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SedanChair posted:Well yes; different theaters, different geopolitical realities etc. etc. It's very strange to encounter certain subjects where the "power" of your analogies is all of a sudden subject to the most particular scrutiny. I mean if the Sunnis end up utterly erasing every Alawite from the Earth, we're all going to say "oh my god it's just like the Nazis." No Analogy Police are going to pop out of the ground like "how can you compare them to Nazis?" I doubt people would jump to that analogy unless they did it through the extermination camps and gas chamber route, though. Tons of genocides have happened after WWII in the world, and people are not as fond of choosing that analogy in other cases. ETA: In other news: former PM Ehud Olmert has been sentenced to 8 months in prison and 8 months probation for his corruption verdict. This is on top of the 6-year term he's appealing over another corruption charge. (more information, no paywall but not yet updated with sentencing) Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 06:51 on May 25, 2015 |
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May 25, 2015 06:36
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So Netanyahu is 65. Assuming his government holds together he should have a few more years, but is anyone in position to replace him? Does he have an heir apparent in Likud? I don't know enough about party politics in Israel, so if Netanyahu fades would Likud's fortunes likely fade with him allowing some other right-wing party to fill the void, or is Likud more of an institution on its own? Basically trying to guess if there's a chance that the true believers and hardliners he's courted and raised up could actually take control at some point. It's the same danger we see in the U.S. where the Republicans fostered the religious right and other forces of social regression only to slowly lose control of their own creation, except this time with much sharper stakes.
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May 25, 2015 07:08
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What are the chances he has to serve even a fraction of the time. (I am am all for corrupt assholes getting prison, even if they deserve far worse).
Crowsbeak fucked around with this message at 07:14 on May 25, 2015 |
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May 25, 2015 07:09
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Crowsbeak posted:What are the chances he has o serve even a fraction of the time. (I am am all for corrupt assholes getting prison, even if they deserve far worse). Pretty sure he at most might be up for parole in 2/3 of that time, but I don't know how it'll work with the additional six years. Katzav, former President and convicted rapist, is in prison.
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May 25, 2015 07:13
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Pretty sure he at most might be up for parole in 2/3 of that time, but I don't know how it'll work with the additional six years. Katzav, former President and convicted rapist, is in prison. You know if there is one hing I would like to see my country copy is not letting politicians off after a faction of their time is served, and two thirds is quite an improvement over the USA.
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May 25, 2015 07:16
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SedanChair posted:Well yes; different theaters, different geopolitical realities etc. etc. It's very strange to encounter certain subjects where the "power" of your analogies is all of a sudden subject to the most particular scrutiny. I mean if the Sunnis end up utterly erasing every Alawite from the Earth, we're all going to say "oh my god it's just like the Nazis." No Analogy Police are going to pop out of the ground like "how can you compare them to Nazis?" And if the Sunnis end up occupying, however unjustly, Alawite territories for four and a half decades while those territories have some of the highest rates of population growth in the world, while Alawites occupy important roles within the judicial and legislative branches of that Sunni-dominated state, the only people making Nazi comparisons would be idiots and those driven by old hatreds to slander the Sunnis.
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May 25, 2015 07:48
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Dolash posted:So Netanyahu is 65. Assuming his government holds together he should have a few more years, but is anyone in position to replace him? Does he have an heir apparent in Likud? I don't know enough about party politics in Israel, so if Netanyahu fades would Likud's fortunes likely fade with him allowing some other right-wing party to fill the void, or is Likud more of an institution on its own? I think him being out of the picture could make a difference. When it comes to disingenuous warmongerers, he's got that pizzazz that builds coalitions. The Insect Court posted:And if the Sunnis end up occupying, however unjustly, Alawite territories for four and a half decades while those territories have some of the highest rates of population growth in the world, while Alawites occupy important roles within the judicial and legislative branches of that Sunni-dominated state, the only people making Nazi comparisons would be idiots and those driven by old hatreds to slander the Sunnis. Old hatreds: I am a walleyed peasant in central Europe. I saw the town Jew smuggle a baby. Then it turned into a cat. This is who I am, and what I saw.
