At the moment, the two sides only agree on wishing the other dead. So even in the ideal world it is a very remote possibility.
Having two ethno-nationalist states next to each other is bad. Giving them a very complicated border is worse. Having them hate each other with centuries of history and territory claims is even worse still. Then giving them both, let alone one, access to the global arms market is asking for never ending wars of annihilation.
If you could design a situation that was maximally terrible for neighboring states, the two state solution would be it.
This is the history of the Levant going back millennia.
The modern model of statehood (which is probably what you are referring to) -- sometimes referred to as the "nation-state" model, but it is not actually particularly centered on the coextensiveness of the nations and states, and certainly orthogonal to states being ethnonationalist -- is at least ~300 years old (its often attributed to being ~400 years old and originating in the two peace settlements collectively known as the "Peace of Westphalia", but that's not really accurate.) OTOH, the concept of nations (which are basically the coextension of an ethnic community and a land) is much older.
But, in any case, it has not been the case at all that the history of the Levant is one of two local adjacent coexistent ethnonationalist polities, whether or not they look like modern states. That's just a simply false claim made upthread which needs no reference to the history of models of nations or states to rebut; before 1948, for a very long time, the Levant was more often either under one (multinational, imperial) polity or split between a couple of adjacent ones (often in the process of transitioning from unified control of one to the other), whether it was the British Empire, or the Ottoman Empire, a series of different Arab-led empires, the Eastern Roman Empire, the (pre-split) Roman Empire, various Greek-derived empires, the Babylonian and Assyrian empires, etc.
Concept of nation states. Nations and states, separately, are an older concept.
> they were often simply under the dominion of one imperial power or another
For millennia. Often because inter-ethnic conflicts required an external security guarantor to keep a lid on the chaos.
One could argue this history of chaos goes back to the Hittites and Bronze Age collapse.
> One could argue this history of chaos goes back to the Hittites and Bronze Age collapse.
And one could claim that the history of chaos in Central Europe goes back to the dissolution of the Carolingian Empire, or the Ostsiedlung, or perhaps even before the Romans made contact with the Germani.
Nobody said this.
> one could claim that the history of chaos in Central Europe goes back to the dissolution of the Carolingian Empire, or the Ostsiedlung, or perhaps even before the Romans made contact with the Germani
Well, yes. It’s a nexus of navigable waterways. It has taken millennia of negotiating, atrocity and—ultimately—an external security guarantor twinned with mutual forgiveness to attain, for a short period, peace.
Again - I’d love further education about legal definitions.
There certainly is rhetoric around the ethnic origin of some Israeli citizens being Northern European rather than middle eastern, so perhaps the original claim has some validity.
In that, given a few years/decades of a two state solution, you'd have a partition occur, whether by force as was in India/Pakistan, or by more natural processes over time.
Honestly, I could see a partition occur as a condition for a two state solution. One side for the muslims, one for the jews.
I guess I should amend my comment to say theocratic ethno-nationalist / ethno-religious states, but I am likely messing up my greek/Plato (?) here. Suffice to say, the state of Palestine would have a super majority of muslim Palestinian citizen voters (currently-ish 87%, ~6M people total, though hard to define really), and the state of Israel would have a slight majority of jewish citizen voters (currently 48% jewish, 48% arab, ~14M people total, but Israeli Arab enfranchisement is a thing). Though 'steady state' numbers would likely shift the voting blocs towards the representative religions due to some partitioning as I described. Just FYI, there are about 6.3M jews and 4.5M muslims in the US currently.
The total numbers of jews and palestinians that would be 'in theatre' is hard to determine, but think about 8M jews and about 9M palestinians for guestimations.
So, I think I'm on pretty stable ground calling the likely resultant two state solution an ethno-religious solution. Other commenters are right in that the definition of 'nation' is a bit difficult with these two groups.
Look either way, the two state solution is like, maximally bad. Having these two people with their histories and hatreds literally sharing walls is just crazy as it stands. Then giving them both access to the global arms market, let alone just Israel, is so crazy.
And no, I haven't the foggiest idea what the hell to do. No one does.
It's ridiculous and I know the moment I see someone dig into their bag of slander with that they are not arguing in good faith.
JIDF out in force again.
Realistically? Maintaining strong border security, erect more walls, prevent Palestinians from crossing into Israel, legally or illegally, control any gate they have with the outside to prevent smuggling of weapons.
Regarding the hostages? Besiege Gaza until they are returned.
I'll preface that my knowledge of the situation is 'bad'. In that, I think I'm likely not qualified to give informed opinions on it. Okay, that out of the way...
> Ideally? Palestinian accepting the existence of Israel, foregoing their demands for the right to return and East Jerusalem, and then we can peacefully coexist.
Right to return is a tricky one here. It's been very long that they have been 'out' of their homes/locations. So much so that it's difficult to say whose it is now. Which, yeah, that's not good. I come at this from a Native American perspective. In that, my ancestors took land away and had land taken away from them. I can feel that pain still in the family and that listlessness and hurt in me to a (absurdly) small degree.
