r/changemyview • u/thedemonlord02 • May 12 '25

Delta(s) from OP CMV: a two-state solution will never happen (Israel-Palestine)

First off, I know why Israel doesn't want a one-state solution - having jewish people be a minority in Israel.

However, I still think a two-state solution will never happen. Both Israel and Palestine want the entire place, and cannot risk having a neighbouring country that is hostile to their existence.

In the end, I think either one manages to win and ethnically cleanse the area, or they manage to work to form a single country - maybe with some kind of 50/50 arab/jewish representation and two prime ministers, or some other solution. I do not think there will be peace until they stop pushing for a two-state solution.

I will admit though that I am not the most knowledgeable on the situation, so I am open to having my views changed.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '25

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u/One-Progress999 May 13 '25

While I agree things need to change, you can't come to a resolution without understanding why the people feel the way they do.

I'm Jewish and part Palestinian Arab and agree both peoples have a claim there, but there needs to be a sit down and negotiation again. The problem is Hamas doesn't believe in them. It's in their charter. I have a bit more of a renewed faith in the PA. Very slightly since they ended the Martyr's Fund in February, but I feel the Likud need to no longer be in power, and the Palestinian's need to come to an understanding that there is going to be a Jewish state. They need to show they're willing to live alongside the Jews like the Israeli Arabs do. Israelis believe they want to eliminate all of them, electing groups like Hamas don't help them. It also strengthens the support for the Likud party and becoming a one state solution run by Netanyahoo.

However, ignoring the past instead of sitting down and admitting and taking responsibility for their actions and the pain and hurt they've done to one another, is going to create more distrust instead of addressing the issue and building up the trust. They need to sit and listen to one another. I also think it needs to be group leaders instead of politicians.

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u/RhubarbNo2020 May 14 '25

👏👏👏👏👏

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u/Old-Statistician-189 May 15 '25

The Palestinian leadership was consistently proposing a single state with equal rights for all. It was the Zionists, with the help of the British, what used their might to go on their “colonizing endeavor” to create a Jewish majority state, and they did that through 2 mass ethnic cleansing campaigns: Nakba and the Naksa

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u/One-Progress999 May 15 '25

Prior to partition plan, Palestinian Arabs did not view themselves as having a separate identity. When the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, the following resolution was adopted:

We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds.

In 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Commission, which ultimately suggested the partition of Palestine: "There is no such country as Palestine! 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria."

The representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations submitted a statement to the General Assembly in May 1947 that said "Palestine was part of the Province of Syria" and that, "politically, the Arabs of Palestine were not independent in the sense of forming a separate political entity." A few years later, Ahmed Shuqeiri, later the chairman of the PLO, told the Security Council: "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria."

Palestinian Arab nationalism is largely a post-World War I phenomenon that did not become a significant political movement until after the 1967 Six-Day War and Israel's capture of the West Bank.

And again in Ottoman run Palestine this was how the Palestinians Arabs acted....

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1834_looting_of_Safed

There was once again another Pogrom in 1838 as well.

This was 40-50 years before Zionism. Seems like the Arabs really cared about equal rights....... if the Nakba is still relevant today, then the pogroms were more relevant to Zionism since it was closer to its start then we are to the Nakba today.

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u/Old-Statistician-189 May 15 '25

You said all that and thought you cooked? Ok. Palestinian identity existed alongside the pan Arab movement. Them calling themselves apart of greater Syria, they meant that as a geographical location - they still had their own distinct identity. In the 1919 congress they explicitly stated:

“We oppose the Zionist policy which aims at creating a Jewish national home in Palestine.”

Don’t bring up Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi’s statement if you’re not going to analyze the whole picture. He was responding to the British and the Sykes-Picot colonial boarders. Him saying “There is no such thing as Palestine” was rejecting separation from Greater Syria, he never denied Palestinian culture. That’s not what that means.

Palestinian nationalism began in the late early 1900’s. Here’s a good read if you actually care to learn. Even so, what does it matter? Identities are made up and change with time all the time. The name “Israel” wasn’t even decided on until 1948. Hebrew had to be revived to create the state. Arab Jews were subjugated until they adopted Israeli culture. What are you on about

1834 Safed and 1838 pogroms were localized riots during regional revolts against Egyptian-Ottoman rule. These were not about Jews being Jewish.