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May 25, 2015 08:33
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Kim Jong Il posted:It's a charitable reading - they're a lot more likely to pick up arms than ballots in this hypothetical scenario that has 0% chance of coming to pass. Israel is not going to change their immigration policy because the PA will ultimately cave on that.The occupation is certainly untenable, but it's also a pretext for the fact that the goal of large segments (Hamas, BDS) of the Palestinian national movement is mass ethnic cleansing and genocide.  Okay, that's quite a statement. For one you're just painting an entire ethnic group as willing to engage in genocide based on, well, I don't know because you don't really explain. The Arabs within Israel have a contentious relationship with the state where they're discriminated against, but it is mainly amicable as they've been drawn into a modern consumer society and come a two state solution predominantly want to still live in Israel due to its high standard of living rather than go and live in squalor in a country that's been impoverished by occupation for decades. But no, sure, the arabs are all violent and will pick up arms, sure. Then with your second claim, well you definitely don't mean pretext as that presupposes Hamas and BDS don't actually care about the occupation and are just using it as cover for their supposedly genocidal ambitions. Whatever else they are, they do want the occupation to end and the occupation is sure as hell not some Palestinian false flag operation. BDS I've never really got the claims of genocide at all. Maybe there's something I'm missing, but that's a massive reach that just doesn't make sense and you haven't bothered to explain and just weakens your argument for the one part which actually is kind of relevant, that Hamas is genocidal. Although that's not actually the case and it's more nuanced than that, the truth that some parts of Hamas support genocidal actions is an issue and one that would have to be addressed for a true reconcilliation (And vice versa in regards to Israelis). Absurd Alhazred posted:So you're saying that currently there are 8.2 million Israelis, 80% of which are Jews (this is simplistic, but let's ignore outliers for now), so that's about 6.6 million Israeli Jews, and 1.6 million Israeli Arabs/Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. How do Palestinian Arabs outside of Israel "lead to parity or even an Arab/Palestinian majority" inside of Israel, which is what is being talked about? Besides that, you're not factoring in that that 60% includes refugees to what would be Palestinian land that currently can't return home either due to restrictions Israel puts on entering the West Bank/Gaza or because it is occupied land which would be returned in a peace settlement. In addition I would be hesitant to say that the 60% is either too high or too low. That's only the result and without knowing exactly how the question was asked it is hard to guess how it would work. Frankly I'd think that that is a good chance of bias in the question as people will feel that when asked whether they would want to use their rights or literally sell them out for a big bundle of cash they'll do the former, but if this were to occur in reality and they would need to move to a brand new country where (if there were anything like the expected migration) there would be awful prospects going forward due to the sudden return or millions of refugees I think you'd see a lot less people actually take up the offer. Doesn't really matter though because the dispute I was having wasn't "would there be large demographic changes in Israel if there was a full right of return" but rather "if there was a full right of return would Israelis suddenly be a minority who could be voted into oblivion". The answer to the former is yes, the answer to the latter is no. In reality I don't think there will be a full right of return if there ever is peace simply because Israel won't accept the demographic changes, but that's no reason for people to oppose it for patently incorrect reasons.
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May 25, 2015 09:19
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Since people are asking about Israeli politics I have a question. Why is there a President whose only job seems to be to look at the guy who got a majority of Knesset votes for prime minister and say "yep you sure got a majority" and then when the PM loses a majority go "yep you sure lost that majority let's have a new election then"? Oh and I guess to also appoint all the ministers when a new PM says "okay here are the ministers I want"? Like, what's the point of having an elected dude that's as powerless as the Queen of England? I get why England does it: there's this funny old superstition that God is really really chuffed about making sure that the English monarch has passed through the most direct and non-Catholic chain of vaginas back to some really successful iron-age warlord, no matter how dumb or incompetent or inbred any individual king might be, so you just put all the power in the hands of the elected government, have a tradition that the king only uses his few powers the way parliament says, and wears a sweet hat and says some magic words and stuff whenever there's a new session to fool God into thinking the king is still running the show. That all makes sense. But Israel was a republic from the beginning and is like 70 years old, what do they need that for?
