Have you seen the Munk Dialogue with Douglas Murray, Natasha Hausdorff, Mehdi Hasan and Gideon Levy on the question: Is anti-Zionism antisemitism? There was even a moment when Murray denied his infamous The Spectator piece in which he claimed one could even take the opportunity to clear out Gaza from all Palestinians. He wrote on 14th October last year: "The Israelis will respond as they see fit – it isn’t for non-Israelis to give them advice. Maybe Israel will cut off Gaza and starve Hamas out. Maybe they will have a full-scale military operation to rescue the Israeli captives. Or maybe they will finally put an end to this insoluble nightmare, raze Hamas to the ground, or clear all the Palestinians from that benighted strip. A strip which Egypt owned but nobody wants." (https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/britain-must-stand-up-against-those-who-support-hamas/)
Personally, I stand with Matthew Paris when he wrote a little later in the same The Spectator on the 4th November: "I have been disturbed by the language from my fellow columnist Douglas Murray. I read with admiration Peter Oborne’s cry for conciliation from the Christian quarter of Jerusalem, but Douglas’s effort to dial up the righteous anger needs to be taken head-on. There are moments in history to dial down, and this is one of them" and "Douglas complains we’re extending the right to free speech to people who would not extend it to us. To me, this is the acid test of your belief in freedom. It’s why I’ve consistently opposed laws against ‘hate speech’, including violently, even provocatively, hateful speech against people like me. I had thought of Douglas as a fellow critic of the cancelling of unwelcome opinion. His turn-around is curiously un-self-aware."
Personally, I've argued all along that if one starts labelling now states that deny even the most unalienable rights like the right to the freedom to dissent to policy and propaganda voiced by its government as being good, democratic and decent, well, I think that it's time to voice ones dissent even more stronger. The first of the four freedoms since the end of World War II is the freedom of speech and expression afterall, and that counts everywhere in the world. The second is freedom for every person to worship and believe anywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear. I'm actually frightened today by people like Douglas Murray who really do know better. It feels like there's again nothing learned from history. That we're sliding as a society back to the total adoration of the leader to follow and the ideal state to have.
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@22Michelle I think the 2003 plan would be a good start. Land swaps to bring most of the West Bank settlements near the Green Line into Israel, along with enlarging Gaza, and a secure highway between Gaza and the West Bank.
However, any discussion of borders is irrelevant as long as the Palestinians and their supporters refuse to recognize any area as deserving of Jewish self-determination. When you hear "75 years of occupation," that implies Israel has been illegitimate since its founding and deserves no land.
@Northwest Speaking at the National Security Conference in Gaza and Lebanon, Haniyeh said: "While we are not opposed to the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital, on the basis of the 1967 territories, we refuse settlements and we adhere to our strategic choice NOT to recognize Israel.” The cowards actually want to hand over Gaza to PA now without even reneging on their refusal to recognize Israel.
@LeopoldBloom In essence that ship has passed. The majority on both sides don't want it any more. There's now talk of the one country from river to sea on both sides; from the one refusal to recognise the state of Israel and on the other side refusal to have a seperate state of Palestine. But I agree, there's need for someone in the near future to raise the idea of the two states back alive
@val70 He does not want a Palestinian state. He wants to set up an Islamist theocracy in the Levant. But if Gaza is handed to the PA, he will no longer have a say.
@LeopoldBloom The only credible starting point is the 1967 borders. There could be some adjustments, but I don't see any chance of serious negotiations unless it's based on the 1967 borders.
@Northwest The 1967 borders are one option, but if we're creating a new country, it shouldn't be out of the question to move the border around a little. This map looks like it gives Palestine more land, plus the highway which they didn't have in 1967.
@val70 Israel isn't going anywhere, so Hamas' dream of "from water to water, Palestine will be Arab" is a non-starter. Same for annexing the West Bank and Gaza and turning every Palestinian into an Israeli citizen, or sending them somewhere else. Neither of those are practical. The only option other than maintaining the status quo is a separate Palestinian state.