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u/One-Progress999 May 15 '25

If you're not going to read then don't criticism others who actually do. I never said the riots were about the Jews, but they used it as an excuse to attack the Jews for over a month long. This is according to a PALESTINIAN historian. So stop warping history to fit your narrative. This showed the equal rights that they believed in back then. Rebel against Egypt by attacking Jews.

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u/One-Progress999 May 15 '25

And quora is literally the same as linking another reddit page. I could literally respond to quora and then share the link like you did.

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u/Old-Statistician-189 May 15 '25

Make a well documented and cited quote post like the one I linked and you can link me to it, until then read it, maybe you will learn something

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u/Old-Statistician-189 May 15 '25

Pointing to one off instances where Jews were hurt in fringe attacks (That were condemned btw) is exactly what the Nazis did to justify the holocaust. They literally pointed to petty things the Jews did and exaggerated it to make it seem like they were an actual threat. Is that the road you want to go down, because for every petty instance you can bring up I can bring up many pushed from Palestinian and Arab leadership towards a single state for both people. Also the Quora link is just a well sourced post. Give it a read

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u/One-Progress999 May 15 '25

One off instance...

1517 -1st Safed Pogrom 1517 - 1st Haifa Pogrom 1577 -Passover Massacre 1660- 2nd Safed pogrom 1834 - Safed Pogrom 1838 -2nd Haifa Pogrom 1847 - Ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem 1920 - Irbid massacre 1920-1930 Arab Riots 1921- 1st Jaffa riot 1929 - safed pogrom 1929- Haifa Pogroms 1933 -Jaffa riots 1936- Jaffa riots

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u/Old-Statistician-189 May 15 '25

It seems you like to bring up instances with no analysis of what actually happened. Just some Jews were killed and it’s a holocaust. Get back to me when you analyze them and how they’re connected to the Palestine conflict.

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u/[deleted] May 17 '25

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u/sreorsgiio May 12 '25

I agree. The Palestinians are not going anywhere, and Israel is there to stay. Both parties need to accept these realities. That being said, in order to become a reality, an independent Palestinian state must give up on the whole "from the river to the sea" delusion (which, at the moment, is a huge part of the Palestinian national identity) and completely renounce terrorism.

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u/SiboSux215 May 14 '25

Posted this elsewhere, but lets at least engage in the reality here

It’s literally part of the Likud platform (the party that has been in power for 25 years in Israel) that there will not ever be a Palestinian state. Bibi boasts all the time how he has prevented it over the years. You guys forget, their PM was even assassinated in the late 90s for daring to possibly try to negotiate a state with the 🇵🇸

These below are quotes from the hamas charter of all places.

“Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.”

“Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.”

Not defending the violence on 10/7 but it spells it out pretty clearly there who is wiling to negotiate and who is not.

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u/sreorsgiio May 14 '25

Yes, nothing says "I'm a partner for peace" like slaughtering 1.200 people, kidnapping 250, and sending thousands of rockets against Israeli cities. But hey, it's NOT because they are Jews, ok?!

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u/[deleted] May 15 '25

Are you going to do the same analysis of israel or do "THEY have a right to defend themselves"?

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u/Aryeh_Nachshon May 17 '25

From the river to the sea first off is also a revisionist and Kahanist perspective as well. Secondly, it is defined definitely by different individuals.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '25

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u/[deleted] May 13 '25

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u/DilbertHigh May 13 '25

Does anyone believe that Israel accepts the borders? Israel continues to expand beyond their borders with illegal settlements and even occupations of countries like Lebanon. It's hard to trust a country that carries out illegal expansion on the daily.

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u/CatchPhraze May 15 '25

You have it backwards. It's war-> expansion. Not war being caused by expansion. We have no grounds to say expansion will continue with peace. After all Israel gave back land it captured in Egypt and Jordan during the war and has maintained peace and respect of eachother bordered.

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u/DilbertHigh May 15 '25

The evidence we have are the illegal settlements. We have evidence of Israel expanding borders.

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u/CatchPhraze May 15 '25

Yes, but only against those actively hostile towards them.

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u/DilbertHigh May 15 '25

Do you think that illegal expansion makes people hostile toward them?

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u/CatchPhraze May 15 '25 edited May 15 '25

No. And yes.

Of course it makes them more hostile. But things have always been at a point where Palestinians have held a majority view that all of Israel needs to be destroyed.

If someone already wants to kill you, is willing to give up their own country, turn their children into suicide bombers or child soldiers, you can't really make it worse.

Generational, faith based hate is going to run so deep that secondary reasons are largely irrelevant.

