Israel and Palestine

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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by Woodchopper » Fri May 14, 2021 8:26 am

Good discussion here on likely options for the Biden administration: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-c ... iddle-east

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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sun May 16, 2021 5:53 pm

Killing a bunch of Palestinian kids by bombing a refugee camp is pretty standard for the Israeli military, but you've got to wonder who thought it was a good idea to bomb the Associated Press.

https://apnews.com/article/israel-west- ... 2f8c7d8a79
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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by monkey » Sun May 16, 2021 6:04 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sun May 16, 2021 5:53 pm
Killing a bunch of Palestinian kids by bombing a refugee camp is pretty standard for the Israeli military, but you've got to wonder who thought it was a good idea to bomb the Associated Press.

https://apnews.com/article/israel-west- ... 2f8c7d8a79
After duping them into being part of their operations too.

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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sun May 16, 2021 6:30 pm

You've got to wonder how far Israel can go before it's "too far", and Western leaders stop equivocating about "both sides". Is it really unfair to expect an ally to behave a little bit better than a proscribed terrorist group?

There are way more Palestinians displaced than there were Bosniaks in the Balkans before the NATO intervention, for instance - do they just have to avoid the optics of a Srebrenica-style massacre to keep getting away with it?
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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by bjn » Sun May 16, 2021 7:22 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sun May 16, 2021 6:30 pm
You've got to wonder how far Israel can go before it's "too far", and Western leaders stop equivocating about "both sides". Is it really unfair to expect an ally to behave a little bit better than a proscribed terrorist group?

There are way more Palestinians displaced than there were Bosniaks in the Balkans before the NATO intervention, for instance - do they just have to avoid the optics of a Srebrenica-style massacre to keep getting away with it?
Yeah but the “Hamas started it” thing goes down well with Islamaphobic morons.

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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sun May 16, 2021 8:58 pm

Pro-Palestine Italian port workers refuse to load arms shipment destined for Israel

A shipment containing weapons and explosives was destined for the Israeli port of Ashdod [Getty]

Date of publication: 15 May, 2021

After being informed of the ship's destination and contents, workers decided to block it in a show of solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Tags:
Italy, Palestine, Israel, Ashdod, weapons.
A syndicate of port workers in the Italian city of Livorno in Tuscany on Friday protested a weapons and explosives shipment after discovering it was destined for the Israeli port of Ashdod.

“The port of Livorno will not be an accomplice in the massacre of the Palestinian people,” said L’Unione Sindacale di Base (USB).

The USB added that the ship contained "weapons and explosives that will serve to kill the Palestinian population, already hit by a severe attack this very night, which caused hundreds of civilian victims, including many children".
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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sun May 16, 2021 8:58 pm

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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by Little waster » Mon May 17, 2021 1:28 am

Woodchopper wrote:
Thu May 13, 2021 7:15 pm
monkey wrote:
Thu May 13, 2021 7:01 pm
Woodchopper wrote:
Thu May 13, 2021 6:48 pm


Bit more complicated than that Bird. You should check out Hamas’ response to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative.

Hamas’ 2017 Document of General Principles and Policies calls for what would amount to the removal of Jews living in Palestine and their replacement with Palestinians.
https://hamas.ps/en/post/678/A-Document ... d-Policies

See especially Articles 1,2,3,12,13,18,19,20,21,23.
Yes, I thought it was Fatah who have been more open to negotiations.
Yes, Fatah/the PLO recognized Israel in the Oslo Accords. However, Fatah was replaced in Gaza with Hamas which does not.
If you want to really depress yourself google some of the commentary at the time about how the Hamastan/Fatahland split would finally allow a resolution of the conflict (sic).

Basically the short version went:-

with a conciliatory Fatah running the WB and a belligerent Hamas running Gaza, Israel can now demonstrate side-by-side the relative merits of following the path of peace and following the path of war. Concessions to Fatah along the lines of the Oslo Accords would allow the construction of a viable Palestinian State co-existing peacefully with Israel while stonewalling Hamas’ zero-sum approach would demonstrate the ultimate futility of continuing violence. This separation would also neuter Hamas’ ability to wreck any ceasefire by drawing an obvious distinction between the two groups. Once the Palestinians see the relative success of Fatahland and failure of Hamastan all but the hardcore will desert Hamas, Gaza would return to the moderates and a final equitable resolution would be achieved at last.

