Any solution to the Israel-Hamas War requires realism.

[lees1975]

The debate is all over the place, with one of the key points being the influence that the United States has because of the financial power we wield, the idea being that somehow it is our responsibility to determine what happens, not Israel's and not the Palestinians and of course not Hamas.

Israel has a right to exist in its ancient, historic homeland. And it should be noted, that since the UN first started working out a Palestine partition, and a "two state solution" if that's what we want to call it, it has not been Israel that has disagreed with the plans. It has also not been Israel that has launched the attacks starting the wars. Israel has built trusted alliances with the broader Arab world. Maybe this will upset that but it doesn't look like it. Some Arabs are realistic. Let them broker a peace deal.

[Cartoonist]

1. My definition of realism does not include a belief in God.

And that's the whole problem here.

[The Magistrate]

2. Along With the Fact That Each Side Feels The Other Inferior By Nature

Most of the god-bothering is just a hook to hang the contempt for the other on....

[maxsolomon]

3. Your assertion that Israel has a right to exist is not embraced by all.

Ancient Jewish homeland or not. That's kind of the crux of the problem.

[TheKentuckian]

4. Fair enough. The nation of Palestine has never existed at all.

The territory the Arabs that call themselves Palestinians live in territory captured in a lost war of genocidal aggression they joined in with so they can seek space with their brothers, sisters, and allies.

Want to get hard core about the right to exist, so be it? Death to the self determined to be a stillborn protest "state" that never was it is then.

[Ace Rothstein]

6. Well Israel exists now and it isn't going anywhere.

The Palestinians will just continue to self inflict more pain and suffering if they continue to deny the right of Israel to exist. The OP is about realism, not pie in the sky thinking.

[maxsolomon]

9. Agreed. It's not going anywhere.

Arafat had multiple opportunities to get a Palestinian state and he balked every time.

With Netanyahu in power, the possibility of a Palestine may disappear forever.

[lees1975]

10. So what's the historical standard for that?

At what point is it no longer possible for a people displaced by war and conquest from their ancient homeland to return? And what's the criteria for re-establishing their sovereignty in their old homeland?

The fact is, Jews have been present in Palestine since the 1,300's B.C.E. and are the only ethnic group in the region to actually have had a sovereign state on that land. Everyone else that is there has always been subject to someone else's rule. Even when the Caliphates built the Muslim Empire and took control, they were not the same ethnicity as the Palestinian Arabic speakers, nor of the same Islamic sect.

So who makes those decisions? There's not some panel of jurists sitting in judgement over the history of the world. The decision was made by one of the conquerors of the land, the most recent ones, the British Empire.

And it's not like Palestinians were just excluded from the process or not considered. A fourth of the population of Israel is Arab, along with a small percentage of Christians, also Arabic, and those who live within the boundaries of the nation are citizens with full rights. Some actually participate in government. And during all of these outbreaks of violence, 1967 most notably, the opportunity for the Arab Palestinian population to merge into the political state of Israel was there. Prior to 1967 they were living under the Jordanian monarchy in the West Bank, or the Egyptian dictatorship in the Gaza strip. Every time there is a negotiation and another opportunity for Palestinians to benefit, it's foreign terrorists who start something and prevent it from happening.

[Arazi]

11. Good summary. There's a few here who don't seem to know this history

Thanks for this

[maxsolomon]

12. Who makes those decisions?

Wish I knew. Certainly, Britain and the UN have been rejected by the anti-Zionists/anti-Colonialists.

Israel is a fait accompli as far as I'm concerned. Does it have a "right" to exist? That's a moot question. It exists.

Likewise, a sovereign Palestinian state. Does it have a "right" to exist? It doesn't exist, and its possible existence is becoming less likely with every new settlement & every section of security wall built. Which is by design.

[Big Blue Marble]

5. The question we are facing now is do the Palestinians have a right to exist.

They are the ones in immediate danger of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Palestine is their
historic homeland. There were very few Jews living there for the last 2000 years
until they began to return in the late 1800's.

And to say to say that Israel has not blocked the peace process, is to deny recent history,
starting with the 800,000 illegal settlers in the West Bank that are there intentionally
to make a true peace accord with Palestinians impossible.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Netanyahu is explicitly against a two state solution

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/benjamin-netanyahu-prevented-palestinian-state-two-state-solution_n_6580a368e4b0e142c0bed60b

Support for a two state solution used to be majority among Palestinians, but has declined (disillusioned?), but the Palestian Authority still backs it:

Gallup polling conducted between July and September this year (before the latest war began) found just 24 per cent of Palestinians would support a two state solution. That’s a massive collapse in support since 2012, when the figure was around 60 per cent.

Another pollster, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, did manage to carry out a survey in November and December this year as the war unfolded. Those results found that 35 per cent of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip support a two state solution.

Despite the apparent lack of popular support for a two state solution, the leader of the Palestinian Authority – which controls the West Bank but not Gaza – Mahmoud Abbas, has recently repeated his desire for one. The UK and the US also say that this is their preferred outcome.

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-what-is-a-two-state-solution-and-do-israelis-and-palestinians-want-one

[keithbvadu2]

8. Realism... a ceasefire alone is pro-Hamas. They vow to keep killing Jews and committing more terrorism.

There is no solution without eliminating Hamas.

Hamas wants to kill more Jews just as Trump's republicans want to do.