@ Used2Play

To Israelis and Jews 'illegal' settlements is the way the entire country used to be described (and many of our homes before modern Israel, given the racist laws in differing parts of Europe dating back centuries).
Zionists view the West Bank as part of Israel, and view it as a broadly anti-semitic that the 'international community' cares where Israel builds 500 homes in the homeland.

OK, but it is no longer described by such. On the other hand, basically every government in the world -- including an official opinion provided to the Israeli Foreign Ministry by legal counsel Theodor Meron in 1967 -- are of the opinion that any settlement by Israel of the West Bank is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. And why do people care? Because the 500k+ Israelis living in the West Bank make a two state settlement along the pre 1967 border impossible.

A two state solution is not pragmatically possible. Every time Jews have given land for peace, they have not been granted peace.

Withdrawing from Gaza turned it into a rocket launching pad with a government that uses humanitarian aid (cement) to fuel a war machine (attack tunnels), with scarce resources spent on an increasing arsenal of rockets and public education for children resulting in a generation of youth raised wage jihad against Jews.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXkFj8_NJlg

Hamas is popular in the West Bank as well--tour Hevron and you see pictures of Arafat hanging up in the market by a man who has proudly lost two sons to terrorist attacks against Jews.

Not all of them, just the rabid right. And neither the UN Security Council nor anybody else agrees with them.

Again you are describing the view of the rabid right.

Don't say Jews when you mean Israelis. Most Jews are not Israelis and not all Israelis are Jews. The terms are not equivalent.

And you're dishonestly assuming everyone's forgotten the Camp David accords, under which the return of Sinai to Egypt led to Egyptian recognition of Israel and a lasting peace treaty between the two states -- something unthinkable not long before, and for which the Egyptian president was murdered by his own far right.

Later, Jordan gave up its claim to the West Bank on the understanding that Israel would reach a deal with the PLO. Israel and Jordan concluded a treaty which, like the Egyptian one, still stands, and Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat exchanged letters recognising each other's authority. Then, of course, Rabin got murdered by a member of his own far right.

Israel has never withdrawn from Gaza. It still keeps Gaza under siege conditions and still maintains its military buffer zones on Gazan territory, so much of the Strip, including most of its best agricultural land (and that's not by chance) is packed with Israeli troops, tanks and guns at all times. Hamas did shut down its rocket operations and for about 18 months ran special police patrols to stop the jihadi groups' rockets as well, but the Israelis didn't like that, the Israeli far-right war party needs to keep up the war tempo, so they launched Operation Brother's Keeper to provoke rocket attacks (even though the home-made rockets, simple metal tubes packed with propellant, are virtually harmless), so they could then launch a major onslaught on Gaza and settlers could park their sofas on the overlooking hills 'open-air cinema' style and jeer as they watched Gaza get blown up yet again by F-16s and Merkavas and stuff.

Hebron is not part of Israel, Israelis have no lawful right to be there and, again, it's improper to conflate and confute the terms 'Israelis' and 'Jews'. And Arafat was not a member of Hamas, so that comment's plain weird.

So what should be done with the Palestinians living in the West Bank? Just maintain the status quo indefinitely?

That might be a rationale for not returning land, but not for seizing more. Evictions and seizures continue in the West Bank.

Judaism as a religion is also a nation. Israel is the Jewish state.
And while it is very true not all Israelis are Jews and not all Jews are Israelis, the latter point is a bit more gray. Israel has citizens of a variety of faiths and ethnicities. However, Israel offers right of return to all Jews. A fact which has been required when Jews were kicked out of most of MENA. And will actively use the state to rescue non-citizen Jews when necessary (Ethiopian famine for instance). With a history of being continual minorities in other lands (oppression, massacres, etc.), Jews around the world have a shot of survival whenever the country we live in decides we no longer need to be protected or perhaps should be outright scapegoated, etc.

While it is correct to suggest that Jews and Israelis are different groups, there is significant overlap.

The Israeli military also prevents Jews from moving into homes in a number of contested areas (most notably, the aforementioned Hevron), despite Jews owning title to the land (sometimes predating the state of Israel).
Further, the PLA gives the death penalty to anyone who sells land to Jews. It has executed 2 people under this law--a large amount of land has been legally purchased despite this.

What do you propose to do with the large amount of land holdings legally owned by Israelis (specifically the non-Muslim ones) in the West Bank?

