It is hard to say Israel has less right to the land it took over than say New Zealand. The main difference is how long ago the settling happened.
If that happened, then Palestinians would outnumber Jews and could dominate the country democratically. I can understand the potential for discrimination.
That's why the two state solution is often considered the only just solution: Both groups each have a country in which they are the majority.
The Israeli right rejects the two state solution, and clearly they reject being a minority, so that only leaves oppression of Palestinians (which is awful and unjust, to avoid any doubt).
> the progressive country they pretend to be
Israel hasn't pretended to be progressive in awhile. Netanyahu and some of his predecessors made no pretenses about it.
This is only a problem because they want a religious ethnostate, not a secular democracy.
Apartheid south africa wanted the same thing.
Actually I'm fairly sure it could have happened at some point if it hadn't been loudly rejected by Arabs.
It's the PA who always refused to discuss peace, you should check your facts.
This would have been somewhat reasonable if it hadn't been for the fact that Jews have been driven out from neighboring countries in larger number than Arabs from Israel.
You're excluding the middle a lot in these comments, suggesting that the only two valid perspectives on this conflict are "Israel must be an exclusionary ethnostate" and "Hamas is a legitimate actor". It's possible to disagree with both of those statements. People who stick up for Hamas are dumb. Ethnostates are immoral.
Following this logic you may also believe families are immoral.
If Nazi Germany could turn into regular Germany, one of the most progressive nations on Earth, so can anyone else.
It didn’t, really; it was destroyed, and the destroyers erected states of their own design on its ruins.
Israel hasn’t picked fights with the right people for it to end up the way Nazi Germany did if it loses.
That's an idea with a very bad history and no political legitimacy: What grounds does a general have to tell their neighbors what to do? Nobody voted for them. What stops the general from arbitrarily wielding that power?
Why vest that power in the military? A civilian institution could make the decision, such as a court interpreting a constitution.
Maybe in your fantasies, but not in advanced democracies. Nobody would follow those orders; there's no evidence of it ever happening, in centuries. Technically, the people of Washington DC have the power to overthrow the government if they all rush the seats of power at the same time, but really they don't.
Or do you mean citizens in Palestine? Why would Israel make the Palestinians in Gaza full citizens when That’s separate territory from Israel?
1) most of Palestine and Palestinians are not in Gaza, bug in the West Bank
2) if Palestine is separate territory from Israel, why Israel builds its roads and cities on it?
And the funny part is, the reason Israel control parts of the West Bank is because they were attacked in 3 wars (1948, 1967, 1972) and won.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Pla...
Looks like for all of these questions the answer is "duh, yes for sure" - except for the last one. I wonder...