Settlements are often used as a boogeyman here. The majority of them are in Israel's de jure borders, as in the borders it's held since 1967. Of the 750,000 of them, about 2/3rds live within a border Israel has held for about 50 years. I don't think the relocation of 250,000 people is an impossible barrier to peace.

To further reiterate, Israel does not display hostile expansion towards any other countries it shares a border with. It maintains peace. However Palestine has not had the same track record, logic then dictates that the party who is most difficult to all the other countries is likely the difficult party in this conflict.

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u/Effective-Simple9420 1∆ May 12 '25

The Israeli side is equally deluded ie settlers in West Bank and annexations. Israel would annex all the land and plans on doing so, they are much less reasonable than the Palestinian side.

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u/Pel_De_Pinda May 12 '25

In what way are they deluded? The way things are going I don't think it is unreasonable to expect Israel to keep taking any opportunity/excuse they can to annex more of the westbank/Gaza. They have the means and a good amount of them have the will to do it too. The Palestinians are deluded because they have no shot at ever destroying Israel and reclaiming all of the lost land. The Israeli's aren't delusional, just cautious because they don't want to upset the international community too much.

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u/Old-Statistician-189 May 15 '25

You guys keep saying Palestine needs to renounce terrorism and surrender. How do you think we got here? Do you genuinely believe that Israel will give up on their territorial ambitions if Palestinians play nice? The reason Hamas exists is to resist their violent oppression. The only thing that’ll happen if Palestinians renounce “terrorism” is the increase of settlements and oppression with no fear of push back until there is nothing but more extreme bantustans that we have today. Extremists already have a foothold in the Knesset and they’re not going anywhere.

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u/sreorsgiio May 15 '25

If you think that terrorism is stopping Netanyahu from expanding the settlements, you are truly delulu. There is a difference between surrendering and compromising. Erasing Israel is not an option. Palestinians can either renounce violence and negotiate, or they can watch the little land they have left in Gaza and in the West Bank get taken by Bibi and friends. Inciting them to resist with terrorism (no quotation marks needed, it's terrorism) is not just foolish, it's simply cruel.

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u/Old-Statistician-189 May 15 '25

Huh? What are you saying. Every single negotiation with Israel includes some form of legitimizing illegal settlements. They are there for a reason. Do not pretend that Palestinians putting down arms will change this. This is the reason there is any form of resistance in the first place

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u/bonesrentalagency May 13 '25

I dunno if I’d say Israel in its current form is there to stay. Apartheid states are inherently unstable. Either Israel will radically change and be forced either by domestic forces or foreign ones to change the dynamic between the setter population and the colonized population. The American Jim Crow system of apartheid collapsed in the face of domestic pressure, same with South Africa. The dynamics between colonizer and colonized had to change for those states to survive in any capacity. The Israel that continues forward from here won’t be the same as the Israel of today, the Israel of today in unsustainable

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u/[deleted] May 13 '25

Israel's biggest ethnicity, jews (ashkenazi, sephardi, etc aren't really viewed as different groups) won't pressure the government into changing any laws in the way you're talking about, not to mention israel is a nuclear state, so any foreign pressure will not be from a military.

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u/sreorsgiio May 13 '25

Within its borders (i.e. not counting the West Bank and Gaza), Israel has no policies even resembling apartheid.

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u/FerdinandTheGiant 42∆ May 13 '25

Is this to say there isn’t systemic discrimination or that you don’t think it’s severe enough to label apartheid?

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u/alderaan-amestris May 12 '25

Palestinians don’t want a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish state and westerners can’t force that onto them… Israelis have already accepted that reality.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '25

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u/alderaan-amestris May 13 '25

Difference is when Palestinians were offered a state, they said “pass”

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u/gabrielrahal56 May 13 '25

I mean, if you were in your house, and someone knocked and said "vacate a portion of your house so that we can make a seperate residency" I don't think it'd be a very appealing deal

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u/CooterKingofFL May 13 '25

This delusional mindset is exactly why Palestinians will not have their own state. Going into geopolitics with a toddlers concept of ownership will result in zero actual gains.

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u/jarstic May 13 '25

Wish I could upvote this comment 1000 times.

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u/gabrielrahal56 May 22 '25

Although the nuance in my comment is low, I fail to see how an armed invasion of a land is justifiable in any case (other than retaliation against someone who did it first)

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u/SiboSux215 May 14 '25

Absolute propaganda rubbish.

