Arab-Israeli Conflict, v2: What the UN Jerusalem vote mean for Israel, the U.S, and Palestine

[mcveteran81]

20 pages of random anti-Trump rants and bickering little children flinging mud at one another being dumped into our organized and civilized discussion? No thank you.

 

[Arkain2K]

It's really too bad we can't have a period of about 40 years between wars so the people from the last one can die out or leave leadership roles to allow people that didn't fight each other with guns in their hands to be at the table together.

Pretty much ALL post-war peace talks involves rational adults sitting at the same table who have just been recently shooting at each other. Most of them don't even wanna look at each other, but they all want peace.

The only thing different about this case is that the notion of "peace" itself is considered secondary for everyone at the table, they would gladly choose to prolong the status quo and subject their people to further violence and suffering instead making real concessions in the name of peace.

Why? Because everyone think they are the innocent victim here, while the other side has always been the evil aggressors, and they all have plenty of selective-evidents from the past 50 years to prove it.

It's also the reason why ALL the previous peace talks, from Clinton to Obama, have utterly failed: the polite mediators have always expected the bickering children at the table to magically learn how to behave like rational adults, rather than putting the foot down and tell them to knock it off with the bullshitting and get real.

 

[Arkain2K]

Mostly-Peaceful protests happening in the West Bank:

 

[deltapapha]

man I'm disappointed. I thought the gates of hell were supposed to open up.

 

[Arkain2K]

Why Donald Trump is right on Jerusalem
Abhijit Iyer-Mitra | Dec 07 2017

​

The hysteria surrounding the US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is based on the fact that too much store is laid on Donald Trump-baiting, not enough attention is paid to what he said.

Moreover, there is a lot of ignorance of history. As things stand, President Trump’s announcement simply acknowledges reality, buries the false shibboleths of the old peace process, and kick-starts a new approach, exactly as he claimed.

The first thing to note here is that the land allocated for the future US embassy building in Jerusalem is in West Jerusalem. And Israeli control over West Jerusalem was sanctified first by the 1949 armistice agreement and then formalized in 1967, thereby forming the baseline for the Oslo accords and the UN resolutions. This line demarcates the “State of Israel”, recognition of which was the precondition to the Israeli-Palestinian accords. Israeli control over West Jerusalem, therefore, is not disputed—at least not by the Palestinian Authority or by the countries that recognize and maintain diplomatic relations with Israel.

The US consulate in the city, on the other hand, straddles this imaginary 1949 line, being half in West Jerusalem and half in an area that was a demilitarized zone. It was in 2010, under president Barack Obama, that the building was shifted from its previous location in East Jerusalem to its present position. Thus, the belief that setting up an embassy in West Jerusalem sanctifies the Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem (which is not internationally recognized) is simply factually incorrect, as the presence of the previous consulate would have already conferred such legitimacy, as would the current consulate. At any rate, President Trump’s announcement makes it clear that the US is “not taking a position of any final status issues, including the specific boundaries of the Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem or the resolution of contested borders”.

Second, we have to understand that the so-called peace process to which everyone seems so attached has been effectively dead ever since the late Yasser Arafat, the then president of the Palestinian Authority, rejected the proposed final settlement at the Camp David Summit in July 2000. That deal offered him 95% of the West Bank, all of Gaza, compensation in lieu of the right of return of the Palestinian diaspora, and, most importantly East Jerusalem.

Arafat decided that the best way to get an even better deal was to stoke violence, triggering the second intifada in September of that same year, ostensibly to protest Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Al-Aqsa mosque. What is important about this point is that it highlights each side’s approach to negotiations—but also the sheer futility of land for peace—trading tangible land in return for intangible peace.

Israel, for its part, uses a mix of carrot and stick. The carrots are the repeated offer of land transfer that happened for much of the 1990s, while the sticks have been the construction of settlements. The message it conveys to the Palestinians is, “take what you are offered now, or else we will keep nibbling away at your territory, create new ground realities and your slice of the land pie will only continue to shrink”.

When agreement has been reached in the past, Israel has demonstrated a willingness to live up to its side of the bargain. For example, the agreement ending the second intifada in 2005 was followed by the total withdrawal of Israel, settlements, settlers, troops and all,from the Gaza strip.

On the Palestinian side, there is no real negotiating tactic, merely failure-compensation to mask monumental corruption and incompetence. For much of his life, Arafat failed to control terrorists on his side who went on to kill Israelis, frequently encouraging them through acts of commission and omission and the rhetoric of hate, saying one thing in English and quite the other in Arabic. For example, as late as 18 August 2011, the Palestinian ambassador to India, Adli Sadeq, was praising a terror attack in Eilat that killed six civilians and injured 30 as a “quality operation that will be difficult to repeat”, referring to the perpetrators as “martyrs”.

A pervasive view in the West Bank, including among Palestinian Authority officials, is that in a few years they will overtake the Jews demographically and then demand equal rights in a unified state. This wishful thinking is the closest the Palestinian state has to a coherent policy—negating the two-state solution (which they espouse publicly but reject privately, not unlike extremist Jews) and believing rather delusionally that Israel will agree to reverse the partition of Palestine.

