And probably won't ever be able to. We not talking 1 state here or even two... Three states is more likely than one.

I never before thought he could be this disingenuous. Even he must realize that there is a huge difference between a Jewish state with an Arab minority (Israel), and an Arab state with a Jewish minority.

perhaps if you read the whole article ??

continued :

Under this banner, they established the settlement enterprise, whose goal was to thwart partition. This enterprise succeeded to the point that it became irreversible. And there’s no arguing with success: no one speaks anymore of evacuating over half a million settlers - and therefore no one speaks anymore of a just solution of two states.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s proposals, which also deter a large number of Israelis, do not guarantee a just solution, so they do not promise a solution. “Settlement blocs” will remain in place. Ariel has long been inside, and leasing Ofra and Beit El are possibilities. “Security arrangements” will be made for the Jordan Valley, perhaps its settlements will also be allowed to remain. The proposal says no to return or a solution to the refugee problem. Meanwhile, the prime minster makes a commitment not to “evacuate one Jew” and proposes keeping settlers under Palestinian sovereignty - as unabashed spin.

With all that, it may be possible to go to the corner grocer, to formulate and even sign another document (without any intention of implementing it) that resembles remarkably to all its predecessors since the 1969 Rogers plan, through the Clinton parameters to the Road Map. All of them are kicking up dust, deep in some filing cabinet. But it’s impossible to solve the conflict with such a plan. The refugees, the settlers and the Gaza Strip; the lack of good intentions; and the lack of justice will all remain as they are.

Anyone who supports the two-state solution - apparently most Israelis - must offer a real solution. Kerry’s proposals do not bode well. Israel might just accede to them, but only to maintain its relations with the United States and the world and to push the Palestinians to the wall, certainly not to establish peace or impose justice.

From this general "no" rises the "yes:" yes, to one state. If Israelis truly want to maintain the settlements they established, and to remain in the Jordan Valley and on the mountain ridge, in Gush Etzion and in Maale Adumim, in East Jerusalem and leading in Beit El - let them do so, but then there won’t be two states. If there are no two states, there is only one state. If there is one state, then the discourse must change: equal rights for everyone.

The problems are many and complicated, and like them so are the solutions: division into districts, federation, joint or separate governance. But there will be no demographic change here - because the state has long been binational - but rather just a democratic and conscious change. And then the question will arise in full force: Why is it so scary to live in an egalitarian state? Indeed, all other possibilities are much scarier.

when I pointed out that Israel already rules over an Arab majority-

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=57342

I would guess that equality in this case means an "Islamist state" whatever that means, at least to some

I chose not to answer him .... kind of think the concept of post zionism is beyond his understanding . .....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-Zionism

to be entirely honest the concept of post-Zionism answered a question for or at least helped get there a bit more-or what is Zionism today - how did the party on the left become the party on the right?

of people, both in Israel and what will be Palestine, do not want a single binational state.

Furthermore, a binational state, would only lead to a destructive civil war.

Additionally, you have groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, that want only a single state, Palestine, from the river to the sea, free from Jews. Those groups have strong support (as is shown by Hamas's plurality in the last elections held, and its stranglehold on Gaza).

And then of course you have parties in Israel that nothing to do with a binational state (like Jewish home, which received a large number of votes in the last election).

but they are not being given a choice .

Bibi wants to continue the status quo ...the settlers want to annex .

You dont want to divide Jerusalem .

The kind of two state solution being proposed at these talks is no solution to anything . It leaves the Palestinians with almost nothing .

Thus : From this general "no" rises the "yes:" yes, to one state. If Israelis truly want to maintain the settlements they established, and to remain in the Jordan Valley and on the mountain ridge, in Gush Etzion and in Maale Adumim, in East Jerusalem and leading in Beit El - let them do so, but then there won’t be two states. If there are no two states, there is only one state. If there is one state, then the discourse must change: equal rights for everyone.

BTW you should read this :
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/02/settlers-lords-of-the-land-israeli-leadership-rabin-meretz.html

How will they ever unite with Israel ?

They had democracy once and voting and all... Gaza will probably never see another election... How will that work?

can be divided, but the old city stays with Israel. It was never supposed to be a part of a Palestine.

And I am hopeful that a new coalition can be formed in Knesset, that is far more reasonable than Bibi's right wing nut bag one.

Yesh Atid and Tzipi Livni need to leave the coalition, bring down the government and trigger new elections. Then agree, along with Labor, Kadima, Meretz, to form a united front (much like Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu did in the last election).

I think if they did that (along with a splintering of the likud Yisrael Beiteinu party between Bibi and Lieberman), they would be able to form a strong center-left government, bring a true lasting peace.


