The Palestinian Statehood Thread

[Simon_Jester]

Simon, I see that you are not familiar with the most common reasons for rejecting the Palestinian Right of Return; one of them is exactly what I have described, though phrased slightly more politely or offensively in alternates.

I'm indifferent to the question of the Palestinian claims to a right of return, at least for the moment and for the sake of argument.

My question is whether you are paying attention to military questions.

Do you understand that three times within living memory, there have been major wars fought over this ground, along with multiple long term guerilla wars, which all the major players in the region participated in at one time or another? Do you understand that the ability to wage future wars, or the inability to wage them, affects the calculations of the players involved? Do you understand how reassigning bits of territory, and sovereignty over things like roads and airspace and high ground, impact the ability to wage future wars?

Do you consider these things to be pretty important, at least in terms of "this is what is on these people's minds, and I must understand their minds if I am to negotiate peace between them?" Do you, in short, care about the military issues tied up in ceding this or that bit of ground to this or that party in the dispute?

If not, your proposals are at best a joke, a form of light amusement and playfulness. Because the people who have to live or die based on the results of them will feel no reason to do so. These people are not just Israeli, either- Palestinians have grown very tired of living under Israeli guns, and have their own issues of military security.

It's not about whether one side is barbarian or the other is civilized. It's about two groups of men and women who've been fighting each other for a long lifetime, over nearly irreconciliable differences, and who will think in terms of ability to fight wars with one another, whether you like it or not. They may not want a war, but no one in the region will agree to a peace settlement that places them at too great a military disadvantage should war occur- they want to be prepared.

Simon, Israel will only be able to hold on to the West Bank either through ethnic cleansing- forcing the overwhelming majority of the Palestinian inhabitants out, or through establishing absolute control over the West Bank and ending the sham authority of the Palestinian Authority. Either direction is unjust...

What do you think of Duchess's ideas? I'm not entirely clear on the details, mind, but I'm curious what you think.

But I believe that Israel can in fact defend itself without relying on the crutch of injustice and oppression, and so the onus should be on Israel's defense forces to find a way that they can defend their nation without occupation and criminal behavior, and if they cannot, to start working out some way to dismantle Israel, as it would clearly then be an utter failure as a nation.

Unless you propose to force the Israelis to agree to this at gunpoint, and I'm not aware of your proposing to do so, you then have a problem. Again, no one will take you seriously as a negotiator if you don't make allowances for their safety. Not Palestinians, not Israelis, not the Man in the Moon if there was one.

[Molyneux]

Hey, maybe having to live with a greater security risk will finally force them to be less belligerent jackasses and actually consider working towards a lasting peace. I would totally considers this to be a net-positive.

Yes, because "You'll be at more risk of deadly attacks and invasion! It's a GOOD thing!" is a completely reasonable argument to make for Israel to give up territory.

Too bad, so sad for Israel then.

Since when is "OMG, I might hypothetically have a harder to defend myself in the future from third-world countries not capable of attacking me, so I am going to continue ethnic cleansing, oppression and racism" a valid argument?

Right, right. Because Israel has never been invaded by its surrounding nations. No Israeli soldier has ever died in a defensive war. There's no way that anyone would be dumb enough to attack Israel, because it's so obviously an impregnable fortress of a country, right?

Future reference before you shove that foot into your mouth any further: some people on this board might just have lost family members in one or two of those obviously fictional wars. Just saying.

How do microstates like San Marino, Liechtenstein, Andorra, and Monaco defend themselves? Why, they rely on their good relationships with their neighbors. Israel itself is much larger than those states, being bigger than El Salvador, Lebanon, Slovenia, Macedonia, Singapore- all of which have functioning armies and are capable of self-defense. Now, while the West Bank would narrow Israel a great deal if it were to be returned to the people it was stolen from, one way that the defense concerns of this could be minimized would be to not insist on any future Palestinian state being completely defenseless. That way, the two nations could cooperate on defense- which is hardly less likely than a one-state solution at this point. This also presumes that Israel cannot have good relations with its neighbors. According to you, the US should invade Canada and annex sufficient portions of it to ensure a good defensive line. Would you support that here in the USA?

How often has Canada invaded the United States, Bakustra?
And seriously, how likely is any Palestinian state to cooperate with Israel in case of any sort of external attack? I'm not sure if you're trying to troll me or if you just really didn't think that post through.

[Bakustra]

How likely is any one-state solution going to benefit the Palestinian people, Molyneux? I contrasted the two for a reason- they are both equally unlikely to happen.

But let me put it this way. For Israel to hold the West Bank, it must commit monstrous acts- either tyrannical rule over a Palestinian bantustan or a final ethnic cleansing of Palestine. So let me put it to you this way- do you believe that Israelis would choose to commit a crime against humanity to feel more secure over feeling less secure but not committing one of the most monstrous crimes known to humankind? Because if they would, that is rather an argument that Israel should be broken up, as it is a danger to itself and others, or at the very least forced to change its ways. No amount of hand-wringing over those barbarian Arabs in Jordan and Syria and Egypt and Lebanon and all the other nations around Israel, and how they'll all come swarming in if Israel stops oppressing Palestinians for even one year changes that fact- there is an injustice. In order for the standard defense of that injustice to work, Israel must commit greater injustices. If the population supports such measures, then should Israel continue to be considered a legitimate state?