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May 25, 2015 09:27
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VitalSigns posted:Since people are asking about Israeli politics I have a question. Why is there a President whose only job seems to be to look at the guy who got a majority of Knesset votes for prime minister and say "yep you sure got a majority" and then when the PM loses a majority go "yep you sure lost that majority let's have a new election then"? Oh and I guess to also appoint all the ministers when a new PM says "okay here are the ministers I want"? It's a pretty common system dude:  (orange is same presidential system as Israel) The President handles the meaningless poo poo that isn't worth the head of government's time and in some imposes one check on the parliament's power to form government Somebody fucked around with this message at 17:22 on May 25, 2015 |
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May 25, 2015 09:40
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Yeah, division of head-of-state and head-of-government is a pretty popular idea, and the power balance between a president and a prime minister varies considerably from country to country. I think part of the idea is it's useful to have someone at least nominally non-partisan and detached from the main political arena, both to handle the busywork of government that isn't really political and to provide some stability and authority in case things get weird in parliament. Having someone whose job it is to acknowledge when governments have been formed and dissolved is very useful to ensure that governments form and dissolve in an orderly fashion. It can be especially important when the parliament has a number of smaller parties rather than one clear majority and someone has to decide who gets the first crack at forming a coalition, since there might be several potentially-viable combinations.
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May 25, 2015 09:54
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Absurd Alhazred posted:‘I mean, come on, they are people, not Palestinians.’ New thread title right there.
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May 25, 2015 12:42
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computer parts posted:See, the point people disagree with you on is the bolded portion. Who are the Israelis everyone should hate? The people in the government. Why should everyone hate them? Because they act like* Nazis. The problem with this reasoning is that the actions made by the government, such as Operation Protective Edge have overwhelming support-- OPE had 95% ish support.
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May 25, 2015 15:45
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tsa posted:The problem with this reasoning is that the actions made by the government, such as Operation Protective Edge have overwhelming support-- OPE had 95% ish support. I'm just giving the Israeli populace the same benefit of the doubt that we give 1930s German citizens.
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May 25, 2015 15:59
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computer parts posted:I'm still confused why right of return matters with two states. Would an independent Palestine have any control over Israeli policy, aside from what any sovereign state can do anyway (ie, warfare)? A fundamental principle of the BDS movement is that Israel would admit all 1948 refugees and their descendants, or no peace deal. So basically, no peace deal ever. quote:When we say two states, do we mean like Belgium? The Sharon view is that there needs to be complete separation between the two (or likely three, because you know PA and Hamas would have a civil war if it ever happened) states. The Labor view is that they can be in cooperation like during the Camp David era where Palestinians saw economic prosperity. The BDS view is for a one state solution. tsa posted:The problem with this reasoning is that the actions made by the government, such as Operation Protective Edge have overwhelming support-- OPE had 95% ish support. Many anti-settlement activists supported Protective Edge. Regardless of whether or not you think Israel went too far, there's a fundamental difference in type between the two. It's perfectly consistent to think, hypothetically, "I oppose settlements, but any attacks on Israel should be responded to with overwhelming force."
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May 25, 2015 16:26
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Kim Jong Il posted:A fundamental principle of the BDS movement is that Israel would admit all 1948 refugees and their descendants, or no peace deal. So basically, no peace deal ever. Kim Jong Il posted:The Sharon view is that there needs to be complete separation between the two (or likely three, because you know PA and Hamas would have a civil war if it ever happened) states. The Labor view is that they can be in cooperation like during the Camp David era where Palestinians saw economic prosperity. The BDS view is for a one state solution.
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May 25, 2015 16:47
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Dolash posted:So Netanyahu is 65. Assuming his government holds together he should have a few more years, but is anyone in position to replace him? Does he have an heir apparent in Likud? I don't know enough about party politics in Israel, so if Netanyahu fades would Likud's fortunes likely fade with him allowing some other right-wing party to fill the void, or is Likud more of an institution on its own? 
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May 25, 2015 17:13
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Kim Jong Il posted:A fundamental principle of the BDS movement is that Israel would admit all 1948 refugees and their descendants, or no peace deal. So basically, no peace deal ever. Perhaps they might me more willing to make a deal if their economy starts to collapse from lack of foreign trade. If BDS alone is insufficient, the next step would be an international sea blockade of the Israeli coast. Of course this would require the United States to actually grow a pair and not be ruled by amoral political reptiles. 
