brainstorm: solve the palestinian israeli conflict
in a long going discussion full of rubish semantics, wedge issues and blame games, you don't see a lot of practical thinking.
so what I am looking for is a practical solution for the conflict, that:
1) grants soverignty and freedom to the palestinians within a palestinian country.
2) allows israel to maintain boarder security and autonomy.
3) the starting conditions have to be based on current reality:
[LIST=1]
[*]the palestinians are ruled by hamas.
[*]no palestinian elections since 2006, skeptical possibility regarding 2012.
[*]the palestinian economy is 1/3rd foreign aid dependent by the most optimistic analysis.
[*]the israeli political atmosphere has lost nearly all faith in the prospect of peace in the near future.
[*]the previously leading pro-peace party has changed its leadership and is now focused on internal matters (usually taking a socialist stance).
[*]the nationalistic parties currently compromise the ruling coalition in israeli parlament.
[/LIST]
and... go. solve the problem.
Sorry, but I see no solution.
Years ago, I came to the same conclusion as Classic has.
Both solutions, in fact.
Unless you want to take all children away from all religious dingbats (on both sides) so their young minds can grow up without all the stupid God-promised-this-to-US BS.
Which isn't going to happen.
So, as C-man has put it ...
From an American perspective, I think we have to get over the idea that we can solve this. It seems like the up-tic in right-wing religious nutitude© in Israel makes a negotiated peace even less likely especially with the Arab Spring giving way to a religious winter.
Unless you want to take all children away from all religious dingbats (on both sides) so their young minds can grow up without all the stupid God-promised-this-to-US BS.
Either that, or 50 years of arranged marriages
only
... Jewish men wed only Palestinian women
... Palestinian men wed only Jewish women
Even bigoted grandparents cannot hate their grand kids.
Well, Sri Lanka solved their terrorism problem in VERY short order:
The Tigers’ collapse began in January, 2009, when they lost the town of Kilinochchi, their de-facto capital. By May, their remaining fighters retreated into the jungle near the coastal town of Mullaittivu, taking along more than three hundred thousand Tamil civilians who were trapped with them. The Sri Lankan Army designated a series of “no-fire zones” and told civilians to assemble there. It then shelled those zones repeatedly, while issuing denials that it was doing so and forbidding journalists access to the area.
A) The world looks the other way (who cares about sri lanka anyway);
B) Horrible bloodbath where 300,000 human shields are collateral damage for a small fraction of fighters;
C) Problem
completely solved.
So completely solved, that only two years later Sri Lanka can safely release 1800 Tiger rebels. Without even a single innocent Sri Lankan soldier to exchange for them. Because who's going to be a human shield for them now?
Sri Lanka's government on Friday released nearly 1,800 former Tamil Tiger rebels who had been held since the island nation's civil war ended more than two years ago. The former combatants — among about 11,000 Tamil Tigers who surrendered at the end of the war in May 2009 — were held in military-run rehabilitation centres, where they underwent vocational training. The military says about 1,000 remain in centres.
Sri Lanka has come under pressure from rights groups and other countries to either charge the detainees or release them.
Under pressure from rights groups! Ha! Ha! And now the rights groups think they had an impact! Ha! Ha!
Of course this isn't my proposed solution. It's merely how the world has historically accomplished these things... when no-one is watching.
Hemmed in by the sea, a lagoon, and a hundred thousand government soldiers, the Tigers were all but helpless. On May 16th, the Army commander, General Sarath Fonseka, declared victory. Two days later, the Army announced that the Tiger leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, had been killed. After the carnage, President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government adopted a posture of triumphalism at home and resentment of the outrage it caused abroad. The important thing, Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner in London said, was that Sri Lanka had ended terrorism, making it the first country in the modern age to have done so.
I thought I saw something in Classic's pic
... So did
someone else !
Well, Sri Lanka solved their terrorism problem in VERY short order:
<snip>
But that was the origin of this problem back in the 30's... same strategy, just different people.
- Build a strong defense around Israel.
- Prohibit Palestinians from entering Israel.
- Cut aid to Palestine.
- Let the Arabs take care of the Palestinians.
Hasn't Israel made several proposals that offered just this?
And haven't the Palestinians rejected each and every one, preferring their current goal of killing every Jew in the world, beginning with their rightful "homeland" which they have NEVER owned?
I see no solutions other than a war. Sadly.
- Build a strong defense around Israel.
israel has a wall along its boarder with gaza. there are checkpoints along it its mostly being affective regarding terrorists entering the country through it. but in receant years, the larger majority of attacks changed from sucide bombers to missiles, where the wall isn't really helpful.
not to mention both gaza and israel have a common boarder with egypt, and israel is in no economical position to give up that trade relation.
it might be important to mention that israel didn't make its boarder with gaza the main channel to send the palestinian foreign aid out of goodwill. on the international arena this is the only escuse that grants israel the capacity to check through the deliveries for bombs etc. israel stops it and the trade goes back egyption boarder.
Either that, or 50 years of arranged marriages only
... Jewish men wed only Palestinian women
... Palestinian men wed only Jewish women
Even bigoted grandparents cannot hate their grand kids.
Love this idea - if only it was feasible. Breed them into cohabitation.
I thought I saw something in Classic's pic
... So did someone else !