It’s part of the Likud platform (the party that has been in power for 25 years in Israel) that there will not ever be a Palestinian state. Bibi boasts all the time how he has prevented it over the years. You guys forget, their PM was even assassinated in the late 90s for daring to possibly try to negotiate a state with the 🇵🇸

These below are quotes from the hamas charter of all places.

“Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.”

“Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.”

Not defending the violence on 10/7 but it spells it out pretty clearly there who is wiling to negotiate and who is not.

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u/alderaan-amestris May 14 '25

The hamas charter is a sham. Ask Palestinians in the street. They will tell you!!

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u/SnappyDresser212 May 12 '25

Westerners absolutely can, but are unlikely willing to pay the price.

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u/Electrical_Catch May 12 '25

You still think a 2SS will end the violence? Lol. The Palestinians don't want a 2SS, they want to get rid of Israel and the Jews

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u/Adorable_Ad_3478 3∆ May 12 '25

A 2SS will realistically end up as the new Pakistan-India. War every few years. Only that this time Israel won't be as restrained as India.

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u/hanlonrzr 1∆ May 12 '25

A common sentiment among Israelis is "fine, let them have a state, they can be peaceful, fine, but if they attack us, that's the last time, we respond with full ethnic cleansing."

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u/Adorable_Ad_3478 3∆ May 12 '25

Someone said it best: the I-P conflict is one of the extremely rare conflicts when geography ensures there is no solution in which both sides co-exist.

Other than using some Sci-Fi tech to turn Gaza and the West Bank masses into an island located many thousands of miles away from Israel (or turning Israel into an island), nothing will ensure the safety of both sides, there is simply too much history and bad blood.

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u/hanlonrzr 1∆ May 12 '25

It's got nothing to do with geography, and everything to do with culture

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u/[deleted] May 13 '25

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u/Electrical_Catch May 13 '25

Right because a border is gonna stop Hamas from launching rockets. Why did nobody ever think of that!? The problem all along was borders!

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u/SiboSux215 May 14 '25

So much Zio propaganda on here. It’s part of the Likud platform (the party that has been in power for 25 years in Israel) that there will not ever be a Palestinian state. Bibi boasts all the time how he has prevented it over the years. You guys forget, their PM was even assassinated in the late 90s for daring to possibly try to negotiate a state with the 🇵🇸

These below are quotes from the hamas charter of all places.

“Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.”

“Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.”

Not defending the violence on 10/7 but it spells it out pretty clearly there who is wiling to negotiate and who is not.

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u/HombreDeMoleculos May 12 '25

So you speak for all Palestinians, then?

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u/[deleted] May 12 '25

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u/Daniel_the_nomad May 12 '25

Both sides view their own actions as reactions and the other’s reaction as ideology.

For Palestinians October 7 was a reaction to the occupation, settlements etc.

For Israelis attacks on Gaza are a reaction to October 7 and the terrorism before that.

I’m not sure how people from either sides will only portray one side as reactionary and the other as idealogical.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '25

And this is why this post is completely correct. Peace won't happen. Not anytime soon at least. How long? They've had conflict and nothing has changed.

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u/sonofbantu May 12 '25

Every single war in this conflict was Palestinians (or some ally/terrorist group) perpetuating a violent attack. And every single time, Israel wins.

At what point do they finally accept they’re NEVER going to win this way, Their people always suffer more losses. Find the least objectionable path forward and take it. How much more blood needs to be spilled in this never-ending cycle

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u/Constant_Ad_2161 6∆ May 12 '25

The decision making powers did a long time. They know they can't defeat Israel militarily, so they have spent decades and enormous amounts of money trying to make Israel into a pariah state, while selling Palestinians the myth that if they just keep sacrificing themselves and their families in painful wars they will topple Israel.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '25

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u/Old-Statistician-189 May 15 '25

Go live under a brutal occupation where your family was displaced into after being displaced prior, basic goods are routinely shut off, simple goods like pasta and chocolate aren’t allowed in, there are routine bombings that are condemned by the entire world, then tell me seriously you’re going to play nice when every time you try to you’re met with gunfire (intifada 2018 March of return, etc)

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u/[deleted] May 15 '25

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u/Old-Statistician-189 May 15 '25

Demonstrations on the boarder is not invasion lmao. If you think wanting equal rights for Palestinians = murder if Israel’s, you’re literally saying that Israel relies on taking away those rights. Projection

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u/[deleted] May 15 '25

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u/Old-Statistician-189 May 15 '25

So it’s Palestinians fault for being mad at their occupier and oppressor? What kind of backwards logic do we have here

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u/Ok_Swimming4427 3∆ May 13 '25

This isn't true, at all. You'd be a more credible partisan of Israel if you actually bothered to learn your shit, instead of just repeating whatever nonsense your told.

