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Comment by nick_ | Hacker News Reader

Realistically, West Bank will be gone (totally settled, all Palestinians removed) in 15 years. Gaza will further be ghettoized and, pessimistically, will be basically gone in 50 years or so.

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That's indeed the current trajectory, but then what exactly will happen with the Palestinian population in that scenario? All 5+ million crammed into Gaza? Driven into Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan by force? (which are already refusing to take them today, by threat of military action) What else?

It was always about ethnic cleansing. Either they get away with it or somebody stops them.

That's not realistic at all. Israel has no apparent plans to settle the major Palestinian population centers in the West Bank like Nablus, Ramallah etc. and evict Palestinians from there.

Indeed, life will probably continue getting worse for West Bank Palestinians under the Israeli apartheid regime, but there's no reason to believe they'll be literally exterminated.

Haven't you seen and heard from the zionist figures about how they are now claiming that Lebanon and parts of Saudi Arabia are theirs?

Gaza has been leveled for the most part.

The only thing left is allowing developers to build on the land and setting up checkpoints to keep the previous owners out.

I don't know why this is downvoted. Do people not realize Gaza was razed to the ground?

If Israeli goals really were to displace Palestinians, maybe they'd start within Israel proper first?

A subtle comment, which may be misunderstood.

The point is that they are NOT starting with Israel proper first, where Arabs are and have been citizens for a long time. Palestinians have been elected to the Israeli parliament, and there is an Arab Justice on the Israeli Supreme Court.

Are you being facetious? If you are, that's awesome and hilarious.

Just in case you are unaware, there are two million Arab Muslims citizens in Israel. Some of them consider themselves Palestinians (which is really a nationalist movement), some do not - but they are the same people / ethnic group that was there during the 48 war. These are full citizens, full members of Israeli society, not the Palestinian non-citizens in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza.

Full members of society you say. What's the highest rank any of them have achieved in the IDF?

If we're counting Druze, Major General. If not Colonel.

How much of that is due to prejudice and how much is due to Muslims generally not joining the military is a question I can't answer.

Huh interesting. My understanding (from conversation with some Israelis) was that Arabs were not drafted as the rest of the population are. Obviously they were mistaken though.

Non-Druze Arabs aren't conscripted, however a small number volunteer every year.

Ah ok, thanks for the education. I guess that's really where I was coming from. I get the complexities, but it's hard to see another democratic state having such policies.

Everyone knows this.

You'd think so, I have been told that being Palestinian is arrestable offence in Israel. Some people are very delusional about the actual situation on hand, as evident by some of the comments here.

One of the many things that helps in thinking clearly about this conflict, and the perspectives one has already encountered, is to distinguish Arab Muslim Israeli citizens from Palestinians who reside in Gaza or West Bank.

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