From what I know, the sticking point of all sticking points is the Temple Mount. Each side wants it to the exclusion of the other. And from what I can see, each side is willing to mortgage their children's and grandchildren's lives on that point. Literally, this is the hill they are willing to die on, and sacrifice their progeny on too, endlessly (ancient allusions come flying out here without much effort).
I used to think that someone could 'Kind David' that land and just nuke it or something. But no, they would fight over the glowing green hole too, like the irradiated wasteland in Fallout 4. To an outsider, it's hopeless, I don't think that either side is willing to ever peacefully relent on the Temple Mount, let alone all the other land.
> Realistically? Maintaining strong border security, erect more walls, prevent Palestinians from crossing into Israel, legally or illegally, control any gate they have with the outside to prevent smuggling of weapons.
I don't see how treating the Palestinians poorly is going to make things better. Their incentives are badly aligned with Israel's if they are treated in such a way. I don't think that trying to forcibly make them a separate entity is going to get them to do what Israel needs. To me, the best way to get Palestinians to stop the violence is to have them 'grow' their way out of it. In that, they are so busy thriving that they no longer care about the past issues. This, I admit, is a very American perspective, and a western American one at that. I know that my idea here is a longer term one, and right now the short term is very critical. But, for me, it's a matter of incentives. If Israel can somehow make it so that the conditions exist that Palestine is more interested in something other than the destruction of Israel, then all the better. I have no feasible way to accomplish this though. I can only say to look at places and times where such things did occur. My terribly brief survey of this says that it's a matter of poverty and growing out of the 'hole' was the solution when it did occur. Still, I know that the deep and long hatreds overshadow it all.
My solution is a glib one. The participants just need to stop being who they are. These ways don't seem to work well. My automatic reaction is that they all just need to do the hard work of true forgiveness. But, again, that's not who the participants are. That is a Christian method for Muslims and Jews; it's not going to happen.
I guess my main disagreement is that the proposed solutions don't deal with the longer term, just the shorter one, and they don't accept the agency and feelings of the Palestinians and their incentives.
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss and learn more. Please tell me where I am wrong and missing out on things. Also, sorry for delays in response and I think we're in quite different time zones and schedules.
>Palestinian accepting the existence of Israel
Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by an israeli as he was working toward a two state solution. Yasser Arafat recognized the right of Israel to exist in 1988 was assassinated. (sorry, "died of mysterious causes for no reasons and toxicology report said it was all good no biggie we don't know what Mossad uses anyways.). Israel spent the last 40 years systematically destroying any hope at giving palestinians any chance to ever want to "accept" Israel
>foregoing their demands for the right to return
Promised by God 3000 years ago for me but not for thee. Israel exiled millions of Palestinians from the land they were inhabiting.
>and East Jerusalem
Holy land for all three major abrahamic religions, but I guess it's israeli now. And muslims are banned. Cool cool. Now onto the cool stuff:
>Maintaining strong border security
Which ones, the ones that already existed where IDF soldiers shot children for fun ?
>erect more walls
Build a better prison ?
>prevent Palestinians from crossing into Israel
Let's see. Walls on land. Naval blockade. Yep, building a better prison. And since the IDF is, day after day pushing palestinians into whatever city is left. Khan Yunis is gone, Rafah is gone, Gaza City is gone, Jabalyia is gone, Beit Hanoun is gone. Five of the seven major cities of Gaza are rubble, and palestinians are forced to move to ever smaller encampments with no food, water or health care, while Israel is systematically stopping any attempts at sending aid.
>control any gate they have with the outside to prevent smuggling of weapons.
You already do, and you miserably failed at it. What next, nuke Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt because they might have tunnels ?
>Besiege Gaza until they are returned.
Not only have you ensured that a vast majority of hostages will never be returned by flattening Gaza and burying a vast majority of them, that's something called collective punishment.
Let's tally it up. Collective punishment. Ethnically cleansing a land (which is what the Nakba was). "God given right". Systematic and intentional starving, dehumanization and imprisonment of a group. Military occupation. Concentration camps.
I have great news for you, you're a nazi.
- Establish a new, transitional government of Israel/Palestine, nominated by the UN
- Give citizenship to every Israeli and Palestinian for the whole territory
- Mandate a 50/50 ethnic quotas system in the military, police, judiciary and all government institutions, and minimum 30% ethnic quotas in every other employer
- Create a Truth and Reconcilliation Commission, modeled after JAR; it would figure out what reparations are needed to each citizen
- Mandate both hebrew and arabic as official languages, and teach every kid both in school
- Once things would settle down, after 1-2 years, run a new elections but with constitutional provisions (5-10 years) against dismantling the quotas
Heck, even US could do this unilaterally (just like British did), if they wanted to pursue human rights.
Czechoslovakia doesn’t even exist. Who else would provide the support the US gives?
If the United States launched a land war on Israel and Palestine, Russia and China. It would be an opportunity to bog down the United States in the Middle East for another generation.
If they had to cut down their military to 25% they would collapse from outside attacks. Israel would probably figure out the funding so it wouldn't drop by that much though.
Israel is spending around 30 Billion/yr now US is currently giving them about 18 Billion/yr US historically gave them about 4 Billion/yr
US spending during the war is about 75% as much as internal spending, not 75% of the total.
If US turned off the money tap, Israel would go from winning several wars at once to having to pick its fights.