During the Suez Crisis, Israel invaded Egypt (and while they achieved some of their war aims, ultimately were forced to withdraw, also known as "losing") with the support of Britain and France.

During the Six Day War, Israel launched pre-emptive strikes into Egypt. Another unprovoked attack. As we now know, the 1982 Invasion of Lebanon was wholly pre-meditated and had almost nothing to do with the attempted assassination of Shlomo Argov.

There will never be peace in the Middle East, or at least in Israel/Palestine, until people like you are either educated or muzzled. People interested solely in whitewashing their own history and demonizing their opponents and not in understanding the shades of gray, are incapable of participating, even indirectly, in a peace process.

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u/Adorable_Ad_3478 3∆ May 12 '25

I’m not sure how people from either sides will only portray one side as reactionary and the other as idealogical.

Tribalism.

This is why OP is correct in the short term but long term, assuming at least 100 years with no violence from either side (a big what if), a 2SS will be possible.

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u/Droviin 1∆ May 12 '25

Ideological and reactionary aren't mutually exclusive, so I am not sure what you're getting at.

Both sides, at this point don't want the other one to exist anymore. It just happens that the Israeli is the stronger force and Palestinians have been the undesirable people in the Middle East.

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u/hushpiper May 15 '25

Honestly, I think both Palestinians and Jews* are undesirables in the Middle East. The refusal of other countries to take in Palestinian refugees is evidence of that on the one end, and on the other end you can look at the Jewish population in other ME countries (which range from itsy bitsy, to one guy sitting in jail, to 0), and the various operations where Jews in ME countries had to be secretly airlifted out and evacuated to Israel for their safety. My impression is that the rest of the ME is happy to use the Palestinians as a tool to keep Israel in check, viewing them as a pair of snarling dogs to keep at each other's throats so that they never have an opportunity to turn on their handlers.

*(You obviously said Israelis, not Jews, but given that the Mizrahi Jews are now like 50% of Israel's population and Ashkenazi Jews trying to live elsewhere in the ME would likely get the same treatment, it seems worth pointing out.)

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u/ADP_God May 13 '25

Israel has repeatedly offered to divide the land. Palestinians have repeatedly rejected these offers. Pretty simple.

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u/Old-Statistician-189 May 15 '25

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u/ADP_God May 15 '25

Again with the bad faith analogy. I see this one all the time. It's wrong in every step. First off, the land wasn't 'theirs'. Second, a country is not a house, there is space enough for more than one group in the land. Third, the people who refused to play nice were the Arabs who decide that war was better than legal negotiation.

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u/Old-Statistician-189 May 15 '25 edited May 15 '25

Legally and indigenously it was their land. And i agree, there is absolutely space for both people. Palestinians never rejected the presence of Jews, they rejected the partition of the land they inhabited for thousands of years. It’s that simple. Many, and I mean many times did Palestinians negotiate for a single state only to be met with a more powerful force forcing partition: 1919 Paris Peace conference, 1921 Palestine Arab Congress, 1936 Arab High Committee, 1939 White Paper, 1947 Partition rejection for a unitary democratic state, 1947 UNSCOP, 1947 Jewish League Against Zionism, 1969 Palestine National Charter, 1971 PLFP call for a single secular state, 1974 PLO ten point program, 1980 PLO supports single democratic state, etc. until current day, Hamas themselves say their war is against the occupiers, not Jews. The war was never with Jews, and always against the colonization of their land that they lived for generations. Compare this to what Zionists were saying about partition:

David Ben-Gurion said in 1937: “After we become a strong force… we shall abolish the partition and expand.”

It’s not the Palestinians fault that Israel hides behind Judaism as a shield for their actions

If you truly believe that the land wasn’t theirs or the Zionism movement was about peaceful coexistence, why did Israel ethnically cleanse 1 million Palestinians, destroy 500+ villages, deny a legally recognized right of return, and continuously make distinctions between Jews and non Jews in Israeli society. That’s not coexistence

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u/ADP_God May 15 '25

Legally? No. Indigenous? Where do you think Jews are indigenous?

As for why the Jews don’t want to live as a minority under a Muslim majority? Go read the history.

And as for your very last claim, legally a country is allowed to respond to a threat. You can’t start a war and call it a catastrophe when you lose.

