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Comment by Robotbeat | Hacker News Reader

Does that mean reducing the Israeli military would also help?

The goal is for both the Israeli and Palestinian states to exist and for there to be peace. An Israeli hegemony over the Palestinian state, with settlers and all, certainly doesn’t help that, and it may be a rational goal of the Palestinian state to become too much of a nuisance to be ignored. If peace means subjugation, I think many Palestinians probably wouldn’t be okay with that. The Palestinians are seeing a lot of “might makes right” arguments right now about why they should just accept subjugation.

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Given the two wars of survival the Israelis have fought in the past 50-ish years it seems very likely that it would reducing their military would reduce the freedom and literal existence of the Israelis.

For the Palestinians, perhaps reducing the Israeli would increase freedom in the short term. In the longer term, in the absence of Israel, it seems more likely they would end up dominated by either larger neighbors like Lebanon by Syria or experience low-freedom autocracies like Egypt, Iraq, etc.

Who said anything about eliminating Israel? Why eliminate EITHER side? I think a two state solution makes the most sense, but right now the one state Israeli right wing has the upper hand and a near monopoly on violence (and let’s not ignore there has been plenty of targeting of civilians, including retribution). This doesn’t seem to be a great argument about how freedom-loving the State of Israel is. An autocratic (or ethnocratic), low-freedom Israel snuffing out the Palestinian state doesn’t seem preferable to me whereas a peaceful two state solution seems like it could be super awesome for both sides if they can just get over themselves.

And if one can understand why Israel would fight for its right to exist as a state, then why should it be surprising that the Palestinian state fights for the same reason?

Nobody said anything about what is "right".

Instead, the argument is that the observable fact is that continued violence has not helped the palestinian cause.

It simply has not worked.

That's not a moral statement. It is simply the descriptive truth that violence for decades has not helped their cause, and therefore it probably won't in the future.

But the violence by the Israeli military DOES seem to have worked! Israel exists and no serious person doubts that Israel will continue to exist for quite a while because of it. So why would violence help one side more than the other? Probably because one side is much more powerful than the other. Hence my asking about whether a stronger (and more organized) Palestinian military would help.

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