"The comments at this time are all from 3 regulars whom I respect, and they are not coming to any semblance of agreement, with each other or with Steve."
The symmetry is broken: I say many or most Israelis want to end the occupation and go two-state, Labia says all Palestinians are psychotic terrorists. The fact that they tortured WOMYN s…
"The comments at this time are all from 3 regulars whom I respect, and they are not coming to any semblance of agreement, with each other or with Steve."
The symmetry is broken: I say many or most Israelis want to end the occupation and go two-state, Labia says all Palestinians are psychotic terrorists. The fact that they tortured WOMYN seems to have broken something.
I despise the settlers. I'm sure some of them are decent folk but as it happens I have never read or heard a word by one like that. Israel ships them in and sends them right out to the WB, they never even *enter* Israel. And they start making trouble the day they arrive.
OK, so if a future government of Israel were to withdraw all of the settlers in the West Bank (and they have zero settlers anywhere else so that's easy), do you think that Palestinians would allow Israel to exist within its own borders in peace?
Eventually, yes, After at least a generation, likelier two. In the short run, there is too much thirst for vengeance, amply justified. Israelis have gone far past any bounds excusable by self-defense and have killed Palestinians for sport, and when not killing they have been savagely cruel.
In one case soldiers were going house to house looking for some fugitive. While they tore apart a Palestinian woman's bedroom, with no room for anyone to hide, another unzipped his pants and urinated on her carpet. There was a toilet.
On the same search, a tank going down the street took a detour and reasonlessly crushed a man's taxi, destroying his livelihood.
Palestinians have ample reason to despise Israel. They won't forget soon.
Another question of clarification. By "settlers" do you mean the 700,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank? Or do you mean all 9 million Israelis, which is what Hamas and the left in the West calls "settlers"? I suspect the former.
I think a two state solution might have worked in 1948 if the Arabs had accepted that plan, or perhaps in 1967. At this point, I don't see how it could work - it looks to me as if there would be two sovereign states in easy artillery and rocket range of each others, in perpetual full scale war - until it was reduced to one state or zero. In the abstract, a two state solution (or three state variant) seems like (1) the most ideal outcome in the abstract, and (2) a now obsolete fantasy which would end disastrously. And both sides have lots of responsibility for getting into this dilemma.
Both figures could be considered "correct" depending on whether you think the settlers in East Jerusalem to be OK, or part of the same problem as the other 450K outside of East Jerusalem.
450 K in West Bank excluding East Jerusalem
220 K in East Jerusalem
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670 K total settlers in West Bank including East Jerusalem
I consider the larger figure to be more relevant to discussion of Israeli settlement on the West Bank. If you have reason to consider the East Jerusalem settlements distinctly less problematic and thus excludable, I will listen. Perhaps I am naive to use the total including East Jerusalem when discussing the settler problem.
"The comments at this time are all from 3 regulars whom I respect, and they are not coming to any semblance of agreement, with each other or with Steve."
The symmetry is broken: I say many or most Israelis want to end the occupation and go two-state, Labia says all Palestinians are psychotic terrorists. The fact that they tortured WOMYN seems to have broken something.
I despise the settlers. I'm sure some of them are decent folk but as it happens I have never read or heard a word by one like that. Israel ships them in and sends them right out to the WB, they never even *enter* Israel. And they start making trouble the day they arrive.
OK, so if a future government of Israel were to withdraw all of the settlers in the West Bank (and they have zero settlers anywhere else so that's easy), do you think that Palestinians would allow Israel to exist within its own borders in peace?
Eventually, yes, After at least a generation, likelier two. In the short run, there is too much thirst for vengeance, amply justified. Israelis have gone far past any bounds excusable by self-defense and have killed Palestinians for sport, and when not killing they have been savagely cruel.
In one case soldiers were going house to house looking for some fugitive. While they tore apart a Palestinian woman's bedroom, with no room for anyone to hide, another unzipped his pants and urinated on her carpet. There was a toilet.
On the same search, a tank going down the street took a detour and reasonlessly crushed a man's taxi, destroying his livelihood.
Palestinians have ample reason to despise Israel. They won't forget soon.
Another question of clarification. By "settlers" do you mean the 700,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank? Or do you mean all 9 million Israelis, which is what Hamas and the left in the West calls "settlers"? I suspect the former.
I think a two state solution might have worked in 1948 if the Arabs had accepted that plan, or perhaps in 1967. At this point, I don't see how it could work - it looks to me as if there would be two sovereign states in easy artillery and rocket range of each others, in perpetual full scale war - until it was reduced to one state or zero. In the abstract, a two state solution (or three state variant) seems like (1) the most ideal outcome in the abstract, and (2) a now obsolete fantasy which would end disastrously. And both sides have lots of responsibility for getting into this dilemma.
I believe the WB settler population is 450,000 and that’s who I was talking about.
Both figures could be considered "correct" depending on whether you think the settlers in East Jerusalem to be OK, or part of the same problem as the other 450K outside of East Jerusalem.
450 K in West Bank excluding East Jerusalem
220 K in East Jerusalem
-------
670 K total settlers in West Bank including East Jerusalem
I consider the larger figure to be more relevant to discussion of Israeli settlement on the West Bank. If you have reason to consider the East Jerusalem settlements distinctly less problematic and thus excludable, I will listen. Perhaps I am naive to use the total including East Jerusalem when discussing the settler problem.
The 700K figure was just rounding.