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May 25, 2015 17:22
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Irony Be My Shield posted:Only as we established before when you tried to say this they actually support a 2 state solution, just one with conditions that you find unacceptable. Because it's not remotely a 2 state solution? If the alternative is that vs. the status quo, why will Israel negotiate instead of perpetuating the status quo? Woolie Wool posted:Perhaps they might me more willing to make a deal if their economy starts to collapse from lack of foreign trade. That's clearly the logic, but it's not working. Israel's GDP is doing well although there are mass protests about increasing inequality. Canada is proposing criminalizing BDS for discriminating on the basis of national origin, and there's a fair chance that when Obama gets fast track trade authority it will include strong pro-Israel language. There is a real danger of Europe doing more, like a stronger settlement boycott, but I'm skeptical that will ever come to pass. quote:If BDS alone is insufficient, the next step would be an international sea blockade of the Israeli coast. Do you think there's any scenario where this could happen? Elotana posted:Netanyahu is probably the most moderate guy left within Likud. Except for Rivlin who is even older and more symbolic. If you believe the TabletMag story Lieberman was trying to position himself to inherit the Nixonian pragmatic center-right role (that was previously filled by Olmert until his corruption caught up with him) but within Likud, the next generation is all hardliners. Maybe Yuval Diskin will get into electoral politics Saar was planning a coup, and Kahlon probably comes back if not for his hatred of Netanyahu. Kim Jong Il fucked around with this message at 17:33 on May 25, 2015 |
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May 25, 2015 17:27
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tsa posted:The problem with this reasoning is that the actions made by the government, such as Operation Protective Edge have overwhelming support-- OPE had 95% ish support. But the last 5% are invaluable allies who can provide first-party experiences of IDF neglect and brutality, and are effectively immune to accusations of anti-Semitism. The best provacateurs of change are those within the system This is without talking about any potential damage to your argument by damning all of a countries' civilians.
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May 25, 2015 17:27
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tsa posted:The problem with this reasoning is that the actions made by the government, such as Operation Protective Edge have overwhelming support-- OPE had 95% ish support. computer parts posted:I'm just giving the Israeli populace the same benefit of the doubt that we give 1930s German citizens. Again, this is really, really lazy. What has the comparison to Nazis added here? Nothing, except the tingle a lot of you get from the  irony of comparing Jews to, get this, their ultimate enemy, the Nazis! The question it seems to me you should be asking is, if the Jewish Israeli population supported OPE with a 95% margin (citation neeeded by the way), how do you think you get from that point to a point where 41%+ of the population is Palestinian (more if it's a one-state solution) and everything is hunky dory. So far in this thread what I've seen is:
team overhead smash posted:How do Palestinian Arabs outside of Israel "lead to parity or even an Arab/Palestinian majority" inside of Israel, which is what is being talked about? I should have been clearer: it creates parity within the complex of Israel-Palestine. I'm suggesting border disputes and collaboration with separatists as in the case of Albanians in Macedonia and such.
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May 25, 2015 17:34
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Absurd Alhazred posted:
You're right, it's much more productive to call for a US invasion of Israel so we can re-educate the populace and train racial elements out of them.
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May 25, 2015 17:39
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Kim Jong Il posted:It's a charitable reading - they're a lot more likely to pick up arms than ballots in this hypothetical scenario that has 0% chance of coming to pass. Israel is not going to change their immigration policy because the PA will ultimately cave on that.The occupation is certainly untenable, but it's also a pretext for the fact that the goal of large segments (Hamas, BDS) of the Palestinian national movement is mass ethnic cleansing and genocide. Palestinians are hiveminded Nazis. Thank you for this constructive post. Kim Jong Il posted:A fundamental principle of the BDS movement is that Israel would admit all 1948 refugees and their descendants, or no peace deal. So basically, no peace deal ever. The BDS movement is made up of hiveminded Nazis. Thank you for this constructive post.
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May 25, 2015 17:49
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computer parts posted:You're right, it's much more productive to call for a US invasion of Israel so we can re-educate the populace and train racial elements out of them. If you think that's a worthwhile option, argue for it. Serbia's atrocities in Kosovo did end up requiring NATO bombing to end them. However, to me that seems like a hard argument to make, seeing as the US and the West in general have been reluctant to invade even in the face of much larger atrocities, and on a shorter time-scale, as in Syria, Iraq, etc.
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May 25, 2015 17:54
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I think another argument against bombing/invasion is that Israel has ballistic missile submarines capable of causing mass slaughter anywhere in the world. That kind of restricts your military options.
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May 25, 2015 18:16
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Absurd Alhazred posted:If you think that's a worthwhile option, argue for it. Serbia's atrocities in Kosovo did end up requiring NATO bombing to end them. I don't see why that's a more worthwhile topic for discussion.
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May 25, 2015 18:26
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computer parts posted:I don't see why that's a more worthwhile topic for discussion. Then why did you bring it up?