PS: Canada has invaded the US twice. They did so for specific reasons. Consider how that might apply to Israel and its neighbors.

[MarshalPurnell]

Assuming that the Israelis and Palestinians both would behave like perfect rational actors with an interest in conforming to international law and fostering good relations with one another is hilarious. The relationship is tainted from the very beginning, an ugly civil war in 1949 that followed by the surrounding Arab states pouring into Israel to stamp out its existence. That has to be taken into account. The final border between Poland and Germany and settlement of the resulting refugee issue was not decided on by pretending everything after September 1939 didn't happen, after all. Admittedly treating the Palestinian issue as completely separate from the rest of the history between Israelis and Arabs is pretty common, it is deeply dishonest since the Palestinians were intimately connected to all of it.

In this case the perfect is the enemy of the good. Ultimately, in the real world, where international law is a complete joke, Israel is the stronger party. Israel, in fact, does not need to resolve the issue of the West Bank. For that matter the Palestinians do not either. The status quo is infinitely sustainable and neither side really has a huge incentive to accept the need for concessions to end the festering cycle. Thus addressing Israel's need for security is an inherently necessary part of forming a viable compromise, rather than fantasies of TEAM UN WORLD POLICE coming in to make those nasty evil Israelis be nice to the poor Palestinians. Several reasonable suggestions have been mooted in the thread, but holding out for the Palestinians to be given everything held by Egypt and Jordan in 1967, as if the intervening years have not happened, is a fundamentally ridiculous position. The Palestinians can receive the advantages of real autonomy and rule over the vast majority of their pre-war land claims, and given the history of Arab militaries forcing them into permanent neutrality would not be a loss to them. Resource rights can be arbitrated, land connections and trade networks can be negotiated, but the fundamental core resolution to any settlement must (in the practical sense) be that Palestine does not threaten Israel's existence. Everything else is either pie-in-the-sky, idealistic nonsense or just a front for anti-Israeli sentiment.

[Bakustra]

Did you actually just say that Palestine should not have a right to self-defense because "Arab militaries suck lololol"? Really?

But your entire post is built on the assumption that the settlements are necessary for Israel to defend itself. Those are the areas of the West Bank that Israel has de facto annexed, not the military bases along the Jordan or inland from it. Those are the areas that Israel has ethnically cleansed Palestinians from. If colonization is essential to the defense of Israel, as you claim, then you are again suggesting that ethnic cleansing is somehow beneficial to Israel. Shouldn't it be broken up and ended, if it's such a sick state that it depends on crimes against humanity to survive?

But I'm going to guess that you were deliberately distorting the actual situation in the West Bank so that you can pretend that the areas Israel has de facto annexed are actually vital defensive installations, and conflating the occupied Golan Heights with the Palestinian-dominated areas. That's dishonest.

Whining about what Israel would accept ignores that they won't accept any sort of agreement that leaves Palestine sovereign. Any actual Palestinian independence would, at this point in time, have to be imposed on Israel from the outside.

In addition, negotiation means you start by asking for more than what you want. So, for example, Israel, if it intended to negotiate rather than dictate, would start off by demanding the right to invade for no reason at all so that it could be worked down to the right to kill and deprive Palestinians for voting the wrong way. By asking for the 1967 borders, the Palestinian Authority is showing that it's using those borders as a starting point. That's too bad, because it means letting horrific crimes go by and even rewarding Israel for committing them, but I suppose that's what happens when a collaborationist government grows a semblance of a spine.

[MarshalPurnell]

No, I said, Palestine should be permanently neutralized. Arab militaries do suck, of course, at everything except regime protection. A Palestinian military would almost certainly just be the armed wing of the PLO, dedicated to keeping it in power and allowing it more opportunities to be more outrageously corrupt. Or it could be the armed wing of Hamas, I suppose, and that hardly bodes any better for the long-term prospects of maintaining a peace. Long story short, there is nothing an independent Palestine could really gain from having a significant army and a lot of trouble it could cause.

And my entire post is devoid of assumptions other than that pretending 1949-2011 did not happen and that Israel occupying the West Bank happened "just because" is stupid. I did not address specifics like the settlements in particular but rather made the obvious point that a realistic peace proposal has to satisfy Israel's need for security. My own stance on the settlements was made clear on the front page; Israel ought to be allowed to annex the most densely populated ones directly contiguous to its own territory, and needed to provide Jerusalem with defensible transportation links, but the Israelis should be required to compensate the Palestinians elsewhere. Settlements that do not accord with those criteria should be given over to the Palestinian Authority, with the residents to stay or to go as they will.

And duh, I already said Israel has no interest in negotiating at the moment. Thus why meeting its basic demand for security is a necessary component of any realistic peace plan. Otherwise it will just continue to accept the present levels of violence as the cost of doing business. Since the US will never allow a unilateral imposition of a settlement, and let's be honest, no one would be in a position to impose one anyway, demanding just such a settlement is not a serious position. And it is still conceptually flawed because, hey, the Palestinians are not just completely innocent parties whose saccharinely peaceful land was just now seized in an unprovoked assault.