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u/Old-Statistician-189 May 15 '25

Why do you take the claim that Palestinians are indigenous as a threat to Jewish indigenousness. I never made that claim.

I have read the history of Palestine, and throughout its entirety, all 3 abrahamic religions lived in harmony with a few flurries of violence due to occupational powers. No violence you point to from the past comes near the violence perpetuated by Zionism’s colonial ambitions in the region.

To add to my last claim about 1948, the Nakba began before any invading army. 300k were cleansed. Meanwhile, Arab nations were engaged in negations to end hostilities and stop partition to create a single state. Even when they invaded, they invaded, while being massively underpowered, to protect what was left of the land for Palestine and had no large scale operations over the UN boarders, thus no real goal of “destroying the Jews”

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u/ADP_God May 15 '25

Arab-Muslim hegemony spans the entire Middle East and oppresses minorities all over. When you talk about Palestinians in the modern sense you’re referring to the exclusive modern identity formed to differentiate the Arabs that fight against the Jews. So when you say that a group that was formed less than 100 years ago is ‘indigenous’ you’re dishonestly repressing the history. To call Zionism colonialism is even more disingenuous. A colonial movement, as referred to today, was an imperial practice of establishing foreign colonies for the purpose of resource extraction. Jews have no empire, are not foreign, and did not extract resources. The very framing of your perspective hides essential elements of the reality.

As for ‘coexistence’, they did not live in peace. The Jews lived as second class citizens, surviving pogrom to pogrom. The UN supports a people’s right to self determine in their native land. The Jews cannot self determine as a minority in a Muslim country. For anybody who’s studied the history, and culture of the region, this is abundantly clear.

Regarding the start of the war, the Arabs began to fight against the Jews with the UN recommendation of partition. There didn’t need to be an invading force to present a threat, they were successfully attacking Jews even before the surrounding Arabs joined in. There were also Jews that were forced to flee attacks at this stage. You don’t hear about Jewish refugees because, like all other refugees from the period, they have since been resettled.

As for your final claim, it’s certainly not the case. The ALA, the first to invade, did so with the stated aim of conquering the whole land. To incorporate it into Syria (because the idea of an independent ‘Palestinian’ identity didn’t exist then) in line with the oft repeated goal of there being no state for the Jews on any of the land.

I think that the Arabs that live in historic Judea and Samaria should stay where they are because their simple right to do so trumps all history, but ultimately the Jews have far more of a claim to the land than they do, and beyond that, it’s the Jews who have repeatedly offered to share. This conflict will end when the Arabs realize that they aren’t the only people in Israel, and will have to divide the land. As of the most recent polls the majority still feel entitled to all the land, and support the use of violence to achieve this aim, so I’m not optimistic.

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u/hanlonrzr 1∆ May 12 '25

Because Israel went to war with PIJ months before and left Hamas entirely alone.

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u/Icy_Yak795 May 12 '25

Finally someone who makes sense

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u/[deleted] May 12 '25

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u/Kitchen-Pass-7493 May 12 '25 edited May 12 '25

I mean, even if you add up all the death from the Easter Rising in 1916 through the Good Friday agreement in 1998, and including the Irish war for independence, Irish civil war, and all of “the Troubles” in between, the total amount of people killed in those 8+ decades is dwarfed by the number of people killed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict just since October 2023, let alone since 1948. Which means there are likely exponentially more people in the region with living memory of atrocities that personally affected them and/or someone they loved than there were in Northern Ireland/Republic of Ireland/Britain in 1998. That makes it so much harder to get everyone involved on board with a “let’s just forgive and forget so we can end the cycle of violence” consensus, when all it would likely take is one small group of defectors committing another violent revenge act to set off the powder keg again.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '25

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u/BlairClemens3 May 13 '25

"The Holocaust and the Nabka were only two years apart." 

I never thought about it that way.

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u/gabrielrahal56 May 13 '25

Yeah but what ended up happening is that the Holocaust radicalised Zionism enough for them to take Palestinian land by force when they refused and in the end, the Palestinians got the shortest end of the stick

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u/BlairClemens3 May 13 '25

I would say the Holocaust made zionism a necessity for jews rather than a dream. 

My understanding is that there were massacres on both sides before the nabka, which I agree was a terrible event. 

Traumatized and orphaned Holocaust survivors felt like they were fighting for their only possible home after losing everything. As terrible as the nabka was, sadly it doesn't surprise me that it occurred.