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May 25, 2015 18:41
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Then why did you bring it up? To be clear, I don't see why this: quote:if the Jewish Israeli population supported OPE with a 95% margin (citation neeeded by the way), how do you think you get from that point to a point where 41%+ of the population is Palestinian (more if it's a one-state solution) and everything is hunky dory. Is a more worthwhile topic of discussion.
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May 25, 2015 18:45
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computer parts posted:To be clear, I don't see why this: I am assuming that people are engaging this conversation ultimately because they want to affect change in reality. If you want to go from point A to point B, it seems more productive to me to talk about how to get there. After all, there is only so much you can argue about how A is really bad, and B would be really good. And discussion of the paths may lead to a different B' that is more doable. Or it may not. But all I see from these Nazi comparisons is "A is really really bad. No, really, it's bad."
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May 25, 2015 18:52
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I should have been clearer: it creates parity within the complex of Israel-Palestine. I'm suggesting border disputes and collaboration with separatists as in the case of Albanians in Macedonia and such. The Arabs within Israel have so far overwhelmingly resisted becoming a subversive fifth column dedicated to armed resistance. What's the exact % of the population that can be comprised of Arabs before they try to get Israel annexed into Palestine seeing as it obviously has to happen somewhere between 20% and 40%?
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May 25, 2015 19:04
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I am assuming that people are engaging this conversation ultimately because they want to affect change in reality. If you want to go from point A to point B, it seems more productive to me to talk about how to get there. After all, there is only so much you can argue about how A is really bad, and B would be really good. And discussion of the paths may lead to a different B' that is more doable. Or it may not. But all I see from these Nazi comparisons is "A is really really bad. No, really, it's bad." There are several people in the discussion who are denying that A is really bad, never mind if B is really good or the path to get from A to B. It's like how in a debate about feminism you can't discuss how people might change the world to be more egalitarian if there are several people denying that men & women are unequal in the first place.
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May 25, 2015 19:05
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I am assuming that people are engaging this conversation ultimately because they want to affect change in reality. If you want to go from point A to point B, it seems more productive to me to talk about how to get there. After all, there is only so much you can argue about how A is really bad, and B would be really good. And discussion of the paths may lead to a different B' that is more doable. Or it may not. But all I see from these Nazi comparisons is "A is really really bad. No, really, it's bad." It would probably be less of an issue if you didn't try to ride it into the ground every time you saw it.
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May 25, 2015 19:16
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I am assuming that people are engaging this conversation ultimately because they want to affect change in reality. If you want to go from point A to point B, it seems more productive to me to talk about how to get there. After all, there is only so much you can argue about how A is really bad, and B would be really good. And discussion of the paths may lead to a different B' that is more doable. Or it may not. But all I see from these Nazi comparisons is "A is really really bad. No, really, it's bad." If you didn't post two paragraphes about why you don't like Hitler comparisons every time, most of us would simply roll our eyes and read past them, but instead we end up having this talk for the 100th time.
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May 25, 2015 19:43
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team overhead smash posted:The Arabs within Israel have so far overwhelmingly resisted becoming a subversive fifth column dedicated to armed resistance. What's the exact % of the population that can be comprised of Arabs before they try to get Israel annexed into Palestine seeing as it obviously has to happen somewhere between 20% and 40%? I am not stating my own opinion. However, in the context of people making those arguments and who are afraid of Jews not being a clear majority, that's the information they're working from. SedanChair posted:It would probably be less of an issue if you didn't try to ride it into the ground every time you saw it. botany posted:If you didn't post two paragraphes about why you don't like Hitler comparisons every time, most of us would simply roll our eyes and read past them, but instead we end up having this talk for the 100th time. The only reason I thought it might be a good idea to make that comparison taboo in this thread was because the most activity this thread has seen since I became mod was in the two-three hours after someone made that comparison and people spent a page or so talking about that instead of anything substantive. I relented, and now we have two more posts (sorry, this one makes three) talking about that. Who's running what into the ground here? There's plenty of substantive issues you two could be discussing. Have at it. 
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May 25, 2015 21:36
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Kim Jong Il posted:What do you think instantly flooding the state with every descendent of Palestinian refugees entails? That's the implicit goal of a one state solution. Any one state solution means hundreds of thousands dead in practice. Hundreds of thousands dead? That's a pretty absurd number, almost up there with entire genocides. tsa posted:The problem with this reasoning is that the actions made by the government, such as Operation Protective Edge have overwhelming support-- OPE had 95% ish support. Well, that's not necessarily for racist reasons - Americans should know firsthand the powerful effects of recasting a war as "antiterrorism operations" on public approval of aggressive war, especially when it's been less than a decade since a real terrorist attack.
