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jewishvitya · 5 months

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I see a lot of countries believing in the two states solution. What are your feelings about that? (I'm sorry if I used the wrong terms, I'm trying to translate from my native language)

You used the right terms! But I'll be honest, a solution to the whole thing sounds like such a far away idea when we can't even seem to push for a ceasefire.

Maybe someone who wants to see two states will have solutions to these problems I have. Maybe one state has even more issues. I mentioned before that my reading progress is very slow, so while I can tell you a lot about my lived experience and about Israeli mentality, when it comes to this I'm pretty ignorant.

But you're not the first to ask, so I guess I might as well.

My personal feelings about the idea of two states, from a place of being relatively uninformed about this aspect of things.

First, if we do that, we're starting from the position of Israel being so much more powerful, and Israel will find ways to maintain and exploit that power even if it changes form. For example, the fact that Gaza and the West Bank are separated. Israel, from the very beginning and through every day of its existence, meant the suffering and deaths of Palestinians. It's always had an expansionist mentality - when accepting lands given by the British, the plan from the start was to take it and expand from there. I was shamelessly taught this in history class. And Palestinians are treated as a security threat for existing. I don't know that you can rehabilitate that into a safe neighbor to a Palestinian state.

Second, this option allows Israel the opportunity to maintain itself as an ethnostate, and I object to an ethnostate as a concept. There's a Palestinian minister in the Israeli government who talked about it and I remember a Jewish minister replying to him with "so all the Israeli Arabs will move to your Palestinian state?" like. This is not talking about people in occupied territories, but about 20% of our citizens. To maintain an ethnostate, your only tools are ethnic cleansing and genocide, or manipulating birthrates, things like that. Israel is already very preoccupied with demographics, and I don't trust this not to deteriorate and become very fascist very fast even with a Palestinian state next door.

Lastly, even cities that are considered part of Israel and not the occupied territories have been stolen from Palestinians. And there's a reason indigenous people talk about landback. If we give a Palestinian family "permission" to live free in the West Bank without our military occupation, but that family comes from Tiberias... That's not really justice, is it? Justice would mean they're able to go home, they're able to travel within the land, they're able to enjoy the freedoms that Israel denies them. I personally don't see that happening in a two states model.

And I'm just a random person online, not even Palestinian myself, I don't know that my opinion matters. So I'm not going to tell you what the solution should be, I'm sure there's a lot of writing about this by Palestinians. That's also why I block reblogs sometimes, I don't want my takes on some things to be too loud, or my personal feelings to be too centered outside the personal space of my blog.

Push for a ceasefire. That's the immediate need. People are dehydrated and starving with bombs raining down on them. And then, once we addressed that, look at what Palestinians want and what they envision when they talk about a free Palestine and push for that.

You asked for my opinion. That's my opinion. Don't put too much weight on it please.

Ceasefire is the immediate need, liberation has to be the goal, and they decide what it looks like.

#riki babbles

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heydragonfly · 3 years

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man i know the nature of social media at this point is to try and condense extremely complicated social and political issues into easy-to-digest mini infographies that lose all sense of nuance with the issue but uuuh gotta say y’all seeing the Arab-Israeli conflict be condensed into ten pictures with a couple sentences on each is A Lot

#and unsurprisingly it was filled with things that were either so biased to be bordering on misinformation or were just blatantly incorrect #bc hey guess what! what can be considered one of the most complicated conflicts in human history CANNOT be boiled down to TEN SLIDES #i mean jesus ‘Israel has only existed for 77 years’ i mean yeah TECHNICALLY but Zionist settlers have been in the region since the 1880s #and calling it a settler nation is just that’s a Whole Thing and it is nowhere near as simple as that #and talking about the nakba and the 1948 war without even saying those terms or putting them in context i mean jesus christ #and to have those condensed into like FOUR SENTENCES i mean COME ON #and to frame the conflict as israel being a settler nation who just needs to leave to free palestine is both tragically unrealistic #and a disservice to what freeing palestine actually means #like if you want to spread support for the issue talk about israeli settlements in the west bank!!#you can’t just throw out the term apartheid and not apply it to the west bank if that’s your argument #and talking about palestine without mentioning the terms west bank and gaza even once like????#it’s just a whole bunch of misinformation framed as being for the free palestine moving but acting more as a detriment to it by not even #addressing the current state of palestinians #SORRY for all this im just whdhsjbd #i’m by no means an expert on this topic or anything close #i know enough to know how much i don’t know #but like posts like that are just dangerously misinformative about such a complex issue #and prey on peoples like of familiarity with the issue #which is to say if you’ve reblogged that post you’re FINE i’m irked with op or the person who made it #ash rambles

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sexkoreasblog · 4 years

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Mehdi Hasan: Trump’s Middle East Plan Is a Policy of Apartheid & Settler Colonialism

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(Image by Democracy Now!)