The splintering of the center-left has greatly harmed the peace process. They must unite!

is the biggest problem ....always has been .

http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/24354/Default.aspx

The old city should be shared sabbat hunter .....see :

http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/altpeace.html

they want The Haram Al-Sharif ....you the Western Wall ...we just want y'all to stop fighting over a pile of blood soaked old stones .

Getting Tzipi Livni to leave the coalition would probably involve getting Yesh Atid to give her a high place on their slate, since Livni's own party is just barely alive in the polls these days.

Think that's doable?

if all the other pieces fell in to places as well.

Let her be foreign minister or minister without portfolio, but in charge of negotiations with the Palestinians, since that is what she wants to make her legacy it seems.

I also think that with any new elections likud Yisrael Beiteinu will splinter back in to their original parties, which will help a center-left union greatly.

Take your time. You are in danger of digging yourself a VERY deep hole on this one.

Last edited Fri Feb 7, 2014, 09:39 PM - Edit history (2)

Not that it merits any on its face. Looked at that way, your post is so ludicrous that all it deserves is a shake of the head and a hearty laugh. That's because my post is so obviously not bigoted that one has to wonder at why you would make such a ridiculous assertion in the first place. Claiming that there are differences between nations (or virtually anything else) simply isn't bigoted, especially if the observation is true. Let's substitute a few names to show what I mean. I assert that there are differences between a French state with an English minority, and an English state with a French minority. Bigoted? How about between a Canadian state with an American minority and the United State of America with a Canadian minority? How about between a plate of chocolate ice cream with a dab of vanilla and a plate of vanilla with a dab of chocolate? Does that mean that I'm bigoted against chocolate? Vanilla? Ice cream? In fact, not only are none of these observations bigoted or controversial in any way, they are BLOODY OBVIOUS!

Just so we are clear, I'm going to relate this back to the original post. The claim was that Israel shouldn't fear a bi-national state because it already is one. Of course that is complete bull. Israel is a Jewish state with an Arab minority. It also rules over a substantial Arab population who aren't Israeli citizens and who don't want to be. A single state isn't going to be bi-national. It will be an Arab state with a Jewish minority. Will Yom Kippur continue to be a national holiday? Maybe, but maybe not. You may think that's inconsequential, but it's an exemplar of a whole host of changes that will result. There is a substantial difference between a Jewish state and an Arab state. That isn't bigoted, and it doesn't mean that Arabs aren't entitled to their own country. It's simply an observation of difference. It's an observation that Jews are entitled to their own country just as much as Palestinians. If Levy thinks that an Arab state with a Jewish minority is going to be the same as Israel, then he's either nuts or lying.

Now back to you and what people should really be discussing here. If it was just this one post, I wouldn't say anything about it. Maybe you were asleep when you read my post or when you typed yours. But it isn't just this one post. If it was just you, then I'd say so. Maybe you just call bigotry whenever you don't understand something, or if you don't like the other poster. But that isn't who you are, and it isn't just you. If the only poster who received such treatment was me, then I'd say it was me. Maybe it's my style or I'm not being clear. But it isn't just me. To review, there is a sizeable faction on this board who respond to obviously not bigoted or racist posts of pro-Israelis by calling racism and/or bigotry. That's a pattern that deserves discussion.

Last edited Thu Feb 6, 2014, 10:27 PM - Edit history (1)

And the bigotry lies in the asssumption that Israeli Jews can be trusted with power over Palestinian Arabs, but NEVER the other way around.

Which once more raises the question, why do you keep reading things into my posts that aren't there, and that aren't reasonably readable into them.

Arabs were a minority within Israel. You clearly then argued that the majority group in Israel could be trusted to extend democratic tolerance to the minority, but that this couldn't happen if the sizes of the two groups were reversed

You didn't say "it couldn't work at the present". You pretty much declared it an impossibility in the future, and for perpetuity. And you clearly implied that Palestinians and Arabs could never create a tolerant, democratic society unless forced to.

(btw, since military victory is totally impossible for either side in this conflict, what means, if that were true, would actually be available TO force them to do that, if they could only take that path by being forced onto it?)

This, by definition, is a bigoted conclusion. It is the conclusion that, no matter what, this particular group can NEVER be democratic, tolerant, and open-minded. Nobody even made THAT argument about the people of Germany after 1945. It's bigoted to work from the notion that Palestinians, and other Arabs, haven't simply had bad leaders in the past, but can never voluntarily change their societies and themselves ON THEIR OWN TERMS, can never find a way to tolerance unless it is somehow imposed on them by force of arms(which, if it were true, should have resulted in the Occupation turning every Palestinian into a committed philosemite and champion of the Zionist cause by now, shouldn't it?) Do you really believe that Arabs are less capable of creating a democratic, tolerant path than the people who cheered for and fought for Hitler?