Spoilers, none of that happened. Hamas saw its continuing belligerence “punished” by a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the dismantling by the IDF itself of the remaining Israeli settlements in Gaza. In contrast all negotiation got Fatah “rewarded” was ever-expanding settlements, continuing blockades and the Bantustanisation of the sad remnants of the putative Palestinian state. Unsurprisingly the Palestinians drew the obvious conclusion and we are now where we are.

And note the flipping on its head of this widely-heralded three-state, carrot-and-stick strategy wasn’t a result of some Palestinian intransigence or an unexpected international development, it was the conscious choice of short-sighted Israeli hardliners who given the choice of Land or Peace chose Land and who apparently prefer that the Palestinians are lead by genocidal but ineffectual nutters, to whom they can simply shrug and refuse to deal with, than risk the chances of some future negotiated peace depriving them of their prize of an expanded and ethnically-pure Israel.

The irony is we are now back to the point where the only apparently viable option is a “one-state” solution with Hobson’s Choice whether that stumbles onward as an unsustainable apartheid state desperately trying to keep a lid on a much-expanded and ever-growing population of resentful second-class citizens or it gives the Israeli and Palestinian Arabs full citizenship and see sheer demographics destroy Israel as a Jewish State in short order.

I imagine either option will have the US Christian Right cheering Hallelujah and eagerly counting down the days to Armageddon, not such good news for the Israelis.
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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by Woodchopper » Mon May 17, 2021 8:03 am

Little waster wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 1:28 am
The irony is we are now back to the point where the only apparently viable option is a “one-state” solution with Hobson’s Choice whether that stumbles onward as an unsustainable apartheid state desperately trying to keep a lid on a much-expanded and ever-growing population of resentful second-class citizens or it gives the Israeli and Palestinian Arabs full citizenship and see sheer demographics destroy Israel as a Jewish State in short order.
I'm not sure that a one state solution is on the cards. The State of Palestine is recognized by 138 states and has the status in the UN of a non-member observer state (which is the same status that the Vatican City has or Switzerland had until 2002). In theory it could be dissolved but I doubt that the Palestinians would give up the limited progress they've made. The problem is of course that the Palestinian government in Ramallah doesn't control its most populous area in Gaza, and administers 165 disparate enclaves which aren't a viable state.

If there's an Israeli strategy its probably to keep it that way. There is a big difference between Israel and the apartheid regime in South Africa. The basic reason why the latter collapsed was because the white population was only about 10% of the population by 1992. They were like a parasite dependent upon the rest for everything from growing food to washing their laundry. Most of the white population were well aware that their days were numbered and needed to find a way to give up political power peacefully. In contrast the Israeli population isn't dependent upon the Palestinians. They've built walls round most of them to keep them out. Israel can probably carry on indefinitely.

I'm also not sure about the demographics. Lets say there is a partial one state solution in which Gaza is left out and the West Bank merges with Israel.

As of the data in teh Wiki, the combined population would be 7.1 million Israeli Jewish and 3.8 million Arab Muslim. The population growth rates are listed as 1.8% and 2% respectively. So the Palestinian population would overtake the Jewish population eventually. But it would take circa 160 years. Also that scenario very very unlikely to happen as at that level of growth in about 160 years the combined population would be about 240 million, which seems impossible without a miraculous improvement in technology. I've no idea when or why the population growth would have to stop. But at current rates of growth it seems to me that it would have to stop before Israeli Jews ceased to be a majority.

Of course, including Gaza would change the balance a lot. But I really can't see any prospect of it joining a one state solution.

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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by Little waster » Mon May 17, 2021 11:32 am

Woodchopper wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 8:03 am
Little waster wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 1:28 am
The irony is we are now back to the point where the only apparently viable option is a “one-state” solution with Hobson’s Choice whether that stumbles onward as an unsustainable apartheid state desperately trying to keep a lid on a much-expanded and ever-growing population of resentful second-class citizens or it gives the Israeli and Palestinian Arabs full citizenship and see sheer demographics destroy Israel as a Jewish State in short order.
I'm not sure that a one state solution is on the cards. The State of Palestine is recognized by 138 states and has the status in the UN of a non-member observer state (which is the same status that the Vatican City has or Switzerland had until 2002). In theory it could be dissolved but I doubt that the Palestinians would give up the limited progress they've made. The problem is of course that the Palestinian government in Ramallah doesn't control its most populous area in Gaza, and administers 165 disparate enclaves which aren't a viable state.

