My Totally Uninformed Opinion on Israel/Palestine/Hamas

[moriah]

I don't keep track of all of the Israel/Palestine stuff as well as most people on here.

But this is how I've felt for a long time, and little has changed: a two-state solution is the ONLY workable solution to the I/P conflict.

Anyone who says they "Support the right of Israel to defend its borders" is neglecting the fact that the Palestinian people are not secure in their own borders, either. They don't really have borders to call their own, truth be told. Israel may have evacuated and relocated its citizens from Gaza, but Israel still claims the territory and the right to invade Palestinian homes/refugee camps at any time. We would not stand for that kind of oppression here. Israel, and the Jewish people, deserve a place to call "home". But so do the Palestinian people.

Sorting out who gets what land is, of course, the biggest problem. Control of and access to the holy city is of course the most difficult question, but it's also crucial to make sure water supplies and arable land are not hogged by one side or the other. A two-state solution would require each state to be able to be self-sufficient in regards to natural resources. While I feel for families that will have to move (because any two-state solution would require shuffling of significant numbers of people), everyone needs some kind of place to call home -- and the 100,000 refugees in one camp alone would probably be grateful for any patch of land they could call their own.

If nothing else, though, Israel could surrender the whole of Gaza and withdraw all military forces completely. Refuse to intrude at all in its borders, even if three teens go missing. Give, not Hamas, but the Palestinian people, some land to call their own, and only defend the rest. Do this conditionally, with the promise that if the leadership of Palestine ceases rocket attacks while Israel ceases all ground intrusions into Gaza, they will be able to start negotiating for a true two-state solution.

And if they don't cooperate, well, then Israel has the moral high ground to do what they must.

But until they do something like that... well, they don't.

[seveneyes]

1. Some history

Terrorist attacks attributed to Palestinian militant groups
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Terrorist_attacks_attributed_to_Palestinian_militant_groups

Major Terrorist Attacks in Israel
http://archive.adl.org/israel/israel_attacks.html#.U9zKi6MRfs0

[Violet_Crumble]

2. That's a very one-sided history. Aren't you forgetting the terrorism by Israeli groups? n/t

[sulphurdunn]

4. Some more history.

Stern Gang. Irgun. Lehi and the JDL. Any of those mean anything to you? When your enemies butcher you its terrorism. When you use your own terrorist groups and your military to do the same to them in massively larger numbers its self-defense. Right?

[enid602]

3. oppression

" We would not stand for that kind of oppression here." Sadly, I shutter to think how close we may have come to having just that sort of oppression here. But our society had the grace to produce an MLK. And an RFK. And an LBJ. We were also lucky to have the progressive Jewish community who did so much to help us bridge that nasty, ugly racial divide. That, and the then-fresh memories of what happened in Nazi Germany.

In retrospect, we can be smug and say 'that can't happen here.' Still, after reading so many comments as to why the Israelis feel compelled to do what they do with the Palestinians, I can't help but feel that I've heard them all before, in my distant youth. . .