Israel responds to new Palestinian gov. with settlement expansions

[Famous Mortimer]

To put it another way: The status of Jordan is completely irrelevant to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If someone even mentions Jordan it's a shibboleth that they're a Greater Israel advocate who isn't interested in peace at all.

[politicus]

WB: You are mixing a whole lot of things in your answer including a lot of normative perspectives. My reply was simply to bgwahs question of what "supporters of the Israeli right wing" (which I interpreted as Western Zionists) would like, not what would be "fair".

So as close to a Greater Israel solution as possible, which would be a partition of the West Bank with East Jerusalem and the settlements closest to Israel being incorporated and the rest united with Jordan. I never claimed this would be stable, but with transfer of population it would at least remove the Israeli occupation of Palestinian inhabited territory.

Whether you - or the Jordanians - like it or not Jordan is a majority Palestinian country.

[swl]

I think even the Zionists realize that, but like the Palestinians, they too have essentially given up on the idea that a stable two-state solution is possible.  

I think most people realize that the only stable solution is a one state solution, with the two people living together, without apartheid. It's the most utopic but it's the only real stable solution... We will see in 50 years.

That would make the whole idea of Israel pointless and with the higher Palestinian birthrate it would quickly lead to an Arab majority.

This is true but it in no way invalidates anything swl said.

It invalidates the part about such a state being stable.

Why? Jews could live as a minority, like the whites in South-Africa. It's either that or colonization and ethnic cleansing.

[Indy Texas]

Whether you - or the Jordanians - like it or not Jordan is a majority Palestinian country.

That hasn't stopped the Jordanian minority from carrying on as though the Palestinians living in Jordan simply don't exist, and in many cases refuse to even confer citizenship on them because they cling to the deluded notion that a child who was born in Jordan and has known no other country is going to be perfectly happy being shipped off to Israel or Palestine because of something that happened in his grandparents' time.

Israel's right wing clings to a very myopic perception of a monolithic Arab people that is universally intent on destroying Israel and all Jews at all cost because they obviously have nothing better to do with their time. To be "an Arab" means nothing more than to speak the Arabic language, in the same way that Hispanic peoples are united by Spanish and Lusitanic peoples are united by Portuguese. Arabs do not share a common religion (some are Muslim, some are Christian, some are even Jewish); they don't share a common race or ethnicity (it's hard to mistake a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Lebanese for a brown-skinned, kinky-haired Somali). Telling a Palestinian to go live in "one of the other Arab countries" is about as logical as if the United States occupied part of Mexico and told the Mexicans living there that they shouldn't have any problem going to live in Peru or Spain.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Not only that, the last thing the State of Israel is unified Arab identity.  If the Arabs actually were as united as the Zionists feared, Israel would have been snuffed out in 1948.  Israel needs to be able to play divide and conquer in order to make the current status quo sustainable in the long run.

[ag]

I think even the Zionists realize that, but like the Palestinians, they too have essentially given up on the idea that a stable two-state solution is possible.  

I think most people realize that the only stable solution is a one state solution, with the two people living together, without apartheid. It's the most utopic but it's the only real stable solution... We will see in 50 years.

That would make the whole idea of Israel pointless and with the higher Palestinian birthrate it would quickly lead to an Arab majority.

This is true but it in no way invalidates anything swl said.

It invalidates the part about such a state being stable.

Why? Jews could live as a minority, like the whites in South-Africa. It's either that or colonization and ethnic cleansing.

The fact is, the one thing that unifies (almost all) Israeli right and (overwhelming majority of) its left is the basic Zionist idea of the Jewish state. This idea leaves me entirely cold - so whatever I write here is not about me. A one-state solution, whatever the ethnic or religious majority, is something I would find personally attractive. But that is exactly the reason I do not have anything to do with Israel.

But for the Israeli Jews this would require complete reassessment of who they are and why they are there. It would be not too bad for the religious types: for them the Holiness of the land is simply there, whoever else is there. But most secular Israelis would struggle to reconcile themselves to this being anything but the Jewish state. We might chuckle at the anachronistic romanticism of the Zionist myth, but it is real to them. Talk to the Peace Now people - as likely as not they want to give up the West Bank not merely because they see the injustice perpetuated against the Palestinians (which many do), but also because they see how it is threatening their dream of the Jewish state. It is their dream, as much as it is the dream of the likudniks.

One fights dreams at one´s peril. If a one-state solution were adopted, there would be too many who would choose to fight. Though I do not share those emotions, I know where they are coming from. It is too dangerous to rouse them.

[politicus]

Whether you - or the Jordanians - like it or not Jordan is a majority Palestinian country.

That hasn't stopped the Jordanian minority from carrying on as though the Palestinians living in Jordan simply don't exist, and in many cases refuse to even confer citizenship on them because they cling to the deluded notion that a child who was born in Jordan and has known no other country is going to be perfectly happy being shipped off to Israel or Palestine because of something that happened in his grandparents' time.

Israel's right wing clings to a very myopic perception of a monolithic Arab people that is universally intent on destroying Israel and all Jews at all cost because they obviously have nothing better to do with their time. To be "an Arab" means nothing more than to speak the Arabic language, in the same way that Hispanic peoples are united by Spanish and Lusitanic peoples are united by Portuguese. Arabs do not share a common religion (some are Muslim, some are Christian, some are even Jewish); they don't share a common race or ethnicity (it's hard to mistake a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Lebanese for a brown-skinned, kinky-haired Somali). Telling a Palestinian to go live in "one of the other Arab countries" is about as logical as if the United States occupied part of Mexico and told the Mexicans living there that they shouldn't have any problem going to live in Peru or Spain.

This is a weird answer since the tone seems to imply its some kind of counterargument to mine, but the second part is stating a lot of obvious facts that's irrelevant to my post.

The point about Jordan is that at some point it will have to be taken over by Palestinians - they are the majority and cant be kept down forever.

This will be a good thing for Israeli-Palestinian relations since it opens up the option of the West Bank being divided with about 80% being incorporated into a united Jordan-West Bank state, which could make use of a functioning state apparatus. And it makes the Jerusalem question more manageable since it doesn't have to be the capital of a Palestinian state.

Regarding Palestinian refugees in Arabic countries, despite some cultural differences they are close to the population in neighbouring countries and could be integrated into their population if the necessary political will was present. Any long term solution means integrating Palestinians in the host countries. Its unlikely to happen, but its still one of the necessary conditions for peace.

NB: Somalis are not Arabs.