Did you actually just say that Palestine should not have a right to self-defense because "Arab militaries suck lololol"? Really?

But your entire post is built on the assumption that the settlements are necessary for Israel to defend itself. Those are the areas of the West Bank that Israel has de facto annexed, not the military bases along the Jordan or inland from it. Those are the areas that Israel has ethnically cleansed Palestinians from. If colonization is essential to the defense of Israel, as you claim, then you are again suggesting that ethnic cleansing is somehow beneficial to Israel. Shouldn't it be broken up and ended, if it's such a sick state that it depends on crimes against humanity to survive?

But I'm going to guess that you were deliberately distorting the actual situation in the West Bank so that you can pretend that the areas Israel has de facto annexed are actually vital defensive installations, and conflating the occupied Golan Heights with the Palestinian-dominated areas. That's dishonest.

Whining about what Israel would accept ignores that they won't accept any sort of agreement that leaves Palestine sovereign. Any actual Palestinian independence would, at this point in time, have to be imposed on Israel from the outside.

In addition, negotiation means you start by asking for more than what you want. So, for example, Israel, if it intended to negotiate rather than dictate, would start off by demanding the right to invade for no reason at all so that it could be worked down to the right to kill and deprive Palestinians for voting the wrong way. By asking for the 1967 borders, the Palestinian Authority is showing that it's using those borders as a starting point. That's too bad, because it means letting horrific crimes go by and even rewarding Israel for committing them, but I suppose that's what happens when a collaborationist government grows a semblance of a spine.

[Bakustra]

So tell me, do Arab militaries suck because they're made up of people from the Arabian Peninsula, then?

Without a military, Palestine would have no ability to defend itself and therefore would have no right to self-defense. And who would enforce this? Israel? What's the difference from today, apart from a legal fiction used to give Israel some more shreds of legitimacy? Certainly Israel would not hesitate to invade a hypothetical Palestine the moment they elected a party that wasn't pro-Israeli. That is not a realistic solution for making things better for Palestinians, and I doubt that the average Israeli is bloodthirsty enough to go along with the benefits that brings Israel.

So what are the areas of the West Bank which Israel needs for its own security, then? I'm guessing that they boil down to 1) The air, 2) The water, 3) The best land, 4) The entire bank of the Jordan too, and 5) anything else we like the looks of, going by their approach to negotiations thus far. But I'll provide a map for you.



So which of the colored areas, the areas that Israel occupies and has closed to Palestinians (note that the black line shows the areas they were planning to informally annex), is essential to Israeli defense?

So what exactly should Palestinians be forced to give up because they used terrorist tactics against Israel (assuming that you're not talking about the propaganda claim that all Palestinian refugees in 1948 were complicit in attempted genocide)? I mean, you already view barring them from defending themselves and relying on their former occupiers for any security as a reasonable, natural thing rather than a punitive measure, so I guess it'd probably be something as grotesque as reparations or possibly a permanent extension of the Gaza blockade to the West Bank as well, but go ahead and explain what should be done to punish the Palestinians too.

[Thanas]

Because an army is insufficient to guarantee the liberty of a state? The trade of the West Bank will have to pass through Jordan even if they control their own airspace, how does that clause matter? How do you propose to get Israel to allow the creation of a genuinely sovereign West Bank with terms that are any less? Regardless, I do think that the Golan Heights will necessarily become part of sovereign Israel in any general peace deal; the land is very easily given up with little attendant human suffering and matter far more for Israel's defence than the West Bank ever will, which makes it a good bargaining chip to offer.

Your terms allow the Israelis to essentially make Palaestine a failed state due to giving Israel overwhelming control over Palaestines economy. That is my problem. Jordan does not matter much as they have not shown any degree of the hostility towards the Palaestinians as Israel has.

Right, right. Because Israel has never been invaded by its surrounding nations. No Israeli soldier has ever died in a defensive war. There's no way that anyone would be dumb enough to attack Israel, because it's so obviously an impregnable fortress of a country, right?

Great strawmen, but while we are at it - what country currently in the region has enough power to attack Israel? Because if your hilarious equivocation of "arab coalition with massive Soviet support" is to have any hold, then please point out the great threats to Israel that exist now?

Future reference before you shove that foot into your mouth any further: some people on this board might just have lost family members in one or two of those obviously fictional wars. Just saying.

Love the whiteknighting here. Future reference before you shove that head up Israel's colon any further: some people on this board might have just lost family members or friends in the obviously fictional Israeli ethnic cleansing. Just saying.

[Irbis]

Uh... As for the proposed solutions, why not do something simpler - let Gaza Strip and West Bank be annexed by Egipt and Jordan, respectively, both countries pledging to develop these into self-sufficient autonomous regions (with some sort of independence referendum called once reconstruction is finished) in return for Israel giving up the demand of compensation to expulsed Jews (almost like you guys proposed)?

After all, both regions have much in common with the neighboring states, these two countries could build up necessary infrastructure in Palestina much faster, and if it all goes well, maybe Palestinians would actually vote to remain regions of these states, giving them both a promise of tangible return? It's much more viable solution, IMHO, than uniting Jews/Palestinians in one state.