If there's an Israeli strategy its probably to keep it that way. There is a big difference between Israel and the apartheid regime in South Africa. The basic reason why the latter collapsed was because the white population was only about 10% of the population by 1992. They were like a parasite dependent upon the rest for everything from growing food to washing their laundry. Most of the white population were well aware that their days were numbered and needed to find a way to give up political power peacefully. In contrast the Israeli population isn't dependent upon the Palestinians. They've built walls round most of them to keep them out. Israel can probably carry on indefinitely.

I'm also not sure about the demographics. Lets say there is a partial one state solution in which Gaza is left out and the West Bank merges with Israel.

As of the data in teh Wiki, the combined population would be 7.1 million Israeli Jewish and 3.8 million Arab Muslim. The population growth rates are listed as 1.8% and 2% respectively. So the Palestinian population would overtake the Jewish population eventually. But it would take circa 160 years. Also that scenario very very unlikely to happen as at that level of growth in about 160 years the combined population would be about 240 million, which seems impossible without a miraculous improvement in technology. I've no idea when or why the population growth would have to stop. But at current rates of growth it seems to me that it would have to stop before Israeli Jews ceased to be a majority.

Of course, including Gaza would change the balance a lot. But I really can't see any prospect of it joining a one state solution.
Fair points but even if population growth rates are currently comparable historically (as in the last decade) the Palestinian birth rate was near double the Israelis so time will tell if the parity is maintained or if the numbers revert to their long-term trends. It also wasn't immediately clear from the numbers whether the Israeli birth-rate was all Israelis or Israeli Jews-only with the Israeli Arabs bundled in with the Palestinians.

Just to chuck another couple numbers into the mix; there are 2 million Palestinians walled up in Gaza, another 3 million over the border in Jordan and 500,000 in Syria with perhaps another million or more scattered around the rest of the diaspora. It doesn't take large percentages of those returning in one form or another to tip the scales considerably and as NI demonstrates the difference between a country going from 80:20 sectarian split to even 60:40 can have a massive impact on the character of a nation.

In regards to the potential longevity of the current regime in Israel, the Israeli Arabs make up a larger (and growing) proportion of Israel's population than say African-Americans do in the US so you question how long they can maintain their own version of Jim Crow especially with a population that still considers itself largely liberal, democratic and generally anti-oppression. Meanwhile the WB may be reduced to a number of ghettos but substantial chunks of the Israeli economy (particularly construction and agriculture) still relies on tens of thousands of Palestinian workers (a number that has doubled in the last 4 years alone) crossing the border every day to work, often illegally, for less than minimum wage, with all the disconcerting historical parallels that brings.
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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by IvanV » Mon May 17, 2021 2:34 pm

It is easy to see why unresolved conflict looks like a good option in the eyes of many Israelis. They keep winning. The general process of Israeli-Palestinian relations has been a ratchet. Every time there is a conflict, Israel ends up with more land and Palestinians end up with more restrictions, which Israel says is necessary for its security. There is a slow chipping away in between the main conflicts. Eventually the Palestinians boil over, only to lose a bit more. Occasionally the odd thing is given back, things it was too difficult to hold on to, but the general process is expansion.

If you read Avi Shlaim, one of the "New Historians" of Israel, he would have you believe that Israel was never prepared to give away enough to obtain a practical peace, even at the few moments it apparently got close to it. Most of the rest of the time, Israel's leaders were pretty clear that they wouldn't be giving very much if anything away.

It's hard to believe that a Palestinian state formed of Gaza and a piece of the West Bank would form a functioning state, especially given its well-developed internal strife. It doesn't help that there isn't a great deal of love lost between Palestinian Arabs and their Arab neighbours. It doesn't help that the approval of the international community is usually conditional on their own private interests, which is often conservative as they don't want to set precedents for their own boundary and secession disputes.

So unfortunately I don't expect to see a 1-state solution, a 2-state solution, nor a return to something like pre-1967 borders (3-state solution), happening any time in the foreseeable. It must be pretty desperate to be a Palestinian.