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May 26, 2015 00:47
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computer parts posted:You're right, it's much more productive to call for a US invasion of Israel so we can re-educate the populace and train racial elements out of them. Because the US has a great track record on training racial elements out of things
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May 26, 2015 01:49
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I'm in favor of boycott, divestment and sanctions predicated solely on the condition of ending the occupation of the West Bank. It's not like the Palestinians are going to achieve the Right of Return with an occupied West Bank, whereas ending the occupation of the West Bank is possible without a Right of Return, so baby steps.
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May 26, 2015 01:52
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Dolash posted:So Netanyahu is 65. Assuming his government holds together he should have a few more years, but is anyone in position to replace him? Does he have an heir apparent in Likud? I don't know enough about party politics in Israel, so if Netanyahu fades would Likud's fortunes likely fade with him allowing some other right-wing party to fill the void, or is Likud more of an institution on its own? I would not be surprised. You can already see it in the current ruling coalition, which is stacked with people even further to the right than Likud. It would also be interesting to analyze whether or not Likud itself has shifted to the right over time. team overhead smash posted:
I actually did some research on this recently. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but Jewish Israelis were about 2-3 times more likely to say they supported armed struggle to achieve their aims than Arab Israelis. Xandu fucked around with this message at 02:01 on May 26, 2015 |
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May 26, 2015 01:57
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team overhead smash posted:The Arabs within Israel have so far overwhelmingly resisted becoming a subversive fifth column dedicated to armed resistance. What's the exact % of the population that can be comprised of Arabs before they try to get Israel annexed into Palestine seeing as it obviously has to happen somewhere between 20% and 40%? Woolie Wool posted:I think another argument against bombing/invasion is that Israel has ballistic missile submarines capable of causing mass slaughter anywhere in the world. That kind of restricts your military options.
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May 26, 2015 07:07
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Dead Reckoning posted:The major issue you've been deliberately ignoring is that Israeli Arabs are by definition Israeli, meaning that they have to a greater or lesser degree accepted an Israeli national identity and by extension embraced the existence of Israel as a nation-state. On the other hand, all of the people who would be returning under any sort of right of return see themselves as Palestinian, a different nation (that many of them see as being occupied by an alien, Zionist entity.) Considering that having people with two different national identities living in the same state and vying for control of its institutions has far more often than not lead to civil war (especially in the absence of a central authority to keep the peace at gunpoint) it is entirely reasonable for Israelis to be deeply suspicious of or outright hostile to the idea. Refugees returning to Israel will also, by definition, be Israeli and you don't seem to have considered how the Arabs who were part of the British Mandate came to see themselves as Israeli in the first place. They weren't eternally Israeli, they've come to see themselves as Israeli after years of living in a state which is biased against them but still provides a good degree of welfare, protection, opportunity in comparison to neighbouring countries and so they've become absorbed into the consumerist society where they worry about the mortgages and what's on TV and if they're going to order in takeaway or what have you. If you want refugees to assimilate, the answer isn't to separate them out and place restrictions on them and make them leave family members behind because Israel can't trust Arabs. If they are included in Israeli society more fully than the Arabs of '48 and '67, why would their integration be any slower or worse? The only possible reason seems to be because of all the war crimes and other awful actions committed by Israel, which seems to just be yet another good reason for Israel to stop committing them. "This national group might not like us for all the atrocities we're committing against them" is not a reasonable rationale to continue said atrocities. You seem to be looking at this problem in the wrong way. Arabs are marginalised within Israeli society. Even the US State Department, a government office of Israel's closest ally that is consistently biased in favour of Israel, calls Israel out on this. The issue isn't "oh no those perfidious Palestinians are trying to take over the state" it's that with a stronger demographic representation they might start to want a non negligible effect on the running of the country, which is actually a perfectly reasonably request. The only way that a civil war seems to automatically follow from this is if Israel continues to try to marginalise and discriminate against them even if they made a much more sizeable percentage of the body politic, making it more important to stop this from happening by ensuring in a peace deal that Israel is inclusive and egalitarian. Lastly I think you'll find that while the position you put forward is understandable, it is not reasonable as it relies on an unproven fear of an existential threat from a discriminated against national group to allow further discrimination, war crimes and degradation against said national group.
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May 26, 2015 08:39
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