The reality is at some point you have to move past history to make the best decision now. It's neither moral nor practical to uproot or kill the people currently living in Israel because the original settlement was wrong or misguided.
Palastinian claims over Israel make as much sense as Taiwanese claims over mainland China (or PRC claims over Taiwan). And I say that as someone who is very against continued aggression from Israel and for recognition of a Palastinian state.
What about Israel regularly attacking the Syrian territory near its capital using Lebanese airspace without permission and allegedly using civilian aircraft to shield its warplanes from return fire? Yes, Israel and Syria are formally in a state of war, but so are Russia and Japan.
Iranian forces on the Syrian soil pose a threat to Israel? Sure. But they stay there with permission from the internationally recognized government (does not matter if you like it or not), so those strikes is a clear act of aggression against Syria and violation of its sovereignty.
And I haven't even touched the Golan Heights, continued occupation of which is clearly illegal under the international law. But who cares about the international law if it's your best buddy in the region, right? You may as well recognize its sovereignty over the territory with zero repercussions.
Indeed. No one in the right mind would suggest that the European settlers that colonized North America should go home. However, we very much expect them to treat the remaining Native Americans that they didn't exterminate as equals and also to recognize that a genocide took place.
Israel was founded in much the same way. In 1948, 80% of all Palestinians in what became Israel were driven into exile by Jewish forces. They were prevented from returning while Israel confiscated their property and handed it over to Jewish immigrants. "In Israel, only Jews have a right to return" Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion proclaimed.
To this date, Israel still doesn't allow the Palestinian refugees to return while granting every Jew in the world the privilege of settling in Israel. Israel has not even considered compensating the Palestinians that it ethnically cleansed and whose property it stole.
I think your misconception of the conflict is that it is "all in the past". It is not. 50% of all Palestinians live in exile, unable to visit their homeland. A large fraction of those live in refugee camps or are destitute and dependent on UNRWA for subsistence. Gaza is an open air prison and the underemployment rate is approaching 80%. In the West Bank, extremist Jewish settlers harass Palestinians daily and more and more settlements are being built. In Israel, Palestinians are treated as second-class citizens and explicitly condemned as a threat to the state by leading politicians.
I strongly disagree that we should just give up on stopping the Palestinian colonization. For example, one concrete thing that is absolutely politically attainable would be to completely cut the US funding sent to Israel (billions of dollars a year).
I do not think a colony that's less than 100 years old has to be taken "as a given".
a country or area under the full or partial political control of another country and occupied by settlers from that country. Which country is controlling and settling the Israel? It's not a colony you are thinking of, at best you can claim it's a part-invasion part-colony, but you are not. you are saying that its all a colony. so you are wrong.
> at best you can claim it's a part-invasion part-colony
I think that's a pretty apt description actually. You have to invade a place before you colonize it.
I'm not saying the indignation isn't understandable—of course it is. But users here need to use the site for its intended purpose, not for things that destroy its intended purpose.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26402301.
I oppose all espionage, especially things like blackmail. If that’s not dirty, I don’t know what is.
Thus, it's time to give up. Israel has won.
Besides, the dominant player here is only dominant because of other colonial powers, namely the US.