logic, the Rabin assassination should have moved Israel far to the left, but no.

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Oh and yesterday, incoming Finance Minister Smotrich talked about his economic philosophy: "socialism and capitalism were tried, but no one tried this- if we apply the laws of the Torah, we'll have economic prosperity."

Good luck...

I think socialists can have better prosperity than an economy without interest payments.

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We shouldn't give military aid to a Kahanist government.

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I think you will find Palestine is recognised by more than just "a few poor countries".

Plus they have some other notable trappings of statehood such as competing in sporting events - not true generally of Somaliland or Western Sahara (to take just two seemingly similar examples)

it it is quite galling that Palestine are allowed to compete when Western Sahara aren’t given that no one (aside from a hasty quid pro quo from the US) recognises the Moroccan occupation.

If i were cynical, more Western progressives care about white European Jews oppressing brown Arabs than brown people oppressing other brown people.

I doubt most Western progressives even back then would have mounted a BDS campaign against Bokassa, for example.

What is there to divest from there? Meanwhile, Israel is unique (aside from Ukraine in 2022) in how much military aid we give them.

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I'm sorry but at some point it has got to be time for America to put its foot down. Thanks to our inaction the two state solution is dead. If nothing changes Palestine itself may be next.

Sadly Kamala Harris said Biden supports Israel unconditionally. Even spineless Obama was more willing to stand up to Israel than Biden.

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The first poll after the start of the Israeli-Hamas war:

Lazar poll for Maariv newspaper:

41 National Unity (+12)
19 Likud (-9)
15 Yesh Atid (-1)
  7 Shas (-3)
  7 UTJ (nc)
  6 YB (nc)
  6 Meretz (+2)
  5 Ra'am (nc)
  5 Hadash (nc)
  5 Otzma Yehudit (+1)
  4 Mafdal–RZP (-2)

Poll conducted between 11 and 12 October 2023. Polled 600 voters. MoE of 4.00%.

Is Labor dead?