We continue our discussion of President Trump’s long-awaited Middle East plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which he has described as the “deal of the century.” The plan was drafted by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner without any input from Palestinians and would give Israel sovereignty over large areas of the occupied West Bank, control over all of Jerusalem, and keep all illegal settlements built in the occupied West Bank. We speak with Mehdi Hasan, senior columnist at The Intercept, and Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. Khalidi’s latest book is titled “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren responded to President Trump’s so-called Middle East peace plan.

Sanders issued a statement saying, quote, “Any acceptable peace deal must be consistent with international law and multiple UN Security Council resolutions. It must end the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and enable Palestinian self-determination in an independent, democratic, economically viable state of their own alongside a secure and democratic state of Israel. Trump’s so-called ‘peace deal’ doesn’t come close, and will only perpetuate the conflict, and undermine the security interests of Americans, Israelis, and Palestinians. It is unacceptable,” Sanders tweeted.

Elizabeth Warren tweeted, “Trump’s ‘peace plan’ is a rubber stamp for annexation and offers no chance for a real Palestinian state. Releasing a plan without negotiating with Palestinians isn’t diplomacy, it’s a sham. I will oppose unilateral annexation in any form—and reverse any policy that supports it,” Senator Warren said.

Well, we go now to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Mehdi Hasan, senior columnist at The Intercept and host of the Deconstructed podcast. He’s also host of UpFront at Al Jazeera English. And still with us in New York, professor Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. His new book, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.

Mehdi Hasan, if you can respond to the presidential candidates responding to the Middle East plan, and then how the media has covered it?

MEHDI HASAN: I’m glad that some of the presidential candidates, Amy, have come out strongly. Elizabeth Warren came out very quick, Bernie Sanders referring to it as “annexation.” Obviously, I would like them to go further, but I know the limits of U.S. political discourse when it comes to Israel-Palestine. It’s good at least that in this election cycle you have two candidates, Warren and Sanders, talking very explicitly about Netanyahu’s racism, about annexation, about this “peace plan,” quote-unquote “peace plan,” being a sham. In fact, I think anyone who describes this as a, quote-unquote, “peace plan” — and, there you go, I just fell into the trap, because we keep hearing this phrase all the time — it’s malpractice. This is not a peace plan. When you hear any political candidate for office, any journalist referring to it as a “peace plan,” you really need to stop and think twice about that, because this is a plan for apartheid, this is a plan for settler colonialism, as Professor Khalidi mentioned earlier, before the break. And I think we need to be clear about our terms.

And, of course, you know, The New York Times put out a tweet yesterday when the plan came out, a breaking news tweet, where they talked about the Palestinians being asked to make more concessions. Just that language that we have here in the U.S. about Israel-Palestine, the idea that an occupied people, who have had their land stolen from them, are expected to concede that land to the people who have occupied them and stolen their land, it’s madness. It’s not language we would use in any other walk of life or in any other conflict. We don’t use it in the context of Crimea, Ukraine and Russia. But we do use it, and we have used it for years, in the Middle East in relation to the Occupied Territories.

What’s so interesting about the current moment, of course, is that Donald Trump — there’s always a silver lining to Donald Trump’s awfulness. And that is that he takes any issue, and he’s so extreme on it — he’s so extreme even by American presidential standards — that he forces people off whatever fence they were sitting on. And I think what he’s done in the last 24 hours, with the help of his son-in-law, with the help of Netanyahu and MBS of Saudi Arabia, who has also endorsed this plan, is the he’s forced people to basically take off the blinkers and recognize this for what it is. The conflict now is no longer Israel versus Palestine, as it’s often set up — as Professor Khalidi pointed out, it’s not; it’s a one-sided war — but it’s apartheid. And Americans now have to decide: Do they support apartheid, or do they not support apartheid? There’s no more nonsense about two-state solutions and all of that rubbish. That’s gone. That’s finished, finally over. No one pretends it’s still there on the table. It’s: Do you support apartheid, or do you not support apartheid? That is what we should be asking Democratic presidential candidates, and that is what journalists should be discussing in the media, in their op-eds, in their cable news discussion panels.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Mehdi, talk about American opinion polls. They’re very interesting on the issue of Israel-Palestine.