FTW. Well done. Was wondering if anyone else would see that. :thumbsup:
Honestly? I wish Israel would be the bigger man and just abandon the whole area. Who wants a chunk of desert anyway? There are currently more Jews in New York than there are in Israel. So finish the job, have a mass emigration party and let the nutbags have all that ugly "holy" dirt, just like we let the Native Americans have Oklahoma.
Give Palestine back to the Palestinians.
Give the Ottoman Empire back to the Ottomans.
Give the Ottoman Empire back to the Ottomans.
Cool. I've got an ottoman for my easy chair. How much land will it own?
No chair is easy in the levant my friend.
Give the Ottoman Empire back to the Ottomans.
Typical naive response. Go back farther in history UT. That land is obviously the Persians...
Give India back to the Indians.
Aren't the Israelis really just Jewish Palestinians?
Are the rest Palestinian Jews? ;)
Ok, here it is.
Everyone has to stop taking their make-believe game so seriously.
Everyone has to stop expecting other people to take their make-believe game as seriously as they do.
Everyone has to stop basing their world view on the idea that their imaginary friend promised this bit of real estate to them.
Everyone has to stop expecting other people to take the promises of their imaginary friend as seriously as they do.
That's good for a start, but the group identities of many of the groups involved also deeply involve hatred/resentment/desire to destroy one or more of the other groups. That has to go too.
Z, that's worthy of advancing you to 2nd Level Imaginary Friend.
They will fix it, just wait and see.
Well first off it is not about Palestinians anymore. It is about Iran, Hamas and Fatah, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and of course the US. There is no simple solution. One thing that would help if they could cut the head off the snake of Iran's meddling and get the Israeli's to stop building more settlements where they don't belong.
I forget the reason but I've heard Iran is actually losing their influence on Hezbollah, Hamas, or both. They share mutual interests but Hezbollah and Hamas want to be seen as independent.
I forget the reason but I've heard Iran is actually losing their influence on Hezbollah, Hamas, or both. They share mutual interests but Hezbollah and Hamas want to be seen as independent.
They would not exist without Iran.
Yet not seen as their lapdogs.
Hamas appears to be drifting away from its longtime patron Iran — part of a shift that began with last year's Arab Spring and accelerated over Tehran's backing of the pariah regime in Syria.
The movement's top leader in exile, Khaled Mashaal, wants Hamas to be part of the broader Islamist political rise triggered by the popular uprisings sweeping across the Arab world. For this, Hamas needs new friends like the wealthy Gulf states that are at odds with Iran.
For now, Hamas won't cut ties with Iran or close its headquarters-in-exile in the Syrian capital of Damascus, officials in the movement said.
However, relations have become increasingly strained.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/hamas-drifting-longtime-patron-iran-15549363#.TzrmeLRZorMDoesn't look like it to the experts....
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh arrived in Tehran on Feb. 10 for talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, DPA reported.
http://www.stratfor.com/situation-report/iran-hamas-leader-arrives
Although this long well respected article supports some of your statements I would suggest they cannot do without Iran as supported by this statement:
(From yesterday)
These states also understand that Hamas is unlikely to completely sever its ties with Iran. Beyond the money, weapons and training it has received from Iran and its allies, Hamas needs to maintain a decent working relationship with Iran to avoid creating greater complications for itself in the Gaza Strip.
http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/special-report-hamas-transition
Lap dogs? No. Proxies? Yes.
Not different from what we did in Afghanistan in the 1980's.
Of course Hamas isn't completely separating from Iran. That would be extremely dumb on their part. And there isn't going to be any agreement from experts because I doubt their is any agreement in Hamas. There are die-hard Iran supporters in Hamas and others that probably want to completely cut ties.
The overall point is that, while obviously not completely seperating, Hamas is moving away from Iran and diversifying their funding. To me, this has two implications. First, Hamas may not attack Israel on Iranian command. If Israel does attack Iranian nuclear facilities, there is a lesser chance Hamas will respond since Israel would have prepared for it. I'm not saying Hamas won't respond, but there is a lesser chance now.
Second, Iran is losing influence in the Arab region as a whole. They counted on getting Arab support during any revolution to overthrow western backed dictators and that didn't happen. It was made even worse because they are now backing Al-Assad.
Hamas = Sunni
Iran = Shia
Iranian ascendancy is seen as a huge threat by much of Sunni Islam
The threat of an Iranian bomb has been shown to be a much greater concern to the Saudis than the existence of the Israeli bomb.
When the Iranians threaten to nuke Israel, surely some Palestinians realize that the blast area won't magically stop at the border.
Thus, brainstorm: solve the pal/israel conflict? Answer: find a common enemy bigger than the two of them.
done and done
Of course Hamas isn't completely separating from Iran. That would be extremely dumb on their part. And there isn't going to be any agreement from experts because I doubt their is any agreement in Hamas. There are die-hard Iran supporters in Hamas and others that probably want to completely cut ties.
The overall point is that, while obviously not completely seperating, Hamas is moving away from Iran and diversifying their funding. To me, this has two implications. First, Hamas may not attack Israel on Iranian command. If Israel does attack Iranian nuclear facilities, there is a lesser chance Hamas will respond since Israel would have prepared for it. I'm not saying Hamas won't respond, but there is a lesser chance now.
Second, Iran is losing influence in the Arab region as a whole. They counted on getting Arab support during any revolution to overthrow western backed dictators and that didn't happen. It was made even worse because they are now backing Al-Assad.
You have some valid points, but I rely on Strafor over your assessments any day. And they don't completely agree with you.