Comment by danbruc

Comment by danbruc 2 days ago

Sure, I have no doubt that there are a lot of reasonable people that wish to settle the conflict and that have proposed ideas to reach that goal. But if I sit down and write a peace agreement, that is worth nothing, and if does not get implemented, that is not an rejection.

Israel could act unilaterally, they could decide to withdraw from the Westbank and then just do it, no need to make an offer or agreement and have it accepted by the Palestinians. The obvious drawback of that is that you have no idea how it will be received by the other side, will they be satisfied and the conflict ends or will they keep fighting because they are not satisfied?

So you probably want an agreement between both parties that codifies what both parties will and will not do if accepted. With that it is no longer about accepting an offer but reaching an agreement. If your offer is good enough, it might become an agreement without further negotiation, but as you want to offer as little as possible while getting as much as possible, this seems unlikely to happen. There will be a back and forth of offers and counteroffers and they will all be rejected until you reach an agreement that is acceptable by both parties or until you get stuck because of irreconcilable differences.

But even if you reach an agreement at the negotiation table, that does not mean you have succeeded. The agreement must also be accepted by the affected people on both sides and you have to be able to implement it. Agreeing to stop attacks is worth nothing if the people performing the attacks do not support the agreement and keep fighting and you do not have sufficient power to prevent this.

Long story short, what I want to say is that making an offer and complaining about getting it rejected does not make much sense. If you can act unilaterally, just skip the offer and do it, if both parties have to be involved, you have to reach an agreement and getting offers rejected during the negotiations is an expected part of the process. And unless one side has completely unreasonable demands, a failure to reach an agreement can not easily be blamed on one side alone, both parties have the ability to move their position towards the other side.

bbarnett 2 days ago

Long story short, what I want to say is that making an offer and complaining about getting it rejected does not make much sense

No one is complaining about it, they're pointing to the many generous and heartfelt attempts made, that were rebuffed, along with repeated statements that Israel should not exist.

This shows how unreasonable others are being, and how reasonable and open to resolving things Israel has been.

And that does matter.

Reply View 3 replies

danbruc 2 days ago

[...] generous and heartfelt attempts [...]
With the support of the United Nations and violence Israel took half of the land from the people living in Mandatory Palestine and displaced hundred thousands of them. And then occupied the rest of the land when they were fighting back. And terrorized and killed quite a few of them in the course of it. They better make a generous and heartfelt attempt to make good for that.
And with that I can just ask a similar question as before, where are those attempts that failed for unreasonable reasons? And I mean attempts that actually had a chance of getting implemented, backed by sufficient power to follow through if an agreement could be reached.
[...] along with repeated statements that Israel should not exist.
A good part of the people in power in Israel - not all of course - would similarly prefer if there was no Palestinian state, from Ben-Gurion who hopped that Israel will eventually encompass all of Mandatory Palestine to Netanyahu who rejects a fully sovereign Palestine.

Reply View | 2 replies
- bbarnett 2 days ago
  
  Every country on the planet, every single piece of land, has people on it who displaced others. Yes, this includes the Palestinians too, they've displaced others, you just need go far enough back. Historical displacement is irrelevant, and only the oldest among us even remember a time when there was no modern Israel.
  Israel belongs there too, Jews have lived in the region forever, and Jewish run states have existed for thousands of years in the region.
  It's this simple. Israel exists, and is going nowhere.
  People need to deal with it, drop historical hatred, and make peace.
  
  Reply View | 1 reply
  
  alexisread a day ago
  
  Well you can't compensate a dead person, but you can compensate a living person. There is the cut-off from historical perspective. In this spirit, a single state allowing right of return and equal (voting) rights is a workable solution. Thing is, Israel currently is an apartheid state, so the status quo is not acceptable.
  In addition, tens of thousands of civilian casualties within the country, and ignoring ICJ rulings which Israel have signed up to, indicate effectively a rogue government, needing change.
  There is a question over what defines Israel as a state, there's no reason why Palestinians and Jews should not be able to live together, with a shared government, but that's not the case here, and that seems to be because Israelis are taking land, making asymmetric laws, allowing anyone with 'Jewish' heritage citizenship regardless of their actual location, and so on. The issue is basically Zionism and the fact that Zionism effectively mandates ethnic cleansing, not Judaism.
  
  Reply View | 0 replies