How about Right of Return for Arab Muslims on the West Bank. Name an Arab country that would take them? Israel could give 10K/person to everyone who leaves if enough people sign up.

That would be 10K more than Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews received being booted out of most MENA countries.

Is this meant to be justification for continued expulsions? Explain how, or it's just smoke and confusion.

In addition to separating Israeli and Jew, I think it's worth making the distinction between Israeli and the state of Israel. Most Israeli Jews support peace and while opinion polls vary based on events, opinions are very easy to sway. The government drops a few bombs and polls will go from 40% support war to 95% support it overnight. I think this is worth keeping in mind in regards to Arab or Muslim opinion polls as well.

That avoided my question. Please answer what you propose be done?

I also agree that the Israeli military needs to to stop expelling people from their homes--I just find the problem to be the large number of Jews expelled from homes they've built in Israel.


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I could come up with reasonable sounding answers (off top of head, Palestinian Authority might offer settlers a choice of compensation or accepting Palestinian sovereignty).

But the settler ownership question isn't what is holding up an end to the occupation. Israel has invested immense sums and persons over half a century and has no intention of pulling out. If you wanted to end the occupation then the issue could be negotiated. The real purpose of the question you raise is rhetorical -- to turn invaders into victims and help us miss the point.

Here's an idea -- Israel could make an offer! It will remove the occupation in return for ____ happening with the settlements. Your move, Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Then Israel should annex the West Bank and make the people living there citizens of Israel. It's been a long occupation. If Israel wants the land they can take it along with the people living there. If they don't want the land they should leave it.

Or you can have an Apartheid type system which seems to be the way things are going.

Or you can formally annex and deport the people w some compensation.

Religious Zionist perspective is not against peace, it just views the population of non-citizen Muslims residing in biblical Israel as supporting terrorism against Jews and unsafe to have as neighbors or part of a state.
From that perspective, giving land or citizenship to the Arab non citizens is an existential threat. (I believe I am the only poster here from this background of thought).



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Deport them to where? It's not like they are citizens of another country living there. They are Palestinians. What country would take them in? How much would you have to pay them?

After Israel was founded many people fled under duress to refugee camps in Jordan/Lebanon/Syria. They were not compensated, they have no right to return, and they have not been accepted into the countries hosting them.

That idea sounds like a non-starter to me. There are no simple solutions but what do you think would be best? The most commonly floated compromise is going mostly back to the 67 borders but doing land swaps where large Israeli settlements are and making Jerusalem a international city. That seems like a good idea.

That's the famous microbet proposal and it includes a path from Gaza to the WB.

This also makes YOU unsafe to have around.

Muslim countries did not accept in muslims as a cynical political as well as economic play. As a benefit, those camps are used to pressure Israel.
However, Jews from the muslim world were forcibly deported and Israel accepted them all.

From the zionist (or you would call it radical right) perspective, world opinion is going to be broadly anti-semitic regardless of what Israel does. For those who comment on the UN's approach; Ban-Ki Moon even admitted that the UN is anti-semitic (2013).

So, again, speaking as the religious zionist in the thread--the situation is untenable because the neighbors are terrorists and won't change, paired with an international 'community' which includes lots of countries which could help the situation and instead make it far, far worse.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Ban-Ki-...ed-Jews-443841
An.

Being safe to have around got Jews massacred every 100 years or so for about 2,000 years. Our survival rate looks a bit better now that an army and intelligence service actively attempts to prevent global massacres of Jewish people.

You don't see the irony in Israel being a refuge for Jews forced to flee other lands and then suggesting that Israel purge native Muslims from the West Bank?

Occupying the West Bank does not remotely make you safer. It is a huge stimulus of resentment, world condemnation, and violence.

Yes imo. I know in this world it sounds insane, but peace is safer than war.

I wouldn't be shocked if behind a lot of the press and politicians in Israel are a lot of people who profit off of settlements like the military and construction industries.

On the other side, the leadership profits off of conflict as well.

This is a basic disagreement we have.
From the religious Zionist perspective, there will always be resentment and world condemnation of Israel and Jews, regardless of our actions.
From that perspective, whatever is nominally causing resentment at a given time is basically moot.

And it's not just West Bank settlers w this view. Rabbi Schneerson (the Rebbe), in his life, strongly advised against trading land for peace, viewing it as a security risk to the Jewish people.


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