MEHDI HASAN: Yes. So, we are often told by supporters of the Israeli occupation in Washington, D.C., especially Republicans, that the reason the United States backs Israel so blindly, gives it billions of dollars, turns a blind eye when it massacres children in Gaza, is because American public opinion is behind Israel, because Americans want to support the, quote, “only democracy in the Middle East,” as it’s often sold, which is not actually true. Going back many, many years, if you look at the polling on this subject, most Americans, the majority or plurality of Americans, say they don’t want the United States to take the side of Israel or the Palestinians. They want the United States to be what it claims to be, but of course is not, and that is an honest broker, an impartial outside force, which it’s never been, of course.

And what’s so interesting is, about — I think it was about a year ago, at the University of Maryland, Shibley Telhami, who’s a great academic and pollster, carried out some polling of Americans on the Middle East, which found that there was almost an even split between Americans on whether they support a two-state solution, as is framed by the establishment, 36%, I think, of Americans, versus a one-state solution, a democratic, binational, secular state in which Palestinians and Jews all have, you know, one vote — one person, one vote — equal rights, and that was around 35%. It was almost even. It was a third of Americans were two-state, a third of Americans were one-state. And here’s what’s so interesting, Amy. When you tell Americans that there is no two-state solution, that option is gone, the vast majority, two out of three Americans, say, “We support a one-state solution with equal rights for everyone,” because Americans — shock, horror — like the idea of one person, one vote. That’s what this country is supposed to be built on. And they don’t like the idea of saying, “You know what? We’re going to take a people and put them under occupation and disenfranchise them in perpetuity.”

And that’s what this Kushner plan does. It basically says, “You’re never getting anything else. This is what you get.” Israel gets to annex what it likes, takes over whatever part of the West Bank it likes. And the Palestinians know they don’t get any rights. What’s so astonishing about this plan — and, you know, Americans, I would argue, the average American, would not support this idea — that a Palestinian refugee not only loses their status as a refugee under this plan forever, but Israel gets to veto Palestinian refugees from returning even to a Palestinian state, not just to Israel. Forget the right of return to Israel. Under this plan, if you look at the small print, they can’t even return to a Palestinian state without an Israeli veto.

So, I think this is all a reminder once again that — you know, Edward Said said it best back in 1978. He said, here in the United States and in the West, amongst establishment types, the Palestinian person politically does not exist. They have been completely obliterated. And I think we saw that in the last 24 hours, where you have a White House press conference, at which no Palestinian spoke, a White House meeting with the Israeli leadership but not with any members of the Palestinian leadership, and a plan put forward by the White House which had no Palestinian input whatsoever. It’s the complete and utter erasure of the Palestinians by the U.S. political establishment, by the U.S. administration.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Mehdi Hasan, before we move on to the issue of the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump that’s taking place at the same time — it seems to have motivated a great deal in President Trump, from January 3rd, the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, to his setting precedent last Friday speaking at a “right to life” march in Washington, D.C., the first sitting president ever to do this, and then suddenly announcing he’s releasing a Middle East “peace” plan — I wanted to turn back to Rashid Khalidi. You had talked about some Gulf states perhaps supporting the president. If you can talk about the significance of Saudi Arabia, perhaps one of the most closest allies with the United States, along with Israel?

RASHID KHALIDI: Well, I think this brings up something that people don’t think about very often. The only reason that Israel is able to maintain its regional superiority is because most Arab states are not democratic. The only countries that could or would buy into this are countries which can suppress their domestic public opinion. So, the absolute monarchies of the Gulf, including the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Bahrain, whose ambassadors were at this shameful ceremony yesterday in Washington, are countries, like a few others in the Arab world, Egypt and so forth, ruled in different ways, but in ways that completely exclude representation, democracy, parliaments, public opinion, a free press, and so on and so forth. In those Arab countries where those things do exist, countries like Lebanon or Kuwait or Tunisia, you have popular outrage at what is being done in Washington. The absence of democracy in the Arab world is a precondition for this kind of thing happening. Only regimes which completely — which are capable of completely suppressing their public opinion would support such an outrageous derogation of international law, Arab rights, Arab dignity, as, unfortunately, a few of these governments have and, I’m afraid, will.

But it’s vital to represent, and it’s vital to understand, these are not the Arabs. These are a group of kleptocrats who control their countries absolutely, against the will of their people, and who are able to get away with this partly because they’re protected by the United States. So, you have had a few Arab governments that have either squeaked their approval or failed to indicate their disapproval or shamefully sent their ambassadors to this sham ceremony. But it is vital to understand what they are and who they are and what they represent. They don’t represent anybody except the elites which dominate those countries.

AMY GOODMAN: Rashid Khalidi, we want to thank you for being with us, Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. His latest book, just out, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.

https://www.pressenza.com/2020/02/mehdi-hasan-trumps-middle-east-plan-is-a-policy-of-apartheid-settler-colonialism/

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source https://newsfirst.tistory.com/6308

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