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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by jimbob » Mon May 17, 2021 8:59 pm

Little waster wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 1:28 am
Woodchopper wrote:
Thu May 13, 2021 7:15 pm
monkey wrote:
Thu May 13, 2021 7:01 pm


Yes, I thought it was Fatah who have been more open to negotiations.
Yes, Fatah/the PLO recognized Israel in the Oslo Accords. However, Fatah was replaced in Gaza with Hamas which does not.
If you want to really depress yourself google some of the commentary at the time about how the Hamastan/Fatahland split would finally allow a resolution of the conflict (sic).

Basically the short version went:-

with a conciliatory Fatah running the WB and a belligerent Hamas running Gaza, Israel can now demonstrate side-by-side the relative merits of following the path of peace and following the path of war. Concessions to Fatah along the lines of the Oslo Accords would allow the construction of a viable Palestinian State co-existing peacefully with Israel while stonewalling Hamas’ zero-sum approach would demonstrate the ultimate futility of continuing violence. This separation would also neuter Hamas’ ability to wreck any ceasefire by drawing an obvious distinction between the two groups. Once the Palestinians see the relative success of Fatahland and failure of Hamastan all but the hardcore will desert Hamas, Gaza would return to the moderates and a final equitable resolution would be achieved at last.

Spoilers, none of that happened. Hamas saw its continuing belligerence “punished” by a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the dismantling by the IDF itself of the remaining Israeli settlements in Gaza. In contrast all negotiation got Fatah “rewarded” was ever-expanding settlements, continuing blockades and the Bantustanisation of the sad remnants of the putative Palestinian state. Unsurprisingly the Palestinians drew the obvious conclusion and we are now where we are.

And note the flipping on its head of this widely-heralded three-state, carrot-and-stick strategy wasn’t a result of some Palestinian intransigence or an unexpected international development, it was the conscious choice of short-sighted Israeli hardliners who given the choice of Land or Peace chose Land and who apparently prefer that the Palestinians are lead by genocidal but ineffectual nutters, to whom they can simply shrug and refuse to deal with, than risk the chances of some future negotiated peace depriving them of their prize of an expanded and ethnically-pure Israel.

The irony is we are now back to the point where the only apparently viable option is a “one-state” solution with Hobson’s Choice whether that stumbles onward as an unsustainable apartheid state desperately trying to keep a lid on a much-expanded and ever-growing population of resentful second-class citizens or it gives the Israeli and Palestinian Arabs full citizenship and see sheer demographics destroy Israel as a Jewish State in short order.

I imagine either option will have the US Christian Right cheering Hallelujah and eagerly counting down the days to Armageddon, not such good news for the Israelis.
The assassination of Rabin was a turning point. Up to then, it looked to be heading towards some sort of solution.
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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by Bird on a Fire » Mon May 17, 2021 11:20 pm

I see Biden is sticking with the US tradition of defending Israel on the international stage.

He talked such a good anti-racist game before the election too.
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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by dyqik » Tue May 18, 2021 12:03 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 11:20 pm
I see Biden is sticking with the US tradition of defending Israel on the international stage.

He talked such a good anti-racist game before the election too.
The readout here is that he's being much more critical than usual for a US president.

The Jewish/Zionist vote in the US is a big deal. Although the biggest Zionists are the right wing Christian Conservatives who see Israel's existence and warmongering as the way to bring about Armageddon.

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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by monkey » Tue May 18, 2021 2:27 am

dyqik wrote:
Tue May 18, 2021 12:03 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 11:20 pm
I see Biden is sticking with the US tradition of defending Israel on the international stage.

He talked such a good anti-racist game before the election too.
The readout here is that he's being much more critical than usual for a US president.

The Jewish/Zionist vote in the US is a big deal. Although the biggest Zionists are the right wing Christian Conservatives who see Israel's existence and warmongering as the way to bring about Armageddon.
Coincidentally, I just found a 'newsletter' on top of the junk mail pile explaining this. It was a bit racist about it too.

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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by Woodchopper » Tue May 18, 2021 7:08 am

IvanV wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 2:34 pm
So unfortunately I don't expect to see a 1-state solution, a 2-state solution, nor a return to something like pre-1967 borders (3-state solution), happening any time in the foreseeable. It must be pretty desperate to be a Palestinian.
I agree. I also find it difficult to imagine what a peace agreement could look like.

There are millions of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and a Waster mentioned, there are millions of Palestinians living in other countries who reasonably view Palestine as their homeland. The attempt in the Oslo Accords to provide them with a limited quasi state in West Bank enclaves was rejected by the population in Gaza.

