Note: I dislike settlements in the West Bank. I think it makes the problem needlessly more intractable than it already is. I especially dislike the nigh-terroristic behavior of a portion of the settlers and the seeming inability or unwillingness of the state to properly apply rule of law against them.
Nonetheless. Legally speaking, if a deal isn't signed by both sides, then it's a worthless piece of paper. Settlements in the West Bank are only possible because the Palestinian side refuses to ever say "these are the borders of our state, that which is outside these borders is Israel". There's no sense in talking about "deals" that never happened, or were immediately violated by e.g. 1973 invasion, as though they have a bearing on current reality.
My entire point when I first commented is that there have multiple opportunities for proper long-term peace and Palestinian statehood that were either rejected or violated in short order by the Palestinians and/or their allies.
> ...there have been multiple opportunities for long-term peace and Palestinian statehood that were either rejected or violated in short order by the Palestinians and/or their allies.
Palestine is occupied and has been losing more and more land to Israel for decades. Any peace deal that Israel offers that does not establish Palestinian borders as they were in 1967 is a slap in the face for any and every Palestinian who had their homes, livelihood, and history colonized by Israeli settlers. Israel needs to allow Palestine to operate as an independent nation in control of their own borders, energy, trade, etc.
The Palestinians refuse to be served dog food to then be told by their oppressors to appreciate it or they won't be getting any more.
>Any peace deal that Israel offers that does not establish Palestinian borders as they were in 1967 is a slap in the face for any and every Palestinian who had their homes, livelihood, and history colonized by Israeli settlers.
Who broke the peace after the 1967 agreement? What happened in 1973?
You can't accept a peace agreement, then declare a new war, lose it, and then call it a slap in the face if you aren't given the exact same deal you were already given before you started and lost a war.
The 1967 agreement gives the West Bank to Jordan, and Gaza to Egypt. The fact that Egypt doesn't want Gaza anymore and Jordan doesn't want the West Bank anymore is a rather material roadblock to implementing the 1967 agreement in 2024, don't you think?
I don't pretend to have an answer here, I just reject the notion that Israel should be solely blamed for the lack of a Palestinian state, as the initial person I responded to implied.
And also, the use of colonization rhetoric is absolutely fucking crazy to me. Nearly all people who "settled" in Israel are refugees in the exact same sense as Palestinians, and half of Israeli Jews are literally ethnically from elsewhere in the middle east - "settling" in Israel after being forced out of Syria, Iraq, Egypt, etc.
You also said that Palestinian "history" has been "colonized" by Israeli "settlers". Do you understand what a cruel joke that sounds like considering the particular bit of land we're talking about?
Was 1948 unfair to Palestinians? Yes. That decade was unfair to literally everyone involved, including the people who became Israelis. It was also unfair when Czechoslovakia kicked out (and worse) hundreds of thousands of native ethnic Germans, but we're not still having wars over that 75 years later.
They weren't asked to settle in Palestine by its local inhabitants, but they were chased by mobs with clubs and metal pipes from the places they did live. I'm not sure what litigating this gets you, rhetorically.
It's worth noting that (excepting maybe Egypt?) all the surrounding Arab states were also the creation of European imperial colonialism, a fact that only seems to matter when the people implicated happen to be Jewish. But for a couple quirks of history, Palestinians would have a universally recognized, sovereign homeland; today, we call it "Jordan", and it is ruled by a dynasty of monarchs who conspired to prevent what was, around '67, a Palestinian majority from obtaining political power.
I think what's happening in Gaza is an atrocity, and that Israel has done as much as anybody in the region to dispossess and abuse the residents of the West Bank and Gaza. But I also understand why people read antisemitism into blank "colonialism" complaints about Israel. Clearly, colonialism is only situationally worth getting riled up about.
But I also understand why people read antisemitism into blank "colonialism" complaints about Israel.
Whose "complaints", specifically?
If it's in reference to what I've been saying, then you're going to have to either explain what you mean - or dial back the rather offensive insinuation that you're making above.
I'm happy to dial back any offensive insinuation I've made, but I'll have to ask you to tell me what it was first. I don't know you, you're just a message board abstraction to me, and if I've wrongly attributed some sentiment to you, I'll be glad to correct the record.
It was not your remark. So far as I know, I'm one of a very few people who have read your comment (just by dint of the age and depth of the thread). There is no mass mobilization over any supposed racism or antisemitism embedded in your specific statements, the way there is over the claimed "whiteness" or "Polishness" or "European-ness" of Israeli citizens. That is to say: I thought that in referring to common complaints in the discourse, I was clear that I was talking about a wider phenomenon, not this particular thread, but message boards are tricky and I could have done better.
I'd have no trouble using direct language, describing a particular argument as "racist" or "antisemitic", if I felt that was what the argument was. But there's no reason you'd have known that, and I understand if I read as sort of cagily making that accusation without making it directly. Nope, not my intent, sorry to drive up your cortisol that way. I'll be more cautious going forward.
I am not even commenting about these peace deals, for now. But Oslo accords, were they violated by Palestinians and their allies? Do you deny the current and long time PM supporting Hamas against PA? Or the killers of Rabin were also Palestinians and their allies?
At some point, you can't keep turning down every deal that would provide a state and then complain that there's no state.