A non-bigoted statement on the matter would be to say something like "ok, I can understand why the miseries imposed by the current situation could drive people of good will to back a single-state solution. But at this point(and likely for a good number of years to come), that's not going to be workable, largely because, owing to the legitimate and EQUAL grievances people on both sides of this dispute have with the 'other side', the climate of trust doesn't exist now. For that to be workable, or even for a two-state solution to be truly workable, there needs to be long-term reconciliation project between both communities, a project that acknowledges the suffering both communities have experienced and the wrongs each community has inflicted on the other, and works hard to address that history of shared pain".

But you didn't say that. You reduced it to the childish notion that "my side can be trusted, but THEIR side can't".

Do you now understand the difference?

Here's a hint. Not in any. You keep making things up. Which again raises the question, why?

there is a huge difference between a Jewish state with an Arab minority (Israel), and an Arab state with a Jewish minority.

All that I described in the post you responded to is implicit in that statement.

I made nothing up.

Not even close. Which comes back to my main point. that you see bigotry/racism in places where it doesn't exist, and can't even be reasonably imagined. And to be clear, it isn't just you.

but not the other.

And it's bigotry to say that, as you did, as it is an unqualified absolute. You didn't say that societies with Arab majorities have never been tolerant to Jewish minorities(in many cases, though not all by any mean, they have been in the past...and, as some of us have pointed out, if you were Jewish and unable to get to North America during World War II(as most weren't, due to the immoral and hate-driven immigration policies of the U.S. and Canada in that era, just about the safest place you could be was in an Arab or other Muslim country). You didn't say that it was impossible for a country with an Arab majority to be tolerant and inclusive of a Jewish minority in the present(which seems to be the case, and for which those countries need to be challenged, but which is also something that Palestinians themselves bear no responsibility for).

You stated, AS AN ABSOLUTE, that the only reason that Israel is the relatively tolerant place that it is is because Israeli Arabs are in the minority. Never mind that the Israeli Arabs themselves have voluntarily reconciled themselves to the existence of Israel...never mind that they have participated freely in the democratic system, and that an Israeli Arab agreed to be in the cabinet of the Israeli government(something a member of an intrinsically anti-democratic and anti-Jewish race would NEVER do) and that they pretty much live their lives in Israel quietly and harmlessly, when, had they wanted to, they COULD all have joined the armed struggle and devoted themselves to doing nothing but making Jewish Israelis miserable. Yet they choose not to do this. And they chose, voluntarily, to REMAIN in Israel, when they could have all moved over the Green Line.

That is why I see bigotry in what you posted, and why a lot of others see bigotry in posts that you claim were without it(and not just your posts). The bigotry comes in the unqualified rejection of the idea that Arabs can ever be humane, civilized, tolerant, and democrat. If it took Europe over twenty centuries to be those things(and it did, and it's still not clear that Europe, or North America, has made it there yet)who is anyone to conclude that Arabs, who have spent most of their history under someone else's imperial control(centuries under the Ottoman, then a century under the British and French, with the U.S. trying to restore an imperial order by sending troops into Iraq)have already proven themselves incapable of ever getting there?

If you actually WANT to see this conflict end(since it can't be ended through a World War II-style "unconditional surrender" arrangement, as we must all recognize), part of that is to acknowledge the humanity and morality, and capacity to grow and to change, of people on the other side of it...to admit that, while some of them choose tactics that are horribly wrong, the resistance on that side is driven NOT primarily by prejudice(there is prejudice, but in fairly equal measure on both sides, and the way to combat it is to treat the other community, the other national entity, with humanity, with compassion, with fairness, and with respect. This is why collective punishment(which is ineffective anyway, since those who believe in violence as a tactic, on BOTH sides, will find some way to use it, no matter what.

And part of the key to ending Palestinian hostility towards Israel is for the Occupation to end, since all the Occupation and the illegal settlement project do is to give Palestinians good reason to feel hostile to Israel(the insistence on destroying the harmless Bedouin villages in the Negev needs to end to, because that and all the discrimination and suspicion Israeli Arabs are continually subjected to serve no purpose but to antagonize people who weren't actually fighting against Israel themelves.

It's time to stop treating Palestinians and Israeli Arabs as if they are no different from the Romans, Torquemada, the tsar, and the Third Reich.

I never said that either Jews or Arabs were tolerant or intolerant. I said that there is a difference between a Jewish state and an Arab state. For that matter there is a difference between a Jewish state or an Arab state and a bi-national state (assuming that such a thing could exist). Do you not understand that every state is unique, and therefore uniquely valuable, and uniquely the right of its nation? Most humans would get this. We wouldn't even be having this discussion about it. Again, I have to ask why something that is readily accepted by most, is not controversial, let alone bigoted, provokes an accusation of bigotry from you?