On the other hand, the great majority of Jews in the region were born there. I can't imagine a circumstance in which they'd willingly agree to go somewhere else.

Even if we imagine some kind of peaceful coexistence with equal legal rights, the Palestinians would still be living in poverty next to comparatively rich Jewish neighbors. And that's not a recipe for stability.

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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by Woodchopper » Tue May 18, 2021 7:16 am

Little waster wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 11:32 am
Fair points but even if population growth rates are currently comparable historically (as in the last decade) the Palestinian birth rate was near double the Israelis so time will tell if the parity is maintained or if the numbers revert to their long-term trends. It also wasn't immediately clear from the numbers whether the Israeli birth-rate was all Israelis or Israeli Jews-only with the Israeli Arabs bundled in with the Palestinians.
The Israeli Jewish birth rate has increased over the past decade or so. So its no longer half of what the Palestinian rate is.
Little waster wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 11:32 am
Just to chuck another couple numbers into the mix; there are 2 million Palestinians walled up in Gaza, another 3 million over the border in Jordan and 500,000 in Syria with perhaps another million or more scattered around the rest of the diaspora. It doesn't take large percentages of those returning in one form or another to tip the scales considerably and as NI demonstrates the difference between a country going from 80:20 sectarian split to even 60:40 can have a massive impact on the character of a nation.
Certainly. Which is why the right of return is something that neither side will compromise on.
Little waster wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 11:32 am
In regards to the potential longevity of the current regime in Israel, the Israeli Arabs make up a larger (and growing) proportion of Israel's population than say African-Americans do in the US so you question how long they can maintain their own version of Jim Crow especially with a population that still considers itself largely liberal, democratic and generally anti-oppression. Meanwhile the WB may be reduced to a number of ghettos but substantial chunks of the Israeli economy (particularly construction and agriculture) still relies on tens of thousands of Palestinian workers (a number that has doubled in the last 4 years alone) crossing the border every day to work, often illegally, for less than minimum wage, with all the disconcerting historical parallels that brings.
The Jim Crow laws in the US were ended by the US federal government (including the Supreme Court) which was backed by a the northern states which had a majority of the population. They literally sent in the troops. I doubt very much that the White voters in the South would have ended them voluntarily.

No such equivalent institution exists in Israel. The US is the one external power that does have some leverage.

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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by Little waster » Tue May 18, 2021 10:06 am

Woodchopper wrote:
Tue May 18, 2021 7:16 am

The Jim Crow laws in the US were ended by the US federal government (including the Supreme Court) which was backed by a the northern states which had a majority of the population. They literally sent in the troops. I doubt very much that the White voters in the South would have ended them voluntarily.

No such equivalent institution exists in Israel. The US is the one external power that does have some leverage.
Well I can live in hope that given their history* that the fundamental underlying decency of your average Israeli would eventually win out when stacked against the inevitable occupation fatigue and the sad daily existential awareness that they are living in a Mitchell and Webb sketch. Even in 2020 under Trump with everything apparently going the hardliners way and no obvious blowback, support for the settlements among Israeli Jews was bouncing around a third to a half and in the Knesset hard-line pro-settler parties only get about 10% of the vote while Likud's (on 25%) position is more nuanced and often driven by the demands of keeping the extremists within their coalition.

Hopelessly idealistic I know.




*an argument that cuts both ways
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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by Bird on a Fire » Tue May 18, 2021 10:11 am

dyqik wrote:
Tue May 18, 2021 12:03 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 11:20 pm
I see Biden is sticking with the US tradition of defending Israel on the international stage.

He talked such a good anti-racist game before the election too.
The readout here is that he's being much more critical than usual for a US president.
Politicians can say what they like. What matters is what they do. The US has, as usual, been blocking UN security council statements, and delaying meetings
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... n-conflict

He's also talking to Israel but not Palestine. The UK government manages to separate the military (terrorist/freedom fighter) wing of Hamas from the political wing. The US doesn't. There won't be progress without engaging with the elected leaders of both nations.

