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Comment by slibhb | Hacker News Reader

Palestinians have been offered a state 5 times starting in 1937. They rejected each offer.

They don't want a state of their own; they want to conquer Israel.

I don't see a solution. Maybe establish a somewhat repressive non-democratic Palestinian state?

This is simply not true, there was never any offer with acceptable terms. I am not going to repeat this here, this has been discussed countless times and you can easily find this if you want to.

All of the offers seem acceptable to me. In the first offer, the Jewish state was quite small. None of the offers were acceptable to Palestinians because they include a Jewish state.

Virtually all Arabs want to fight a war against Israel and destroy it. They view that land as theirs. The only reason there haven't been more wars is due to repressive Arab governments that have been willing to compromise.

This is nonsense, the Palestinians and Palestinian organizations - even including Hamas - have to varying degrees accepted or shown willingness to accept a Palestinian state that does not encompass all of Mandatory Palestine. Israel is unwilling to have a two state solution, they always desired all of Mandatory Palestine and saw any division plan only as stepping stone for further expansion in the future.

> ...even including Hamas

That is not true. Trivial to check on Wikipedia [1] and go to factual information.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas#Policies_towards_Israel_...

»On 2 May 2017, Khaled Mashal, chief of the Hamas Political Bureau, presented a new Charter, in which Hamas accepted the establishment of a Palestinian state "on the basis of June 4, 1967" (West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem).«

You cut the entire paragraph.

You mean the part where it says they did still not recognize the state of Israel or relinquish claims to all of Palestine? You overlooked the part in my comment where I said to varying degrees. Also to me that seems not too different from the position Israeli politicians had and some still have, we accept the partition plan but still desire to expand into all of Mandatory Palestine eventually.

This is not true, even in their acceptance of THEIR land, they will not acknowledge or turn over their territorial claim to the rest of the land.

> This is nonsense, the Palestinians and Palestinian organizations - even including Hamas - have to varying degrees accepted or shown willingness to accept a Palestinian state that does not encompass all of Mandatory Palestine.

This cannot be reconciled with the meaning of the slogan "from the river to the sea". (Wikipedia claims that the slogan is used by both sides of the conflict, citing a JSTOR article I can't access; but I have only ever seen it used by Hamas and their supporters.)

Per Wikipedia, Hamas does not recognize Israel as of their most recent 2017 charter, and "called for a Palestinian state on all of Mandatory Palestine" in 1988.

While I'm sure that many Palestinians do not support Hamas and desire to co-exist with Israel, I see no good reason to suppose that this is any more common than the other way around.

> Israel is unwilling to have a two state solution, they always desired all of Mandatory Palestine

There is ample evidence to contradict this — enough that I can look it up on the fly. Were it true, for example, the Knesset would have had no need to pass a resolution declaring this to be their current position, barely a year ago. Netanyahu also claimed in 2015 to want a two-state solution, and of course there are other Israeli political parties with warmer attitudes towards Palestine.

The obvious evidence that Israel is unwilling to have a two state solution is its non-existence - they could do this unilaterally and just withdraw.

Your claim was that they have always desired all of Mandatory Palestine. This clearly does not hold up.

The reason they might currently feel differently seems pretty obvious to me, even though this is a topic I rarely ever think about.

»Does the establishment of a Jewish state [in only part of Palestine] advance or retard the conversion of this country into a Jewish country? My assumption (which is why I am a fervent proponent of a state, even though it is now linked to partition) is that a Jewish state on only part of the land is not the end but the beginning.... This is because this increase in possession is of consequence not only in itself, but because through it we increase our strength, and every increase in strength helps in the possession of the land as a whole. The establishment of a state, even if only on a portion of the land, is the maximal reinforcement of our strength at the present time and a powerful boost to our historical endeavors to liberate the entire country.«

David Ben-Gurion, 1937

You can draw a straight line through two points, but that doesn't mean the line is actually there.

How many dots do we have to fill in? The next obvious one is settlement expansion, that certainly undermines the possibility of a two state solution.

Meanwhile, two comments up you say "This cannot be reconciled with the meaning of the slogan "from the river to the sea"." ...

Yes.

There is no contradiction.

