Interesting Links for 07-05-2024

[andrewducker]

1. 50 Completely True Things. (about Israel and Palestine)

(tags:Israel Palestine )

Comments

[mountainkiss]

I like this article a great deal. Thank you for posting it.

[andrewducker]

My pleasure.

[maia]

Ditto.

[danieldwilliam]

I realise it has been too long since I transcribed Gordon Brown's wisdom in the form of 50 True Facts from the Tartan Institute of Scotology.

[danieldwilliam]

Not 100% convinced I agree with

FACT No. 21.

Where you are born does not actually determine anything about you.

[andrewducker]

I think that depends on whether it's a hard or soft "determine".

[danieldwilliam]

Aye.


I'm definitely less sure about Fact 42 being a fact.

Whether you like the idea or not, a Palestinian state will exist at some point, and it will continue to exist until the PALESTINIAN people decide they don’t want it to exist. Your opinion on this matter (if you are not Palestinian) is fucking immaterial.

There are several states that could exist that currently don't and which may, in fact, never exist.

Heck I live in one.

There are also several states that used to exit that no longer exist including some that were created by and through the actions of my own state and then dissolved by and through the actions of my own state - on occasion over the bodies of many people who had a different opinion.

I mean, I think that at a two-state or three-state solution is probably going to work better than a one-state solution. Certainly for most people. I'm not sure that a fluffy liberal democracy is the only possible one-state solution. I think a pretty unpleasant but more possible and long-term stable outcome is a less fluffy one-state solution.

[andrewducker]

Yes. It's quite clear that, barring some kind of sea-change in the population of Israel, or in the population of the USA, they will continue to slowly nibble away at the Palestinian land, making life less and less tenable for the people living there. And that nobody will make them stop. That seems like a stable and unfluffy solution.

[danieldwilliam]

I fear you are right. I don't think the people of Israel consistently want to do what it takes to stop their own hard-liners nibbling away at Gaza.

The population of the USA and the EU don't want to do what it would take to make the population of Israel either want to stop their own hard-liners or stop them themselves.

I doubt there is anything the people in Gaza or the West Bank could do to make the people of Israel consistently want to do what it takes to stop their own hard-liners nibbling away at Gaza. Even if they were exemplary neighbours there seem to be enough Israelis who fancy a bit of the land in Gaza or the West Bank and have convinced themselves enough that they should have it that I don't think any degree of neighbourliness will stop them helping themselves.

The other neighbours of the Palestinians have tried several times now to defeat Israel militarily and failed. Despite sitting on huge amounts of oil and gas they don't seem to have made successful diplomatic efforts to change opinion or action in any of the key players.

So, yeah, I think Israelis will nibble away at Gaza and the West Bank until there is nothing left.


Every time I think about this with as jaded, cynical and real politik as I can manage I need to remind myself that the 1923 population swap between the recently independent Greeks and the new Turkish state did not go well.