@22Michelle I think most negotiations have started with that. In fact, that's what the "Green Line" refers to. But there's a reason why we also hear about "land swaps."
The border is just one obstacle in the negotiations. Others are:
What happens to the West Bank settlements Who controls Jerusalem or how is it divided Security guarantees What happens to the 5 million Palestinian refugees administered by UNRWA
@LeopoldBloom That's right. I'm sure that more than half of the Israelis now want to just own the land instead of sharing. The role of the American evangelical right in this sidetracking is also on show
@LeopoldBloom And it all starts witb the 1967 borders. The West Bank settlements are illegal. Jerusalem is either shared or declared neutral. Who's security is being guaranteed and bh whom? The refugees shoukd be allowed to return.
@22Michelle 700,000 people left and there are now 5 million thanks to UNRWA. There's no way Israel lets all of them return. But you're correct, the future Palestinian state should start with the 1967 borders. The refugees can return there if they want.
@LeopoldBloom I used the word in a kind fashion. These days the concept is that Palestinians can stay resident of the one state Israel whilst being citizen of Jordan. The mind boggles at a way of thinking that is. Oh well, not as strange than to string along the little know happening of the UN having given the Jews the whole of westbank of the Jordan including this Judea and Samaria. No, I can see that becoming the understood myth too. Easy for the mind, to be eased into a tranquil state of putting entire villages out of the country yet again to their own. That is Jordan, the Arab state for those people. No wonder that the Jordanians are already getting restless
The UN will never grant Israel the West Bank, and Israel will never annex it, because they don't want the Palestinians living there to be Israeli citizens. Unfortunately, Oct. 7 has pushed us even further from a two-state solution.
@LeopoldBloom I'm only voicing the opinions that I heard recently from some Israeli politicians. I don't claim anything at all. I'm only an observer. But some myth building is becoming clearer by the day. Do read Golda Meir's op-ed in The New York Times from 1976:
"The majority of the refugees never left Palestine; they are settled on the West Bank and in Jordan, the majority of whose population is Palestinian. Whatever nomenclature is used, both the people involved and the territory on which they live are Palestinian.
A mini-Palestine state, planted as a time bomb against Israel on the West Bank, would only serve as a focal point for the further exploitation of regional tensions by the Soviet Union.
But in a genuine peace settlement a viable Palestine-Jordan could flourish side by side with Israel within the original area of Mandatory Palestine.
On July 21, 1974, the Israeli Government passed the following resolution: “The peace will be founded on the existence of two independent states only – Israel, with united Jerusalem as its capital, and a Jordanian-Palestinian Arab state, east of Israel, within borders to be determined in negotiations between Israel and Jordan.”
@LeopoldBloom Israel cant have a veto on who returns where. Whether there can be some kind of financial resolution. Basically buying off people from returning to within the 1967 borders is a partial solution could be proposed. However, equally the illegal settlements in the West Bank have to be dealt with. Those settlers have to return to within the 1967 borders.
@22Michelle Israel is a sovereign country and can control its borders and who it allows to emigrate there. The 5 million Palestinian refugees would have been settled long ago in their host countries if UNRWA hadn't treated them differently from any other group of refugees in history by maintaining them in permanent, multi-generational refugee status. There's no way Israel will allow them to return to the homes their great-grandparents left. Reparations and resettlement aid would be one way to deal with them, but the Arab countries would have to agree to this. Given the history of Palestinians in Jordan and Egypt, that may be a problem.
I agree that the West Bank settlements need to either be dismantled, or as the 2003 map shows, some areas exchanged for land in other parts of Israel. Settlements deep within the West Bank would have to be given the opportunity for Palestinian citizenship, possibly in exchange for some Palestinian refugees to return to Israel.
@val70 Obviously, if both sides were in agreement, a solution would have been reached long ago. The status of Jerusalem is one sticking point as both sides want it. As I told the other person, the border, the settlements, the refugees, and security are also problems that prevent a solution. It also doesn't help that a majority of Palestinians don't want a state alongside Israel, but one "from the river to the sea" with no Jews in it or at least not exercising any form of self-determination.