This would also have advantage of Egipt/Jordan (countries who are neutral-to-friendly with Israel) policing the new border, and, seeing they have little stake in bombarding Israel, should make it safer and tensions much less strained quickly.

[Simon_Jester]

So tell me, do Arab militaries suck because they're made up of people from the Arabian Peninsula, then?

No, but if they all suck, then there may be a pattern. Pattern recognition is good.

In this case, unless the Palestinians can do a better job of creating an army than, say, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iraq (not likely), they might be better off without a large army. They'd save money, and their political process would be healthier (no military coups, no army units trained to shoot dissidents).

The large armies of many Arab nations, equipped with masses of Soviet weapons and conscript systems to enlist masses of troops to use them, are arguably a net loss for those nations. There's a reason so many of them have gone through periods of military dictatorship. Those armies are used to oppress the civil population very often (continuously, even); they're rarely if ever used to defend the nation against dangerous attack.


Now, your argument that the Palestinian state couldn't afford not to have an army, because the Israelis would invade it, is totally separate from this point- maybe it's true, maybe it's not, and I'm not at all sure that it holds together.

On the other hand, if you're throwing it out there as a mirror to other people's arguments about the military security of Israel, you're using a very poor mirror.

I am not asserting that Israel would be immediately invaded by anyone, under any circumstances. I am asserting that if you think the Israelis can be convinced, or would be sane to believe, that they should ignore the question of whether they might be invaded... your arguments about Palestinian statehood are silly and inane.

If you actually have the capability to think about this issue, you will grasp the importance of military and security issues, just as you will grasp the importance of water rights and the need for meaningful, continguous bodies of land to form a state.

You don't have to think security issues* dominate everything else, but if you're not taking them seriously, we shouldn't be taking you seriously.

[Danny Bhoy]

Uh... As for the proposed solutions, why not do something simpler - let Gaza Strip and West Bank be annexed by Egipt and Jordan, respectively, both countries pledging to develop these into self-sufficient autonomous regions (with some sort of independence referendum called once reconstruction is finished) in return for Israel giving up the demand of compensation to expulsed Jews (almost like you guys proposed)?

After all, both regions have much in common with the neighboring states, these two countries could build up necessary infrastructure in Palestina much faster, and if it all goes well, maybe Palestinians would actually vote to remain regions of these states, giving them both a promise of tangible return? It's much more viable solution, IMHO, than uniting Jews/Palestinians in one state.

This would also have advantage of Egipt/Jordan (countries who are neutral-to-friendly with Israel) policing the new border, and, seeing they have little stake in bombarding Israel, should make it safer and tensions much less strained quickly.

Under the previous Mubarak regime, the Egyptians were probably as suspicious of Hamas in Gaza as the Israelis if not more. After years of suppression of the MB in Egypt, why would they take in an MB-inspired Hamas-led Gaza? I don't think the Egyptian military is that keen now either. Maybe if the MB came to power in Egypt...

As for the Jordanians, not sure if there is any incentive for the Hashemites to take it even more Palestinians considering that Palestinians are already the majority in Jordan. In any case, I'm sure the Pals in the WB are also leery of having the WB back under Jordanian control since it wasn't too long ago that Jordan gave it up.

The relations between the Palestinians and the neighbouring Arab states are more than merely complex.

[BrooklynRedLeg]

So what exactly should Palestinians be forced to give up because they used terrorist tactics against Israel?

Ugh, I hate to venture into this particular branch, but the hypocrisy of people whose State origins lie with groups like the Irgun and Stern Gang is truly boggling when they decry terrorism. Now, I understand its not fair make the descendents necessarily guilty for the actions of their forebears. I still cannot help but think of the words of Sir Gerald Kaufman.

[Bakustra]

Now, your argument that the Palestinian state couldn't afford not to have an army, because the Israelis would invade it, is totally separate from this point- maybe it's true, maybe it's not, and I'm not at all sure that it holds together.

On the other hand, if you're throwing it out there as a mirror to other people's arguments about the military security of Israel, you're using a very poor mirror.

I am not asserting that Israel would be immediately invaded by anyone, under any circumstances. I am asserting that if you think the Israelis can be convinced, or would be sane to believe, that they should ignore the question of whether they might be invaded... your arguments about Palestinian statehood are silly and inane.

If you actually have the capability to think about this issue, you will grasp the importance of military and security issues, just as you will grasp the importance of water rights and the need for meaningful, continguous bodies of land to form a state.

You don't have to think security issues* dominate everything else, but if you're not taking them seriously, we shouldn't be taking you seriously.

No, my argument is that in order for there to be an independent, sovereign Palestine, it needs to have the ability to exercise its right of self-defense. I'm sorry that you are unable to parse that. I did in fact mock the idea that having a perpetually disarmed Palestine would somehow be better for Palestinians, using Israel's recent behavior to suggest that they would continue such actions. Perhaps you were befuddled by this?

