Is it Possible for Israel and Palestine to Peacefully Coexist?

[Coyote]

Are we agreeing on which is which here?

Probably not.

When I speak of two very different populations I’m thinking of the Israeli settler population and the rural Palestinian population. The Israeli settler expansion is backed by the power of their state. The Palestinians are not.

 

[Shusha]

Ok, that is a more accurate way of looking at it.

I have always been a stickler for accuracy, as you know. But post-October 7, since the language has gotten SO outrageous, I feel as though we have to bring this back around to a reasonable discussion without all the accusatory and blood libelous language.

It is legal and reasonable, in our world, for people travelling between territories with different governments to pass through a checkpoint of some sort. Passing through such checkpoints is normal, often inconvenient, and not inherently degrading.

What makes it "degrading", then?

 

[Shusha]

Probably not.

When I speak of two very different populations I’m thinking of the Israeli settler population and the rural Palestinian population. The Israeli settler expansion is backed by the power of their state. The Palestinians are not.

Okay, so speaking specifically of a small population of about 300,000 Arab Palestinian citizens who live in Area C. You think they are not backed by their government? Not to mention by NGOs, foreign governments, and the UN?

You think there is no "settlement" expansion by Arab Palestinians into Area C against treaty agreements?

 

[AZrailwhale]

…

Here are some examples of how rights rights are affected compared to Israeli citizens.

• Over half of the obstacles (339 out of 645) have been assessed by OCHA to have a severe impact on Palestinians by preventing or restricting access and movement to main roads, urban centres, services, and agricultural areas.
• In 2022, Israeli forces also deployed an average of four ad hoc 'flying' checkpoints each week along West Bank roads.

Depending on where he lives, an average Palestinian may have to contend with multiple check points that may or may not be manned, may be closed and that may be random and unpredictable in order to get from where he lives in tbe West Bank to where he works, also in the West Bank.

• In addition, the 712 kilometre-long Israeli Barrier (65% of which is built) runs mostly inside the West Bank. Most Palestinian farmers with land isolated by the Barrier can access their groves through 69 gates; however, most of the time, the Israeli authorities keep these gates shut.

Farmers are effectively prevented from accessing their own property, cultivating it, collecting the produce which has an adverse financial effect. They can be arbritarily prevented from access in particular when they are close to settlements. Unlike other national borders these “borders” are continuously changing depending on Israeli needs.

Checkpoints and barriers bisect farm property which can have a big impact on farming if they are only allowed access twice a year.

The first map is from 2016, so I’m not sure if a lot has changed but you can see how convoluted the physical wall barrier is. The second is of the many different partial barriers and check points.

Israel’s Security Barrier | Ispeacestillpossible

www.ispeacestillpossible.com

Let’s compare crossing the Canadian border with Palestine/Israel.

First…there is only one border to cross. One check point.

Wait times:
Canadian border check points, max wait 35 minutes.

What is the average for the most populous West Bank or Jerusalem ones? What about multiple ones? Are Israeli citizens forced to use check points to go from one part of their farms to another ir are the roads and barriers conveniently set up or restricted so they do not?

That’s what happens when you support suicide bombers, murderers and other terrorists.

 

[AZrailwhale]

The Israeli’s never really wanted land for peace, there was always a contingent unwilling to give up any of the land that was taken. They withdrew from Gaza because of the high economic and political costs incurred in maintaining a security presence for a few settlements.

The Israeli military removed those people by force leaving their fully functional farms and businesses to the Palestinians who destroyed them rather than operating them.

 

[Shusha]

So are you saying Palestinians can freely travel to any part of Hebron and Jews cannot?

Nope. I am saying ARABS (both Palestinian and Israeli) can freely travel (well, through checkpoints) between H1 and H2. JEWS (Israeli, as we all know Jews are prohibited from becoming citizens of Palestine) can not. Apartheid?

 

[AZrailwhale]

There is nothing religious about the conflict in Palestine.
There were about 5% of the population of Palestine who were Jewish, before the massive immigration around WWII, and there was no problem at all then.
The problem is not religion, but that Zionists are using violence to take the homes of the Palestinian natives, by force.