"From the river to the sea", in English, means something different from "at the river and at the sea".

In response to

> ... the Palestinians and Palestinian organizations - even including Hamas - have to varying degrees accepted or shown willingness to accept a Palestinian state that does not encompass all of Mandatory Palestine.

you say

> This cannot be reconciled with the meaning of the slogan "from the river to the sea".

To which I quote

> "You can draw a straight line through two points, but that doesn't mean the line is actually there."

At what point in history has Hamas not used this slogan?

I don't care about the usage of the slogan. I care about what Hamas has represented regarding their acceptance of a partial Palestinian state.

Also, at what point in history has Likud not used this slogan?

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/original-party-platform...

https://archive.is/EYGLU#selection-423.0-423.184

"The coalition agreements state that “the Jewish people have an exclusive right on all the land” between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. It doesn’t mention the Palestinians."

> they could do this unilaterally and just withdraw

Which they tried in 2005 in Gaza. They evicted the remaining settlers in Gaza and unilaterally withdrew from Gaza.

Hamas won the first and only election thereafter and ruled in Gaza from that point on.

In the years during and after the pandemic, Hamas deceived Israel in the way it presented itself. An IDF report assessing the massive intelligence failure on Oct 7 reported [0], "Israel saw Hamas as a pragmatic movement with whom it could do business." That was a tragic mistake.

The opinion of the Israeli public towards the desirability (and feasibility) of a two-state solution has tended to vary over the decades depending on the actions of external Palestinian and Arab actors. After the wave of Palestinian suicide bombings of buses and restaurants starting around the year 2000 it went down. Two years after the Gaza withdrawal it was back up, with 70% support for the two-state solution in 2007, when there were peace talks. [1]

The mass killings and kidnappings that Hamas did in 2023 pretty much eliminated any enthusiasm for two states at present. A recent poll put Israeli opinion at 70% opposition to a Palestinian state.

That could change again. Israel is a democracy, and people vote depending on what they see. The idea that a Palestinian nation will ever encompass "the river to the sea," is a complete delusion. The idea that Israel will ever see peace and security by annexing the entire area of the former British Mandate is likewise a complete delusion. If Hamas can be defeated, if the Palestinian Authority can get more effective, less corrupt leadership, if Israel can get a parliamentary majority that is no longer dependent on right-wing parties, if ordinary Israelis can get a hint that Oct 7 is not something that will happen again, then there might be hope for peace.

Y'all do want peace, don't you?

[0] https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bkd8rnrqkl

[1] https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/with-only-40-per...

It seems telling that you were downvoted without any responses. I can't see anything objectionable in your position, and it appears appropriately argued and evidenced. I guess people just disagree with your worldview.

I did not downvote the comment - I never downvote anything - but the argument that Israel gave some kind of sovereignty to the Gaza strip in 2005 just does not match reality. Israel removed its troops from the Gaza strip but still maintained heavy control over it - control of border traffic, maritime blockade, airspace control, control over water, electricity, and fuel supply. You do not need boots on the ground if you have that much control over everything that go in or comes out of some region.

Also the sentiment of the population does not matter if the government does not want a two state solution or only on conditions unacceptable to the Palestinians. Read up on the details of the proposals.

> This cannot be reconciled with the meaning of the slogan "from the river to the sea". (Wikipedia claims that the slogan is used by both sides of the conflict, citing a JSTOR article I can't access; but I have only ever seen it used by Hamas and their supporters.)

It was literally Likud's electioneering slogan throughout the 70s. It's not just that it's been used by both sides - it was actually created by Israelis.

no one really believes such stuff anymore.

Israel really the invader according to UN and many other organization.

see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Counci...

and many other examples of how israel really ignored the internatinal law, the agreements it signed etc.

Um. The UN approved the original 1947 Partition Plan, which called for a Jewish State and an Arab state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_...

The UN General Assembly does not make legally binding decisions, they express majority opinions. Only the Security Council can make legally binding decisions. There is also the question whether the UN General Assembly even has the legitimation to suggest the partitioning of some land against the will of its population. There was an attempt to decide on this but that did not get the necessary votes. And even the partition plan was only accepted because several countries where pressured or incentivized to vote for it.

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