Would you care to respond to the question I have asked over and over, about whether you believe that Israel needs to commit crimes against humanity to defend itself adequately? To put it bluntly, you are making an eloquent argument for the existence of Soviet puppet regimes in Eastern Europe. In your worldview, to suggest that it was immoral of the USSR to install repressive and undemocratic regimes and prop them up is something that should not be taken seriously, as it ignores the defensive concerns of the Soviet Union. If you agree, feel free to say so and I will have to restrain myself in the future from mocking your remarks about how unkind I am, since you would then be rejecting the idea that moral considerations have any place in discussion of diplomacy. If you disagree, explain where the difference comes in.

[Molyneux]

Right, right. Because Israel has never been invaded by its surrounding nations. No Israeli soldier has ever died in a defensive war. There's no way that anyone would be dumb enough to attack Israel, because it's so obviously an impregnable fortress of a country, right?

Great strawmen, but while we are at it - what country currently in the region has enough power to attack Israel? Because if your hilarious equivocation of "arab coalition with massive Soviet support" is to have any hold, then please point out the great threats to Israel that exist now?

Attack Israel, or conquer it?
Any individual country certainly has the power to attack Israel, cause suffering and loss of life in the country. I doubt that any specific country in the region could conquer Israel on its own - but given Egypt's and Syria's support of Hamas in the past, I don't doubt for a second that if Israel seemed vulnerable, most of its neighbors would consider taking a potshot.

Keep in mind what happened immediately when the State of Israel declared its independence. I don't think the climate in the region has changed enough to discount the possibility of another coalition.

Future reference before you shove that foot into your mouth any further: some people on this board might just have lost family members in one or two of those obviously fictional wars. Just saying.

Love the whiteknighting here. Future reference before you shove that head up Israel's colon any further: some people on this board might have just lost family members or friends in the obviously fictional Israeli ethnic cleansing. Just saying.

I was talking about myself, you idiot. My cousin died in the Yom Kippur War.

[MarshalPurnell]

Bakustra is busy constructing a mighty palace of straw because he is unable to address an argument with objective consideration and meaningful comment? I am shocked.

Name an Arab army whose performance has been anything other than a joke. I will actually do this for you; Jordan's Arab Legion was the most formidable field force in the 1949 War. It was also stuffed full of British officers and technical specialists. The reputation of the Jordanian Army has been on a slow but measurable decline ever since the British were expelled, but they are in fact still the top-tier of Arab armies. It's army is relatively small compared to every other Arab country save Lebanon, and very much not a political factor; that the British designed and raised it from the ground up is probably not irrelevant to this condition. Jordan is also, by a strange coincidence, the Arab country which is least corrupt and oppressive in its governance and which enjoys the most political stability.

Now, what serious political actors are there in Palestine that make you think they would create a government as relatively competent and benevolent as that of Jordan?

The state and uses of the military in most other Arab countries have been adequately addressed by SimonJester. I will also add that there are a great many nations with no practical ability to defend themselves against a stronger neighbor. Canada would be fucked if the US decided it wanted to annex it. Belgium faces much more powerful neighbors on two sides. There are any number of former 'Stans that Russia or China could conquer without any serious exertion. For that matter Costa Rica has long been without an army because they realized armies in their neighborhood were usually corrupt and coup-prone, and has not suffered for the decision. Most small nations in that bind tend to not piss off their larger neighbors by doing stuff like supporting cross-border raids and terrorist attacks, so one might hope Palestine would adopt the same strategy. If you want to bemoan their relative lack of independence, so be it, but weaker nations being subject to intense pressure to conform to the wishes of their larger neighbors is a constant of world politics and nothing short of a one-world government (hahahaha!) will ever change that. In so far as a settlement requires mutually binding arbitration over resource and commerce rights Palestine would probably have a stronger hand than many other small nations.

As for the rest of your post it's begging the question. Do you still beat your wife, Bakustra? Because you dismiss Israeli security as a factor in dealing with Palestine, ergo I shall assume that you are in favor of the Palestinians ruling the entire area as a Muslim nation and expelling the Jews! Also in since you failed to address it, I shall have to assume you favor Jews being barred from the Wailing Wall, like before 1967! Etc and etc.

I have laid out a criteria for what I consider to be justifiable annexations. The high ground around Jerusalem, which is justifiably the unitary capital of Israel given prior Arab treatment of the city, is obviously necessary for their security. The border with Jordan is debatable, and I personally would not consider it necessary but I can see the argument. Since we are not at the diplomatic table hashing out the fate of millions I see no particular reason to specify beyond the criteria I have already established. Which included, though you completely ignored it, a requirement for mandatory compensation of the Palestinians with land elsewhere.

As for why the Palestinians should be forced to make concessions, the answer is obvious. They have to if they want a state. Simple as that. Morally of course they do bear some responsibility for the various assaults on Israel and for resorting to terrorism in their struggle. The leader of the Palestinian militias in 1949 was Hajj Amin-el Husseini, for God's sake. I'm sure he just wanted to give the Jews a hug for that Holocaust thing. Just as I'm sure the PLO didn't really mean that they intended to sweep Israel into the sea and to replace it within the 1967 borders as an Islamic Arab state. In any case Israel has some legitimate security issues with respect to the Palestinians and a lot of bad blood. As the stronger party Israel is in a position to demand that its baseline requirements be met for any treaty to be viable, and that can be summed up as "security." Allowing some compensated annexations and neutralizing Palestine would meet that demand and might just be feasible for the US to strongly pressure Israel to accept, sometime in the next decade.