I don't hang on his every word, to be fair, but early reported statements were very much of the "both sides" narrative, like Trump after Charlottesville.

dyqik wrote:
Tue May 18, 2021 12:03 am
The Jewish/Zionist vote in the US is a big deal. Although the biggest Zionists are the right wing Christian Conservatives who see Israel's existence and warmongering as the way to bring about Armageddon.
They're never going to vote for him, so even if supporting racists was an ok thing to do to get votes in next year's midterms (hint: it's not), this would be a stupid strategy as well as an immoral one.

The US is alone on the international stage here, protecting its pet rogue state the way Russia does with Syria.
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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by Fishnut » Tue May 18, 2021 10:14 am

This piece in the Guardian talks about the demographic issue,
Israel’s discriminatory policies in Jerusalem, including planned displacement, is constant. We are discussed as a “demographic timebomb” by Israeli planners and officials. In this city, the idea of a “demographic balance” between Arabs and Jews underpins municipal planning and state actions. Since the illegal occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, Israeli policy has focused on keeping a 70:30 ratio of Jews to Arabs in the city – later adjusted to a 60:40 ratio when authorities said this was “not attainable”. This is done in myriad ways, including settlement construction wedging in Palestinian neighbourhoods, home demolitions and revocation of residency rights.
It also talks about the myriad ways the Israeli state tries to make life unbearable for Palestinians living in Jerusalem, including this method:
Israeli police vehicles, known as “skunk trucks”, have been spraying Palestinian homes, shops, restaurants, public spaces and cultural institutions with putrid water at high pressure. The water causes vomiting, stomach pain and skin irritation, and was originally developed by an Israeli company to repel protesters.
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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by noggins » Tue May 18, 2021 1:13 pm

Can anyone explain to me how/why the loony small parties have such power in israeli politics?

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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by IvanV » Tue May 18, 2021 1:48 pm

noggins wrote:
Tue May 18, 2021 1:13 pm
Can anyone explain to me how/why the loony small parties have such power in israeli politics?
Simples. They have something similar but not quite proportional representation. You need 50%+ of Knesset seats to form a government. Neither the main left nor main right coalitions typically achieves 50% these days. So unless you have a left-right broad coalition, which happens only occasionally, they have to deal with some small parties and satisfy enough of their distinctive agendas to get their agreement.

For the last few elections, which have been coming thick and fast, a big issue has been the Netanyahu corruption charges. That means he is desperate to remain PM to retain some vestige of immunity. That means he'll do a deal with anyone shabby enough to deal with him, so long as he is PM. The centre did do a deal with him for a while, thinking he'd agreed to hand the PM job over after a period of time, but he shafted them before he had to hand it over.

The majority of Israeli Jews are secular/non-observant, etc. The rest display a bewildering variety of denominations, for such a small religion. Although the ultra-orthodox are quite a small proportion, they tend to have 19th century quantities of children. So their proportion has increased, and the religious vote along with it. Also the Arab Israels have managed to get the vote out and play the system to increase their vote share. So the arithmetic has tended to work against the more moderate parties. To date no one has done a deal with the Arab parties, though the left were flirting with it recently.

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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by Little waster » Tue May 18, 2021 1:53 pm

noggins wrote:
Tue May 18, 2021 1:13 pm
Can anyone explain to me how/why the loony small parties have such power in israeli politics?
Directly proportional nationwide proportional representation with a very low threshold (3.25%) along with an interesting shared surplus-vote agreement allowing leftover votes to be pooled by similar parties meaning anyone who can scrape together about 146,000 votes nationwide gets a seat and even if you can't the right surplus-vote agreement can allow you to borrow enough votes off a sister party.

Add to that the virtual evaporation of the once-dominant Labor party on the centre-left and you get yourself a textbook example of PR producing a score of parties in parliament resulting in unstable, short-lived multi-multi-party coalitions.

ETA: Ninja'd damn work interfering with my internetting.
This place is not a place of honor, no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here, nothing valued is here.
What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us.
This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

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bolo
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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by bolo » Tue May 18, 2021 2:36 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Tue May 18, 2021 10:11 am
He's also talking to Israel but not Palestine.
Not necessarily disagreeing with your general points, but FWIW, Biden spoke with Abbas by phone on Saturday:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-roo ... oud-abbas/

monkey
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Re: Israel and Palestine

Post by monkey » Tue May 18, 2021 2:37 pm

I found this Long Read on the right to return for Palestinian refugees interesting. Probably a bit optimistic, but that's sometimes a Good Thing.

The right to return is a major sticking point for any peace happening.

clicky

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