well that escalated quickly! Business as usual or the tip of the iceberg?

The U.S. and U.K. "minding their own business" in 1947 would mean no Israel today. And it's hard to imagine that a Middle East without Israel would be better in any way.

In other words, we're fucked.

The modern Zionist movement dates back at least to the 1917 Balfour Declaration. The idea that any nation would willingly give up it's territory strikes me as (sorry to say it) ludicrous. The idea that any Arab state would do that for Jews is especially far-fetched. I found a fascinating 1961 article on the Palestinians from The Atlantic magazine. It's lengthy, but this paragraph stands out as it shows how the Palestinians evolved into political pawns.
We ought to have learned never to ignore dictators or their books. Egypt's Liberation, by Gamal Abdel Nasser, deserves careful notice. It is short, low-keyed, and tells us once again that a nation has been ordained by fate to lead--this time, to lead the Arab nations, all Africa, all Islam. The Palestinian refugees are not mentioned, and today, in the Middle East, you get a repeated sinking sensation about the Palestinian refugees: they are only a beginning, not an end. Their function is to hang around and be constantly useful as a goad. The ultimate aim is not such humane small potatoes as repatriating refugees.
If the "moral" solution to a Jewish homeland is to find a nation willing to voluntarily give up territory, wouldn't that also be a possible solution for a Palestinian homeland? One would think that since the Palestinians are Arab Muslims that finding a nation or nations willing to help them out would be easier than plopping a Jewish state in the midst of the Middle East, but no one seems to be interested in doing that.
As far as the idea of somebody simply deciding to try making nice, it might be relevant that the Arab leader who was willing to make peace with Israel (Anwar Sadat) was assassinated, whilst the Israeli leader (Yitzhak Rabin) who was most willing to surrender "land for peace" with the Palestinians was also assassinated. That might explain the reluctance of some leaders to try again. Ariel Sharon might have had the juice to pull off creation of a Palestinian "mini-state" but was incapacitated by a stroke.

Absolutely this.

Palestinians have, by and large, seen not only their fates but their purpose defined by the whims of others since the Ottoman Empire. Look where that has led them.

Why would they choose to trust some external polity now given their history of serving as disposable pawns for such powers time and again?

I think it's unrealistic that another Arab nation would accept mass repatriation. Even if such a thing were possible without massive economic and humanitarian fallout you'd only have repeated the mistakes of the past.

The Palestinians may not be Jews but they'd still be an outside group transplanted into an established nation. That is enough to recreate the conditions for tribal violence in a new territory and I'm not sure it would satisfy Israeli interests in expansion anyway.

The specifics might change but the pattern would repeat except now on two fronts.

Frankly if we were that altruistic in our intentions relocating Jewish refugees why not, y'know, take them in ourselves?

The United States does have the largest Jewish population of any country in the world. But I think the idea was to have an ancestral homeland.

It's far harder to imagine it being any worse.

This is all hypothetical, but it's far more likely that had the U.S and U.K stayed out of it, the conflict would have been resolved one way or the other. All we've managed to do is delay the war to a more technologically advanced age where they can kill each other in greater numbers with the press of a button.

Fair enough, I can certainly see that point of view.

Perhaps it's shaded by my own personal experience. If you are the big guy, and a smaller guy tries his best to hurt you but can't, I get a bit tired of the perception that if you act in return you are always the bad guy.

So one of those 'many truths' which is why these things are always complicated. Yes, I see the Palestinian point of view, and yes, each life lost when Israel retaliates is horrible.

But when you are dealing with a rival polity that wants you exterminated and has never wavered from that basic principle, trust is a damn hard thing to gain.

They do have more capability, and no, a genocide is not killing in the hundreds when you have the capacity to wipe out millions, but don't. Hamas launched hundreds of rockets with the intent of causing indiscriminate mayhem and murder. Just about every military in the world would say if it costs a few hundred lives to remove the ability of the other side to wage war against us, it's valid. We certainly have done much, much worse.