In any case ending the fighting and allowing the Palestinians to build themselves a state is more important than seeing that perfect justice be done, though the world burn. If that were the attitude held by statesmen, no war would ever come to an end.

So tell me, do Arab militaries suck because they're made up of people from the Arabian Peninsula, then?

Without a military, Palestine would have no ability to defend itself and therefore would have no right to self-defense. And who would enforce this? Israel? What's the difference from today, apart from a legal fiction used to give Israel some more shreds of legitimacy? Certainly Israel would not hesitate to invade a hypothetical Palestine the moment they elected a party that wasn't pro-Israeli. That is not a realistic solution for making things better for Palestinians, and I doubt that the average Israeli is bloodthirsty enough to go along with the benefits that brings Israel.

So what are the areas of the West Bank which Israel needs for its own security, then? I'm guessing that they boil down to 1) The air, 2) The water, 3) The best land, 4) The entire bank of the Jordan too, and 5) anything else we like the looks of, going by their approach to negotiations thus far. But I'll provide a map for you.



So which of the colored areas, the areas that Israel occupies and has closed to Palestinians (note that the black line shows the areas they were planning to informally annex), is essential to Israeli defense?

So what exactly should Palestinians be forced to give up because they used terrorist tactics against Israel (assuming that you're not talking about the propaganda claim that all Palestinian refugees in 1948 were complicit in attempted genocide)? I mean, you already view barring them from defending themselves and relying on their former occupiers for any security as a reasonable, natural thing rather than a punitive measure, so I guess it'd probably be something as grotesque as reparations or possibly a permanent extension of the Gaza blockade to the West Bank as well, but go ahead and explain what should be done to punish the Palestinians too.

[Simon_Jester]

No, my argument is that in order for there to be an independent, sovereign Palestine, it needs to have the ability to exercise its right of self-defense. I'm sorry that you are unable to parse that. I did in fact mock the idea that having a perpetually disarmed Palestine would somehow be better for Palestinians, using Israel's recent behavior to suggest that they would continue such actions. Perhaps you were befuddled by this?

No, I just think your mockery is often poorly informed and poorly thought out- mockery for mockery's sake, rather than mockery which reflects political analysis.

Would you care to respond to the question I have asked over and over, about whether you believe that Israel needs to commit crimes against humanity to defend itself adequately?

What do you define as a crime against humanity? Actively forcing Palestinians out of an area? Retaining land anywhere outside the 1967 borders, even if there are now no Palestinians on it? Retaining land outside the 1947 borders, even if there are now no Palestinians on it? What land can Israelis continue to stand upon without their very presence being a crime against humanity?

Without knowing this, it's difficult to answer your question.

If you agree, feel free to say so and I will have to restrain myself in the future from mocking your remarks about how unkind I am, since you would then be rejecting the idea that moral considerations have any place in discussion of diplomacy. If you disagree, explain where the difference comes in.

The difference arises in that the people involved in the Israel-Palestine dispute are tangled together physically, in a way that the USSR and Poland were not.*

You could draw on a map a USSR which had plenty of land to live on and where most of its people did not live within artillery range of the border. This was not difficult. You could likewise draw on a map a Poland which was a totally viable nation-state in its own right, which had plenty of its own resources and industry and roads and other infrastructure. There was room to settle the dispute easily and neatly, without any need for the USSR to maintain any right to Polish military airspace. This weakened any claim the USSR might have to a 'right' to defend itself at the Poles' expense.

It also made the issue pretty easy to settle once the USSR was faced with the need to settle it at all, because the USSR really could withdraw from Poland without being in any imminent danger, or needing to worry about people firing mortars at it from Polish soil. It was not really a matter of life and death in their minds; there was room for compromise.

Israel-vs-Palestine is much more difficult to resolve, because unless we say "one side out, the other side gets everything," there isn't all that much compromise-room to go around.

A proposed Palestine in the West Bank is so small and poor in terms of infrastructure and resources that it's not much of a state to live in: dependent on the kindness of foreigners even if it has territorial integrity and an army to defend itself.

Israel without the West Bank is a state with a large salient in the middle of its territory which has been used by hostile nations as a launchpad for military operations, has been used as a launchpad for guerilla warfare against them, and which they will be forced to eye nervously so long as grudges against Israel's past actions (and existence) remain.

The crowding and confusion and the history of violence create a situation which, whatever else it may be, is not simple. It cannot be resolved neatly by analogy to other easily solved territorial disputes. What little room for compromise exists must be husbanded very carefully, if we are to get a resolution that has any chance of success whatsoever.

This lack of simplicity seems to be confusing you, because you keep making simplistic analogies and ignoring anything that clutters up the picture.
_____________________

*Though even there, a lot of Poles and Germans wound up displaced in the post-WWII settlement of borders, with the consent of the Allied powers.

