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The Root Cause of the Never-Ending Conflict in Palestine; and How to Fix It | Peter CohenThe view that Jews are a nation is the primary belief underlying Zionism. Other ideas too are inherent to Zionism, but no useful purpose would be served by discussing them all here. The notion of Jewish nationhood is a 19th-century invention,2 and like many other 19th-century inventions it is taking a long time to unravel and lay to rest. The following addresses the question of how the damage caused by the Zionist project might be reduced, or even reversed, by peaceful political means.
Zionism is a conceptual ideology in which it is assumed that part or all of the land of Palestine belongs to "the Jews." Of course, we should all be free to assume whatever we want, but where such assumptions lead to organized conquests, expulsions, land dispossession or the kind of repetitive episodes of brutal violence we have just seen in Gaza, that is quite another matter.
Many words have been devoted to the question of how to attain "peace" between the Zionist colonists and the people who were living in Palestine prior to the Zionists' arrival. This article is not about that kind of peace. Defining grounds on which to make peace within the status quo is not my concern here. What I have in mind is something far more fundamental: the return of Palestine, through political inducements, to the people we have come to call the Palestinians. It behooves those who seek an end to violence and a just peace to at least remain open to my argument, as follows:
By Palestinians, I mean all those who inhabited this region in the centuries during which it was under Turkish rule (1517-1917). Some of those people were Jewish. I include these Jews among the Palestinians, since they took no part in the Zionist colonization of Palestine from about 1890 onwards.
Palestine could be defined as the entire region that the League of Nations assigned to Great Britain by mandate in 1923. This included present-day Jordan, to the east of the river Jordan. Here, however, I am using Palestine to mean the entire British mandate territory with the exception of present-day Jordan. For about the past hundred years, this Palestine, excluding Jordan, has been regarded as an emigration destination for people calling themselves "Zionists." These are people originating from a large number of countries where Jews have lived and still live today. I regard this emigration as unlawful, since it was forced on the local population by foreign powers. The people who lived in this region did not have any resources either to repel this flow of emigrants or to conclusively disprove the political and ideological justifications that were presented for it.
The 1917 Balfour Declaration is regarded as one of these justifications. However, no one maintains that the then government of Great Britain had any authority to assign the land of Palestine to anyone other than the people who were living there. Similarly, although the United Nations assigned a portion of Palestine to the immigrants in the so-called Partition of Palestine in 1947, its own Charter stated that it had no right to do so without obtaining the consent of the mandate territory's population.3
You've crossed the bridge and now accept the notion of forced ethnic cleansing as a viable solution to the problems.
When did I say even the slightest thing about a forced ethnic cleansing??? I'm sorry, you'll have to do better, as I can't invest time in posts where the poster is arguing against assertions of their own invention.
I'm entirely agreeable that anybody should debate what I did actually say.
You're not very bright, are you? Your entire premise revolves around the Israelis leaving Israel and settling in the US. That's ethnic cleansing.
You're not very bright, are you? Your entire premise revolves around the Israelis leaving Israel and settling in the US. That's ethnic cleansing.
If Israeli Jews voluntarily moving to the United States is "forced ethnic cleansing" then I am Santa Claus. C'mon, get serious, or be quiet.
The notion of Jewish nationhood is a 19th-century invention, and like many other 19th-century inventions it is taking a long time to unravel and lay to rest.
Please explain how this has "solved" the problem.
Israel doesn't have a real peace with any of it's neighbors. It has a temporary peace with some of the local governments, but not with the populations of those countries.
Those who move to America will have a stable secure peace, those who remain in Israel will not.
The Root Cause of the Never-Ending Conflict in Palestine; and How to Fix It
The Root Cause of the Never-Ending Conflict in Palestine; and How to Fix It | Peter CohenThe view that Jews are a nation is the primary belief underlying Zionism. Other ideas too are inherent to Zionism, but no useful purpose would be served by discussing them all here. The notion of Jewish nationhood is a 19th-century invention,2 and like many other 19th-century inventions it is taking a long time to unravel and lay to rest. The following addresses the question of how the damage caused by the Zionist project might be reduced, or even reversed, by peaceful political means.
Zionism is a conceptual ideology in which it is assumed that part or all of the land of Palestine belongs to "the Jews." Of course, we should all be free to assume whatever we want, but where such assumptions lead to organized conquests, expulsions, land dispossession or the kind of repetitive episodes of brutal violence we have just seen in Gaza, that is quite another matter.