And this started over 'stealing land,' I keep hearing. And the other side of that is that it was in response to the possibility of a legal judgment to evict 6 families for not paying rent. They haven't been evicted yet, the judgment hasn't been rendered. That's worth the escalation we are seeing now, maybe some Palestinians will lose land they can't pay for?

I can see protesting that it isn't fair to have to ask them to pay rent, though I'm not sure I'd fall on that side, but launching rockets over it?

I definitely can see the need the IDF feels to destroy that ability. How the hell can you trust when mass murder attempts are launched by a government that says it wants you destroyed?

So again, I want Israel to stop, the fact this is tied up in Netanyahu's political fortunes make it even more disgusting, but I have a hard time blaming one side for this, when both sides continue act in manner that I consider vastly unethical.

I feel bad for the civilians trapped in Palestine, to be sure.

But they are the ones that keep putting groups like Hamas in power. The majority certainly don't seem to want a peaceful resolution.

Jordan actually claimed the West Bank in 1950, including East Jerusalm, and tried to incorporate it's population into their state. Fully 1/3rd of Jordan's population during this time period were Palestinians living on the West Bank.

They tried to assassinate King Hussein twice during this time, launched constant attacks from the West Bank into Israel, including blowing up at least one school bus. Hussein tried to stop the attacks because he feared war would come, and that led to the Black September revolution where the PLO tried to take control of Jordan.

Skirmishes continued until the 1967 Six Day War when Jordan lost control of the West Bank to Israel.

The Palestinians are very useful as a political pawn to rile up outside hate in other Arab countries against Israel, and have been known to use their refugee camps as staging points for terrorist groups against both Israel and hosts asking them not to attack Israel.

I doubt we'll see any repatriation because of this.

Senator Tom Cotton accuses AP of cosying up to Hamas and letting them into their buildings, hence the airstrike on the press tower.

https://crooksandliars.com/2021/05/sen-tom-cotton-alledges-ap-working-hamas

Cunt.

And by the way guys, this is what I mean by 'right to exist.' Basically not be murdered.

This is all out of the Hamas charter.
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp

The second paragraph in the preamble:
Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).

Also, still in the Preamble:
This Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS), clarifies its picture, reveals its identity, outlines its stand, explains its aims, speaks about its hopes, and calls for its support, adoption and joining its ranks. Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts. It is a step that inevitably should be followed by other steps. The Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah's victory is realised.

Article Seven:
"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

Article Thirteen, on rejecting peaceful initiatives:
"But the Jews will not be pleased with thee, neither the Christians, until thou follow their religion; say, The direction of Allah is the true direction. And verily if thou follow their desires, after the knowledge which hath been given thee, thou shalt find no patron or protector against Allah." (The Cow - verse 120).

There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with. As in said in the honourable Hadith:

"The people of Syria are Allah's lash in His land. He wreaks His vengeance through them against whomsoever He wishes among His slaves It is unthinkable that those who are double-faced among them should prosper over the faithful. They will certainly die out of grief and desperation."​

Article Fifteen:
It is necessary to instill in the minds of the Moslem generations that the Palestinian problem is a religious problem, and should be dealt with on this basis. Palestine contains Islamic holy sites. In it there is al- Aqsa Mosque which is bound to the great Mosque in Mecca in an inseparable bond as long as heaven and earth speak of Isra` (Mohammed's midnight journey to the seven heavens) and Mi'raj (Mohammed's ascension to the seven heavens from Jerusalem).

"The bond of one day for the sake of Allah is better than the world and whatever there is on it. The place of one's whip in Paradise is far better than the world and whatever there is on it. A worshipper's going and coming in the service of Allah is better than the world and whatever there is on it." (As related by al-Bukhari, Moslem, al-Tarmdhi and Ibn Maja).

"I swear by the holder of Mohammed's soul that I would like to invade and be killed for the sake of Allah, then invade and be killed, and then invade again and be killed." (As related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).​

There have been two-state proposals on the table. Arafat rejected a proposal at Camp David talks hosted by Bill Clinton. I guess that a state of their own was less important to Palestinians than destroying Israel.