[BrooklynRedLeg]

This just popped up on my Facebook feed from a fellow An-Cap/Voluntaryist:

http://imgur.com/gallery/DTWAK

[Thanas]

Attack Israel, or conquer it?
Any individual country certainly has the power to attack Israel, cause suffering and loss of life in the country. I doubt that any specific country in the region could conquer Israel on its own - but given Egypt's and Syria's support of Hamas in the past, I don't doubt for a second that if Israel seemed vulnerable, most of its neighbors would consider taking a potshot.

Keep in mind what happened immediately when the State of Israel declared its independence. I don't think the climate in the region has changed enough to discount the possibility of another coalition.

And I am sure that if Israel would actually be less of an oppressive power and actually consider anybody else besides its own supremacy it might not be that hated. I am also equally sure that considering the state of the Arab countries there is not a single one that is willing to engage in warfare with Israel. Though if Israel keeps begging for it as in the case of Turkey....

And I submit once more that bad consequences for the oppressor do not justify keeping up oppression. Otherwise you might just as well have argued for contiued colonialism, continuance of the Warsaw Pact etc.

I fully expect that Israel might suffer some security concerns. I do not expect there to be another holocaust or even the destruction of Israel, which would be the only thing that would justify continued oppression.

I was talking about myself, you idiot. My cousin died in the Yom Kippur War.

My apologies, but this does not in any way justify the Israeli oppression and racism either. All it shows is that there is a great deal of emotion attached to it.

[cosmicalstorm]

Hey MarshalPurnell, thanks for the level headed analysis of the situation so far. I do not often see this problem broken down like that. What do you believe is most likely realistic continuation of the Palestina-Israel situation? (As opposed to the various fantasy scenarios being proposed left and right)

My take in short is that it will simply grind on in the same depressing manner like it does now for a long time to come, possibly some Gaza/Hezbollah-bombing campaign thrown in along the road. Best case scenario being something like "Gee not a lot of people getting killed right now and only some small settlements being built and not a lot of rockets raining out of the sky today...".

[MarshalPurnell]

Hey MarshalPurnell, thanks for the level headed analysis of the situation so far. I do not often see this problem broken down like that. What do you believe is most likely realistic continuation of the Palestina-Israel situation? (As opposed to the various fantasy scenarios being proposed left and right)

My take in short is that it will simply grind on in the same depressing manner like it does now for a long time to come, possibly some Gaza/Hezbollah-bombing campaign thrown in along the road. Best case scenario being something like "Gee not a lot of people getting killed right now and only some small settlements being built and not a lot of rockets raining out of the sky today...".

As I noted elsewhere, neither party really has much incentive to change the situation. So long as Israel is backed by the United States it doesn't have to worry much about international complications. It exercises de facto control over the West Bank, at least as far as required for its security needs, and can continue to expand the settlements. The low level of violence associated with that control is perfectly sustainable and it is very unlikely the Palestinians could escalate it to a point where Israel would leave. At the same time the confrontation with Israel helps justify the PLO's control over the West Bank, and diverts attention from the mismanagement and corruption of the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinians can maintain the present level of violence as well and see no reason to accede to Israeli pressure, especially as Israel knows that going after the Palestinian leadership would just destabilize the international situation and impose extra costs on their occupation. So yeah, the present status quo, probably with the odd flare up after Hamas gets a better model of rocket and before Israel upgrades its anti-missile defenses, can be extended out indefinitely.

Absent the US putting serious pressure on Israel there is no realistic factor that could upset it- well, aside perhaps from Israeli domestic politics taking a sharp turn to the left, which cannot be ruled out given the strength of demonstrations over economic issues in the country. Even then, "withdraw to the 1967 borders and let the Palestinians do whatever they want" is not a position any Israeli government would ever agree to.

[npisd]

The state and uses of the military in most other Arab countries have been adequately addressed by SimonJester. I will also add that there are a great many nations with no practical ability to defend themselves against a stronger neighbor. Canada would be fucked if the US decided it wanted to annex it. Belgium faces much more powerful neighbors on two sides. There are any number of former 'Stans that Russia or China could conquer without any serious exertion. For that matter Costa Rica has long been without an army because they realized armies in their neighborhood were usually corrupt and coup-prone, and has not suffered for the decision. Most small nations in that bind tend to not piss off their larger neighbors by doing stuff like supporting cross-border raids and terrorist attacks, so one might hope Palestine would adopt the same strategy. If you want to bemoan their relative lack of independence, so be it, but weaker nations being subject to intense pressure to conform to the wishes of their larger neighbors is a constant of world politics and nothing short of a one-world government (hahahaha!) will ever change that. In so far as a settlement requires mutually binding arbitration over resource and commerce rights Palestine would probably have a stronger hand than many other small nations.

I'm curious if you would apply this same line of reasoning to Israel vis-a-vis it's Muslim neighbors. I don't see how it wouldn't apply if it does to the Palestinians. I understand you'll probably reference the decades of bad blood, but how is that any different than the decades of bad blood between Palestinians and their Israeli occupiers and oppressors for the last 40+ years?

Name an Arab army whose performance has been anything other than a joke.

Hezbollah, 2006

As for why the Palestinians should be forced to make concessions, the answer is obvious. They have to if they want a state. Simple as that.

What is your response then to the Palestine Papers?