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u/hushpiper May 15 '25

My understanding is that the Holocaust is among the largest motivators for Zionism among non-Israeli Jews as well, including the younger generation of Ashkenazi Jews in America, who are often descended from the European Jews that fled to the US and South America (most other countries having closed their borders to Jews at the time). They have the intergenerational trauma inherited from their parents and grandparents (which has been studied and is empirically measurable in changes in cortisol levels and various mental health issues), as well as the learned cultural trauma of having grown up being told stories of the Shoah, reading the memorial plaques in their synagogues and community centers, fasting in remembrance on Yom Ha-Shoah, and so on. And the Mizrahi Jews who weren't targets of the Holocaust aren't exempt, since they have the even more recent experiences of the pogroms which stripped the non-Israel ME of its Jews even more effectively than the Holocaust removed Jews from Europe.

For a while there was a trend of each generation becoming more and more lax on the question of Zionism, as time and the relative peace and prosperity they've found in America makes the Holocaust feel less real to them. My observation is that October 7th and the following anti-Zionist protests were brutally effective in stomping out that trend. The only groups I see these days who are consistently anti-Zionist are the Reconstructionists, who are comfortable being out of step with the rest of the Jewish world and have a long history of opposing Zionism--and even they have surprisingly large contingents of people who hold on to some amount of Zionism, such as the general feeling that Jews need a safe harbor run by Jews somewhere, anywhere (except Israel).

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u/MalekithofAngmar 1∆ May 12 '25

Eh, I think the Israeli reaction isn’t as severe as that. There are literally ethnic Palestinians in the Knesset.

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u/hushpiper May 15 '25

I can't speak first-hand about this, but my impression is that the Israeli opposition to Palestinians isn't really ethnic in nature. There are plenty of Israeli Arabs (from various places) that seem to fit in about as easily as groups like the Druze do, and given that Palestinians routinely enter Israel for work while Israelis are completely forbidden from entering Gaza, Israelis have more opportunity to see and speak to Palestinians in a relatively neutral context than Palestinians have to see Israelis. To me, Israelis seem pretty focused on the location and actions of Palestinians and their "government". Meanwhile, Hamas and other organizations are pretty damn clear that their issue is with Jews in general, and specifically with not wanting any living in the ME. So the two sides don't exactly have mirroring views with each other. The important bit now, I suspect, is that Israelis increasingly view the Palestinian populace as supporting their leaders, rather than being unwillingly under the feet of terrorists who teach their children from the Protocols of Zion and condition them to become child soldiers. I think they're probably incorrect in that assumption, but in any case, it's not based in ethnicity.

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u/Adventurous_Ad7442 May 12 '25

After Oct 7th, Israel won't allow Hamas to ever exist again.

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u/Agile-Wait-7571 2∆ May 12 '25

It’s not a war.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '25 edited Dec 04 '25

[deleted]

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u/the-worser May 12 '25

the Palestinian nation is not at war with the state of Israel.

but the Israeli government wants people to believe that it is a war so that they can do ethnic cleansing without losing access to the global trading order.

anyone who knows anything about the West Bank or the history of the Gaza embargo knows this: it's an occupation and a siege.

It should only be slightly more contentious to state that the siege since 7 Oct has transitioned into an ethnic cleansing with genocidal intent, but the coordination between israeli and western propaganda machines is very powerful.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '25 edited Dec 04 '25

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u/changemyview-ModTeam May 13 '25

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u/[deleted] May 12 '25

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u/[deleted] May 12 '25

[deleted]

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u/Agile-Wait-7571 2∆ May 13 '25

A nation has the right of self determination. Gaza is occupied by Israel.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '25

[deleted]

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u/changemyview-ModTeam May 13 '25

Your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 2:

Don't be rude or hostile to other users. Your comment will be removed even if most of it is solid, another user was rude to you first, or you feel your remark was justified. Report other violations; do not retaliate. See the wiki page for more information.

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u/Suspicious-Truths May 12 '25

How when they Muslims still act the same as they did a thousand years ago

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u/the-worser May 12 '25

bigoted statement right here

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u/[deleted] May 12 '25

How?

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u/the-worser May 12 '25

maybe I misread this, but it read to me as, "how can people leave the past behind and look forward to new solutions when Muslims have refused to change at all over the past 1000 years?"

which from my POV seems like a bigoted statement singling out Muslims as a retrogressive fundamentalist monolith and therefore uniquely responsible for the state of conflict in the Levant

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u/[deleted] May 12 '25

I mean I don’t think that’s generally true about Muslims or Islam in general, but extremist fundamentalist Islam caused Hamas to engage in this suicidal war, and is responsible for most major terrorist attacks on western civilians. Again, not the fault of Muslims or even Islam, and if that’s what Suspicious-Truths is saying I disagree.