Many words have been devoted to the question of how to attain "peace" between the Zionist colonists and the people who were living in Palestine prior to the Zionists' arrival. This article is not about that kind of peace. Defining grounds on which to make peace within the status quo is not my concern here. What I have in mind is something far more fundamental: the return of Palestine, through political inducements, to the people we have come to call the Palestinians. It behooves those who seek an end to violence and a just peace to at least remain open to my argument, as follows:
By Palestinians, I mean all those who inhabited this region in the centuries during which it was under Turkish rule (1517-1917). Some of those people were Jewish. I include these Jews among the Palestinians, since they took no part in the Zionist colonization of Palestine from about 1890 onwards.
Palestine could be defined as the entire region that the League of Nations assigned to Great Britain by mandate in 1923. This included present-day Jordan, to the east of the river Jordan. Here, however, I am using Palestine to mean the entire British mandate territory with the exception of present-day Jordan. For about the past hundred years, this Palestine, excluding Jordan, has been regarded as an emigration destination for people calling themselves "Zionists." These are people originating from a large number of countries where Jews have lived and still live today. I regard this emigration as unlawful, since it was forced on the local population by foreign powers. The people who lived in this region did not have any resources either to repel this flow of emigrants or to conclusively disprove the political and ideological justifications that were presented for it.
The 1917 Balfour Declaration is regarded as one of these justifications. However, no one maintains that the then government of Great Britain had any authority to assign the land of Palestine to anyone other than the people who were living there. Similarly, although the United Nations assigned a portion of Palestine to the immigrants in the so-called Partition of Palestine in 1947, its own Charter stated that it had no right to do so without obtaining the consent of the mandate territory's population.3
You're not very bright, are you? Your entire premise revolves around the Israelis leaving Israel and settling in the US. That's ethnic cleansing.
If Israeli Jews voluntarily moving to the United States is "forced ethnic cleansing" then I am Santa Claus. C'mon, get serious, or be quiet.
Who says that it will be voluntary, and will they be given part of the USA as the NEW NATIONAL HOME OF THE JEWS. Will you tell the land owners of this area to pack up and move out because you have made it the NEW ISRAEL.
The notion of Jewish nationhood is a 19th-century invention, and like many other 19th-century inventions it is taking a long time to unravel and lay to rest.
The notion of a Jewish nation isn't a bad idea in itself. If the Jews had been given a chunk of Sweden for their state, all would have been well.
It's the location of the Jewish state that is the problem, smack dab in the middle of a bunch of dictatorships, in a foreign culture that is not going to be ready for democracy for perhaps a couple hundred years. It's not a wise place for a people looking for security to go.
Dictatorships are inherently unstable, as we've seen in recent years with the Arab Spring. And nobody in any part of the world or history can ever achieve a stable peace with dictatorships.
The problem is bigger than this tactic, or that agreement, or this particular population etc. The entire region is, and will long remain, entirely incompatible with a stable peace.
Israel doesn't have a real peace with any of it's neighbors. It has a temporary peace with some of the local governments, but not with the populations of those countries.
Given that those governments are authoritarian to dictatorships, and the people of those countries have not been won over, the current "peace" with those countries could change in a heart beat.
All it takes is some ambitious Colonel to launch a coup and decide he needs an external enemy.
Then the fault lies with the illiterate arab muslims again, and not with the Jews.
which is why I offered my proposal. Nobody is going to blame game their way out of the trouble they've gotten themselves in to.
If we could just make the Israelis magically disappear
Well, if we're going to consider magic solutions then why not make the Palestinians just disappear instead? Doesn't that solve the problem too?
Oh, that's simple. Arabs/muslims have a concept of peace different from that of the western one. And the "freedom they desire" is, at best, to plunder the israeli social security blind and, at worst, to kill and drive jews out and plunder it blind whole, of course.Israel still doesn't have the peace it seeks, and the Palestinians still don't have the freedom they desire.
Oh, that's simple. Arabs/muslims have a concept of peace different from that of the western one. And the "freedom they desire" is, at best, to plunder the israeli social security blind and, at worst, to kill and drive jews out and plunder it blind whole, of course
Oh, so, me, actually, took the trouble of carefully reading the opening post trolling, and me have a solution that me've always been talking about here - resettle palistanians in arab lands, their familiar habitat.If you would, please show how six decades of playing the blame game has accomplished the goal of bringing peace and security to the Israeli people.Oh, that's simple. Arabs/muslims have a concept of peace different from that of the western one. And the "freedom they desire" is, at best, to plunder the israeli social security blind and, at worst, to kill and drive jews out and plunder it blind whole, of course
It doesn't matter whether what you just said is true or not.
What matters is that saying such things over and over and over again does not accomplish anything at all for Israel, or anybody else. All it does is fuel the conflict. It's a complete waste of time.
The same is true for the Palestinians and their rhetoric and their goals. Six decades of yelling at Israel has not made them free.
Do you really want the peace and security you claim to want? Or do you want the conflict? You are a very intelligent people, so whatever your real goal is will likely be achieved.