Short Version:

According to the Palestine Papers, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas held a series of peace proposal meetings during the middle of 2008 to September 16, 2008 in which the infamous "Napkin Map" incident occurred. During the first of these meeting, according to the records of the Palestine Papers, the Palestinian Authority proposed an unprecedented land swap. Offering Israel the opportunity to annex all of its illegal settlements in East Jerusalem. Israel, however, offered nothing in return in concessions at that meeting.

[Scorpion]

Name an Arab army whose performance has been anything other than a joke.

Well, the Egyptian Army acquited itself spectacularly well in Operation Badr, back in the Yom Kippur War, IIRC. The Siryans, however, have had a constantly rotten performance.

BTW, on the issue of why Arab armies perform so badly, try this article! I've read it a while back and I found it a fascinating perspective on the subject.

Scorpion

[MarshalPurnell]

I'm curious if you would apply this same line of reasoning to Israel vis-a-vis it's Muslim neighbors. I don't see how it wouldn't apply if it does to the Palestinians. I understand you'll probably reference the decades of bad blood, but how is that any different than the decades of bad blood between Palestinians and their Israeli occupiers and oppressors for the last 40+ years?

There is a big difference. Israel has had to fight for its life repeatedly against its neighbors, but has been stronger than all of them the entire time. Using "larger" and "smaller" nations is a simplification because, obviously, military potential is what actually determines the balance of power between states. A greater land area and a larger population is usually an indicator of relative strength but not always; Israel is undoubtedly much stronger than Egypt and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Palestine on the other hand will never be stronger than Israel for a variety of reasons, much as (say) the Ukraine will never be stronger than Russia and so should think very carefully about pissing off the Motherland or threatening Russia's security.

Hezbollah, 2006

So what? Hezbollah is a political party with a very capable militia that managed to embarrass the Israelis enough to make them call off a politically shaky punitive expedition. Lebanon has an army and it is a neutered joke precisely because the country is broken into multiple sectarian factions of which Hezbollah is the most powerful. One can imagine the kind of state that Hezbollah would run (hint: it's Iran) and one can be certain that if their militant wing replaced the Lebanese Army, the new Lebanese Army would be another thuggish regime protection force that would not hesitate to shoot down members of rival sectarian factions. It just might also be more competent than usual facing the Israelis, though of course if the IDF made a decision to go all-out to crush Hezbollah there is little doubt that they could barring foreign political intervention.

What is your response then to the Palestine Papers?

Short Version:

According to the Palestine Papers, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas held a series of peace proposal meetings during the middle of 2008 to September 16, 2008 in which the infamous "Napkin Map" incident occurred. During the first of these meeting, according to the records of the Palestine Papers, the Palestinian Authority proposed an unprecedented land swap. Offering Israel the opportunity to annex all of its illegal settlements in East Jerusalem. Israel, however, offered nothing in return in concessions at that meeting.

I know about the "Palestine Papers" and think the Israelis were stupid for not taking the offer seriously. Unfortunately of course the Israelis knew the US would not really impose any pressure on them, so as repeatedly mentioned there was no incentive on their part to resolve the status quo. Publishing those details also made it impossible for the Palestinian Authority to repeat the offer, and the reaction among Palestinian people did somewhat call into question the potential for accepting a deal from that basis. In any case people in this thread believe that the Palestinians should make no concessions whatsoever and get the full 1967 borders without any assurances at all to Israel, which is not at all viable.

[Zaune]

Regarding some of the comments about a sovereign Palestine's ability, or lack thereof, to set itself up with a credible military: Who says they'll have to do it without any outside assistance? Turkey would be the obvious candidate, and they're up to NATO standards at the least. I can think of a few other possible volunteers as well; it's a golden opportunity to win friends and influence people in a region with considerable oil reserves and make oneself look good to the public (voting or otherwise) for sticking two fingers up at Washington.

[MarshalPurnell]

Regarding some of the comments about a sovereign Palestine's ability, or lack thereof, to set itself up with a credible military: Who says they'll have to do it without any outside assistance? Turkey would be the obvious candidate, and they're up to NATO standards at the least. I can think of a few other possible volunteers as well; it's a golden opportunity to win friends and influence people in a region with considerable oil reserves and make oneself look good to the public (voting or otherwise) for sticking two fingers up at Washington.

Why do you think the PLO would want a military that is a professional, disciplined, apolitical force? The institutional corruption and incompetence that is a hallmark of the Palestinian Authority strongly suggests that, like the Palestinian police, any army would be another regime protection force first and foremost. Decades of foreign training have not helped the Egyptians or the Syrians or the Saudis. All of the efforts of the United States to raise a new Iraqi Army from scratch, with the expenditure of a far, far greater amount of resources than any nation would (or could) conceivably devote to Palestine, have not produced a military that meets Israeli standards of capability.

And that leaves aside the possibility of Hamas dominating any Palestinian state.

Also of course the diplomatic calculations involved in intervening heavily in this situation are a bit more complex than "pissing off the Yankees would be really good for domestic consumption." Among other things, the gains you suggest are, charitably, very optimistic projections that assume the Arab governments actually mean it when they say they want an independent Palestine.