And every race, nationality, culture, or religion is in flux, is constantly changing, is unpredictable, and is just as capable of magnanimous good as it is of hatred and atavistic evil

And a binational state(were it ever to happen in this situation, which isn't at all likely)would be unique. You can't extrapolate any conclusions about what it would be like from what previously-existing Arab states had been like. And you can't fairly conclude that Israel is democratic SOLELY because of the ethnic and/or religious communities that happen to be in the majority in that state. Which is precisely what you did state in the phrase we are discussing here.

A binational state could be a dictatorship(as could ANY state...the ancient Kingdom of Israel was as illiberal as any Arab or Muslim state that ever existed, and so were virtually all of the states of "Christian Europe" prior to 1900).

Or it could be just as democratic and tolerant as Israel currently claims to be-or even more so, possibly.
Or it could end up in some middle ground between best-case and worst-case, like much of the world usually is.

What I'm saying is that, if there is to be any hope of a reconciliation process between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs(and such a process will still be needed if the choice ends up being two states, rather than one, since a two-state solution will need to end up being two states that are clearly and permanently at peace with each other...and not just a perpetual armed truce with one state holding the other at its mercy, which is what Netanyahu's vision is at the very best), it must work on the assumption that you can't make sweeping assumptions about what EITHER national community, and that you can't hold either national community to be in a position of automatic moral superiority or greater justification in its actions than the other.

Let's be clear. I have never said any of the things you have claimed either directly or by implication. Instead, you have accused me of bigotry several times over now over posts of mine that are in no way bigoted and can't even reasonably infer bigotry. And it isn't the first time that it's happened, and it isn't just coming from you, and it isn't just aimed at me. It's a pattern. It's a pattern of false accusations, even if you believe them to be true. In fact, I think that you really do believe them to be true, even though they obviously are not. It is a pattern that you and people who believe as you do should take a hard look at. I really do wish that we could have the discussion about that issue, because it's important.

And the fact that you, yourself, don't hear anti-Palestinian bigotry in your on words means little.

And if this perception about what you post about Palestinians is shared by a lot of other people, then you might want to take a good hard look at what you are posting and what you are actually thinking.

I'm not making anything up, and neither are the others here who draw the conclusions about what you post on this topic that I draw. There's no conspiracy. There's no "hive-mind" We don't all get together and decide "let's saw this about this or that person's post, just for the sake of saying it". I think I can safely say that we really do see those meanings...and you've so far given no reason for me or anyone else to question the interpretations we've made(and each made independently, btw).

The problem isn't with the people who interpret these posts as I do. The problem is in the views of those who make those posts.

I'd suggest you go away and thin about what you REALLY feel about these matters. Re-read what you've actually posted. Ask people you trust to look at your posts and see if they don't see what some of us saw.

I feel no personal malice towards you. I wish you well. But I know what I saw. I'd have responded in exactly the same way to a poster who asserted same thing, but about a country where the demographics were reversed, or who made sweepingly negative and dismissive statements about ANY other group of people that was delineated by ethnicity, or religion, or skin color. If it's wrong to say it about ONE group, it's wrong to say it about ALL groups, all religions, all races.

I'm not saying that you are a bad person...just that what you posted in #2 couldn't be left unchallenged by any opponent of prejudice.

Have a good weekend.

reasonably imagined" can also be applied to many(but not all)"pro-Israel" posters on DU.

And I say that as a person who is objectively "pro-Israel", because I want Israel to go on existing, but to do so without oppressing the Palestinians and without assuming that the use force and the deployment of troops and military hardware are the ONLY solutions to the problems concerning "security".

It doesn't make Israel any more secure as a country to use accusations(usually knowingly false accusations)of "anti-Semitism" against critics...most of whom, the vast majority of whom, are passionate and relentless opponents of actual anti-Semitism and all OTHER forms of bigotry...and virtually all of whom, if they live in Europe, the UK, North America or the Antipodean countries, protest just as loudly and just as strongly when their OWN countries act unjustly as well(especially in the cases of Anglo-conqueror persecution of indigenous peoples in North America, Australia, and New Zealand).

We don't need to continue this. Have a nice week.

Where you get that from?

maybe Haaretz should start caring a little less about money and more about Journalism.

I guess their profits trump the message they want to send.

Funny how JPost, Ynet, Times of Israel all seem to do OK without the subscription model.

This is the face of the far left in Israel, it's ALL about the money, it's an industry now, just look at all the "shit on Israel" websites like 925, mondoweiss, EI etc. These immoral/unethical journalists will shit on their own and facilitate the destruction of their society to make a buck.

Disgusting values Levy and others hold.