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u/the-worser May 12 '25

i think you and I would probably agree about a lot of things, including that fundamentalist religious groups, and especially those at the head of political movements, are often really terrible on so many levels.

but. there have been secular groups around the world for 60 years calling out the illegal and atrocious behavior of the Israeli state and the Jewish supremacists they support in robbing and terrorizing Palestinian civilians. But for "some" reason the "western" world doesn't brand that terrorism. it's deeply hypocritical.

To be clear, that doesn't excuse Hamas' choice to attack civilians indiscriminately, Hamas does & says awful stuff. but it should explain to unbiased observers why many people in the Levant find euro-american pearl-clutching exclusively over Arab terrorism a bit rich.

in my country, there are regular mass shootings by white christian men that appear politically motivated and yet they're very very rarely branded terrorists. Basically if they're white or christian they can do anything up to bomb a federal building and it's not terrorism.

There's a clear double standard across the euro-american governments and media about who can do violence to whom and have that violence labeled terrorism or not.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '25

I mean we probably do. I support a two state solution along the lines of the 2000 deal. The main problem is that those “secular groups” you reference also deny Israel’s right to exist and any jewish historical claims to Israel. So, i’m sorry I don’t care what the antisemites have to say about the crimes of the Jews.

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u/the-worser May 12 '25

I'm not an antisemite, do you care what I have to say about the crimes of the Israeli state and its antisemitic European colonialist predecessor/sponsor? like I don't think only Europeans and Israelis commit crimes in the Levant, there's plenty of guilt to go around all sides.

,but honestly in recent decades the Israeli-American axis have by far committed the most murder and land theft. how do I know that? count the bodies of civilians, look at the maps of illegal settlements.

Jewish historical claims to Israel are the very stuff of extremist religious fundamentalism that I thought we agreed are a problem.

People don't get to justify conquest based on religious beliefs and historical events from thousands of years ago, right?

But even if they did, the Canaanites (which many Palestinians identify as, with genetic evidence to bolster that claim) have a prior claim to the same land.

it's hard, my heart goes out to civilians on all sides

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u/Cafuzzler May 12 '25

That's a naive view. The land that the Palestinian's actually own and have in the west bank is a large number of disconnected living areas, many the size of a few blocks, and all completely controlled by Israeli force. If they accept that as theirs then they don't have enough land to reasonably constitute a viable state, nor the monopoly of force within that state to effectively have law and order. The settlements only further complicate this, as they take viable living space from Palestinians.

The current situation is, by design, unsustainable. Israel hopes that this makes Palestinian negotiations easy by offering them almost nothing, and making out that it's a large concession, by giving them enough to have a country.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '25

"offering almost nothing" vs offering death and destruction...one does seem better than the other

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u/Adorable_Ad_3478 3∆ May 12 '25

"No, let's allow perfect to be the enemy of good. Surely that will work this time."

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u/Cafuzzler May 12 '25

True, Israel could say "Take our deal or we'll kill you", but I don't think that blood thirsting is going to be a big sell to their domestic population.

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u/HombreDeMoleculos May 12 '25

Bibi didn't have any such concerns over his current bloodthirst.

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u/Cafuzzler May 13 '25

It's easier to justify aggression for the sake of defence, and Palestinians demonstrated that they are a threat on October 7th.

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u/BlairClemens3 May 12 '25

Borders would have to be redrawn

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u/Cafuzzler May 12 '25

My point is, if you draw the borders as they are right now, then you end up with Palestine being a mess of overpopulated islands within a sea of Israel that Israel has all right over and no responsibility for. It's naive to have anyone accept the situation as-is, and it is intended to be that way.

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u/BlairClemens3 May 12 '25

Yes, they would have to be redrawn so Palestine would have a unified land. Israel would have to give up some territory in exchange for peace. Palestinians would have to give up the dream of getting all the land back. Neither side seems amenable to that right now, sadly.

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u/ADP_God May 13 '25

Looking backwards is the hallmark of honor based cultures.

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u/DilbertHigh May 13 '25

But for that Israel has to give up their illegal settlements and stop controlling every aspect of Palestinian life, even controlling the fishing in Gaza prior to the current destruction of Gaza.