What Trump’s announcement has done is fire a warning shot. The move of the embassy to Jerusalem carries with it the implicit threat that the US will either sanctify or reject Israeli control of East Jerusalem. On the one hand, this conveys to the Palestinian Authority that it must reach a settlement during Trump’s presidency. On the other, it is equally a warning to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose core constituency would consider it unthinkable to give up the occupied territories. While some commentators, without any proof or causal linkages, will attribute future acts of violence and terror to this move, the inescapable conclusion remains that this is a pragmatic step in the right direction.

Abhijit Iyer-Mitra is senior fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies.

http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/f0Vh0i03T6EJpFakAplAON/Why-Donald-Trump-is-right-on-Jerusalem.html

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

Palestinians protesting across the West Bank and East Jerusalem against US President Donald Trump’s declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

 

[Son of Jamin]

i like how you're only thinking about the jews dying lool

...every loss of life is tragic, that includes Muslim lives as well. My point was that it won't be Jews that will go on a rampage against Palestinians.

 

[Son of Jamin]

 

[MrJak]

I looked up the history of Jerusalem. In 1947 it was drawn up by the UN as an international city (previously controlled by England since 1917), but the Muslims and Jews didn't get along (Muslims didn't like that Jews lived there--this was before 1948 when Israel claimed independence).

The Muslims started rioting in 1936. Jews, to defend themselves developed a resistance in 1949 (also because England had a plan to give independence in the region to the Muslims and not the Jews). England withdrew from the area and West Jerusalem was divided to the Jews and the East to the Muslims (which included Bethlehem). In 1948 Israel declared its independence as a state. This is what Zionism is. It is basically the belief that the Jews should have their own home. People who say they are anti-zionist are saying that they think the Jews should not have their own state.

Egypt blocked off the Straits of Tiran so that Israel could not use the water to ship cargo. Israel attacked and opened the Straits again. Israel asked Jordan to remain neutral, but they preferred to team up with Egypt to get rid of the Jews. Later, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and troops from Iraq invaded Israel. Israel defended itself during the 6 day war and took control of East Jerusalem. Instead of making all of the Palestinians leave like they wanted to do to the Jews, they offered them citizenship. In fact, the proportion of Muslims to Jews has been increasing since 1967 when the 6 day war took place.


Jews are still not allowed to go to pray in their holiest part of the city such as the Dome of the Rock that is controlled by Jordan (even though in the ceasefire they agreed they would be able to). The Muslims also destroyed Jewish religious sites there since then. Jerusalem was already the capital of Israel around 1948. Most Christians moved out of the Muslim area as well because of restrictions on their religion and treatment by the Muslims.

Jewish synagogues were turned into hen houses and stables. The 3000 year Mount of Olives Jewish Cemetary was destroyed and the gravestones were used to make roads and latrines (38,000 tombs).



So, as you can see, Jerusalem was split until Israel was invaded by Muslim countries who did not want the Jews in the area. Israel won, so by right Jerusalem is theirs, especially considering it was self-defense.

 

[DC23]

There's quite a few threads on this. It's been a fun few days.

 

[MrJak]

Aww, just checked the top ones didn't see. Can always hope for some Arab MMA fans to get triggered.

 

[Billy no mates]

I think the fairest solution would be to destroy the city .

 

[WTF2008]

I think the fairest solution would be to destroy the city .

Or just not care or get involved in it.

 

[splendica]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...848315642d0_story.html?utm_term=.7dd0aea6fc78

It's happening. Tomorrow on Friday, will be worst when everyone gets out of the mosque

There's quite a few threads on this. It's been a fun few days.

Today could get busy. I hope not.

 

[evansusmc2]

Serious question, how long will it be before Arabs out-number Jews via birth rate disparity? I’ve already heard a few of my American Jew buddies admit that their days are numbered in that region.

 

[Son of Jamin]

Serious question, how long will it be before Arabs out-number Jews via birth rate disparity? I’ve already heard a few of my American Jew buddies admit that their days are numbered in that region.

A good article on the subject:

In contrast to conventional demographic wisdom, Israel is not facing a potential Arab demographic time bomb. In fact, the Jewish State benefits from a robust Jewish demographic tailwind.
At the outset of 2017, for the first time - and in defiance of projections made by Israel's demographic establishment since the early 1940s - Israel's Jewish fertility rate (3.16 births per woman) exceeds Israel's Arab rate of fertility (3.11).

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/21243

Then they can also push for Aliyah inmany countries.

 

[splendica]

Serious question, how long will it be before Arabs out-number Jews via birth rate disparity? I’ve already heard a few of my American Jew buddies admit that their days are numbered in that region.

Arab birth-rate is slowing world-wide, particularly in Western countries. 8 million Jews in Israel is likely enough (I think that's about the number). They'll need to up their baby-making though. Everyone in The West needs to. But their smarts will help them just fine unless the number disparity becomes increasingly massive.

 

[splendica]

A good article on the subject:
Then they can also push for Aliyah inmany countries.

I thought this was the case. Good post, nice article find.

 

[tramendous]

...every loss of life is tragic, that includes Muslim lives as well. My point was that it won't be Jews that will go on a rampage against Palestinians.

Yes it will. F16s and an advanced military vs rock throwers lol. A lot more palestinians will die than Israelis. Ah 'hooomans sheeldz!' and all that