If that's true, he's not only a cunt, but a traitor and .... basically, everything @Lanzman accused @Ancalagon and @Nova of being in the Pick One thread.

‘The Onion’ Calls On Israel To Bomb Our Offices In Case Any Hamas Agents Hiding Out There

But that population was already thriving by 1939. The war bolstered it one way or another but it didn't spring it from scratch on an population already hostile to the Jews and fully expecting the promises made to be honoured.

That isn't about it being an ancestral homeland, rather that provided a very convenient way of selling what was otherwise a disastrous idea.

That's either a naive or intentionally misleading statement. The deal there included things like Israeli troops permanently stationed on Palestinian territory and that state being broken up by borders that Israel would control, along with a requirement for the Palestinians to accept that as a final permanent situation.

Overall both sides in those talks had requirements that the other would not meet.

If I wanted rockets to stop I probably would accept a ceasefire.

But I'm sure blowing up dozens of children is going to bring those in Gaza around.

Biden says this as his government sells weapons to be fired at them and vetos calls for a ceasefire between the two sides.

Now Lebanon & Syria are shooting rockets into Israel. Hamas has a presence there too obviously. Maybe they are trying convince Israel that they are surrounded, but I think they figured that out already -I could be wrong!

Let us remember that is US foreign aid money they are using to buy those weapons.

I get Biden cannot fix this problem. But he could at least get out of the way, and keep out of the fight.

He did tell us nothing was going to change while he was president. protecting Isreal, funding the terrorism, and selling them weapons are just a few of the things moderate dems and sick terroristy right wingers like trump and MTG love to agree on. Killing muslim brown people has been bringing the moderate left and the radical right together forever.

So wait, Hamas should just suck rockets without defending themselves? Do they not have a right to defend themselves by attacking those who fire rockets at them like Isreal has been doing?

It is war, and expecting either side to just die because you hate muslims seems a little silly. It really does show your racism when you expect one side to just happily allow themselves to bebombed without defending themselves. My thought is since no one is going to stop Isreal the people Isreal bombs had better hit back. Why should they even listewn to places like America when brutal racists like yourselves are going to sit back and watch them get blown up because it gives you a big old racism boner.

Viagra doesn't work as well as dying muslims for giving white american racists a hard on.

I'm not interested in misleading anyone, intentionally or unintentionally. Here's a more recent assessment that I think is fairly even=handed. I'm not grinding an axe either way. The situation is such a mess that pointing out anything about it is subject to being read as taking sides.

What you said was:

It's not unreasonable to say that the proposal put forward there wasn't for a viable permanent state.

what in the holy fuck are you even talking about? You are making absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Since it wasn't accepted, by definition it wasn't viable. Whether it was serious or not is another matter. It might have been an opening bid that Palestinians could have countered, or it might have been a cynical deliberate non-starter. As it stands now, I will fully agree that it appears Israel is not interested in doing anything to make peace. Netanyahu has nothing to gain by backing off.

Apparently, in 1937, a future Israeli prime minister was saying, "Fuck the Palestinians, either they'll accept us, or we'll bulldoze the fuck out of them." I'm simplifying here because I don't know if my source on this is accurate, but if it was, the dude was pretty racist. I mean, his argument was that Palestine was a shithole and that only the Jews could make it a decent country. Regardless of what one might think of if the partitioning of Palestine was justified or not, you should be able to agree that what makes a decent country doesn't depend upon the ethnicity of the people living there.

Fair enough, the objection I had was to your assertion that those talks not succeeded showed they were more interested in "destroying Israel" than having their own state.

Maybe trying to convince Israel of their willingness to support their allies?

Which will only increase Israel's resolve, tenacity and ferocity. I don't think the actual official legitimate military of Lebanon & Syria are shooting rockets into Israel, it's elements of Hamas inside their borders. But each nation is (or should be) responsible for any rogue elements inside their borders, so if said nations are willing to tolerate this they better be willing to get painted with the same broad brush. Israel does - not - play because they have no wiggle room being surrounded by unfriendly/untrustworthy nations.