If you want to get the picture, just go back and look how it started.
In 1946, Menachim Begin murdered the British peacekeepers by blowing up the King David Hotel.
He also gunned down Folke Bernadotte, the UN moderator.
He did that so no one could stop him from then ordering his gangs to start wiping out hundreds of native villages like Deir Yassin.

So there you have it.
The problem is the invading European Zionists are entirely at fault.

No problems? How about the pogroms in Jerusalem in the twenties? The Jews in Transjordan were always a persecuted minority.

 

[AZrailwhale]

Wrong.
Israel has illegally invaded Gaza, but found it could not afford to control it since it was full of millions of Palestinian, so they retreated back to Israel.

The borders of Israel did not exist until the UN partition of 1948, and they never included any of the West Bank or Jerusalem.

The original borders set by the League of Nations set Jordan aside for the Muslims and all of modern Israel plus other areas for the Jews, the British then sub-divided the area intended for the Jews into areas for both them and Muslims that had indefensible borders. The Brit’s did that deliberately, they were NOT friends to the Jews.

 

[AZrailwhale]

So close and yet so far. The government of Palestine was .... ?

Exactly. The UN has no authority to remove territory from a sovereign nation and give it away to another sovereign state, let alone to some fuzzy legal concept of self-determination.

The UN didn’t. The League of Nations did when it dissolved the Ottoman Empire as a result of its defeat in WWI.

 

[Coyote]

Yes, but what was the solution agreed to through negotiations with Israel in 1994 and what is the expectation now? How has it expanded or changed?

I don’t think the expectation has changed.

My opinion? Requiring ethnic cleansing as part of a "solution" is immoral, illegal, and an astonishing double standard against Israel. The eventual State of Palestine should have Jewish citizens. To require otherwise is unconscionable.

I agree. But what is happening? Those Israeli Jews creating those settlements and “outposts” no more want to share a state with a bunch of Muslim Arabs than a bunch of Muslim Arabs want to share a state with them at this point in time. And Israel has NOT been saying let’s keep the status quo until we negotiate a permanent solution, it’s been saying, through action and now openly that it is going to continue building and expanding settlements into areas that would have been part of a second state. It is an action seen as a deliberate attempt to prevent the creation of a second state by moving its citizens into those areas. It isn’t a double standard, it is an acknowledgement of the reality on BOTH sides.

I read an interesting article on a survey of Palestinians and Israeli’s and their views were identical in a way that almost makes this seem intractable:

A poll of Israelis and Palestinians published last Thursday reveals that the two sides nearly mirror each other in their unprecedented levels of fear and distrust. In addition, Jewish Israeli respondents report record-low rates of support for an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the forms of a one- or two-state solution or a confederation with Palestinians.​

​

An indicator of the prevailing distrust is that about 90% of respondents on each side attribute extreme, maximalist aspirations to the other. Sixty-six percent of Jewish Israelis and 61% of Palestinians believe the other side wants to commit genocide against them, and an additional 27% of Jewish Israelis and 26% of Palestinians say the other side wants to conquer the land “from the river to the sea” and expel them.​

​

Furthermore, a record-high 94% of Palestinians and 86% of Israelis say that the other side cannot be trusted.​

Palestinian self-governing bodies are required, by agreement, to treat with Israel and not impose a solution. Just so, the UN is required, by its charter, not to impose a solution, but to encourage peace and treaties.

Jews must be given the rights to religious freedom and to be able to pray in their holy places. Period.

Agree.

 

[Shusha]

The UN didn’t. The League of Nations did when it dissolved the Ottoman Empire as a result of its defeat in WWI.

Exactly. The correct question is: Who did have the right to determine the fate of territory formally renounced by the Ottoman Empire/Turkey and from where did that right originate?

 

[Coyote]

I have always been a stickler for accuracy, as you know. But post-October 7, since the language has gotten SO outrageous, I feel as though we have to bring this back around to a reasonable discussion without all the accusatory and blood libelous language.

It is legal and reasonable, in our world, for people travelling between territories with different governments to pass through a checkpoint of some sort. Passing through such checkpoints is normal, often inconvenient, and not inherently degrading.

What makes it "degrading", then?

When you put it that way, the process of check points is not inherently degrading. What can be degrading is the actions of individuals at those check points.

However, there is something very wrong when checkpoints are used in such a way as to prevent farmers from being able to access there lands and living.

 

[AZrailwhale]

Exactly. The correct question is: Who did have the right to determine the fate of territory formally renounced by the Ottoman Empire/Turkey and from where did that right originate?

The traditional right of the victors over the vanquished. It has existed as long as mankind has. Only over the last eighty years or so have the vanquished been seen to have rights.

It wasn’t only the ottoman who lost territory, all the losers of WWI lost territory to the victors.

 

[Shusha]

I don’t think the expectation has changed.

I disagree vehemently. The 1994 Oslo Accord expectation was: negotiations between Israel and PA to reach a mutually agreed upon territorial borders, settle the question of Jerusalem, and the return (or not) of the Arabs to certain places.

The expectation now is recognition of the "1967 borders" with East Jerusalem as Palestine's capital, the ethnic cleansing of Jews, and the Arab Palestinian "return".

These are significant changes.

 

[Shusha]

However, there is something very wrong when checkpoints are used in such a way as to prevent farmers from being able to access there lands and living.

Compared to what? Farmers (or workers) drawing maps of Jewish villages labelling the houses with how many people lived in each so the farmer would know if he killed them all?

The purpose of the fences is not to prevent farmers from farming lands. It is for security. The land laws in Area C are complicated. I don't know that it is possible to make the claim you are making without delving into each situation on a case-by-case.

 

[Coyote]

Nope. I am saying ARABS (both Palestinian and Israeli) can freely travel (well, through checkpoints) between H1 and H2. JEWS (Israeli, as we all know Jews are prohibited from becoming citizens of Palestine) can not. Apartheid?

Unless it has changed, it does not sound like Arabs can freely travel through Hebron according to this: Are they able to travel to the attached settlements?

How are Jews prohibited from becoming citizens of Palestine?

Not according to this:

Palestinians: Yes to Jews, no to settlers in our state

Netanyahu raised issue of settlers remaining in a future Palestine during recent talks with John Kerry, Palestinian official says

www.timesofisrael.com

Or the PLO charter:

The Avalon Project : The Palestinian National Charter

 

[Coyote]

I disagree vehemently. The 1994 Oslo Accord expectation was: negotiations between Israel and PA to reach a mutually agreed upon territorial borders, settle the question of Jerusalem, and the return (or not) of the Arabs to certain places.

The expectation now is recognition of the "1967 borders" with East Jerusalem as Palestine's capital, the ethnic cleansing of Jews, and the Arab Palestinian "return".

These are significant changes.

Hasn’t Israel herself changed expectations with its unilateral decision on Jerusalem? Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in northern Gaza?

Also, I’m not aware that there have been any changes in the international community expectations regarding “right of return”.

 

[Shusha]

Hasn’t Israel herself changed expectations with its unilateral decision on Jerusalem? Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in northern Gaza?

Also, I’m not aware that there have been any changes in the international community expectations regarding “right of return”.

You haven't read the ICJ Advisory Opinion of 20 July 2024? Israel's rights under international law are being eroded.

 

[AZrailwhale]

Hasn’t Israel herself changed expectations with its unilateral decision on Jerusalem? Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in northern Gaza?

Also, I’m not aware that there have been any changes in the international community expectations regarding “right of return”.

It’s not “ethnic cleansing”, it’s war and the Gazans started it.

 

[Shusha]

The traditional right of the victors over the vanquished. It has existed as long as mankind has. Only over the last eighty years or so have the vanquished been seen to have rights.

Sure. Evolving international law, both written (treaties) and practiced (customary). Including the prohibition on the acquisition of territory through armed force. It wasn't the victory itself, it was the treaties which were agreed upon afterwards. (Being horribly nitpicky here, I think we agree).