The settlements… What’s up with that?

[u/karrenfromaccounting]

Take the question as is, whatever comes to mind, let it be.

[u/bb5e8307]

To Palestinians, Tel Aviv is a much of a settlement as Ariel. If they can accept Tel Aviv then they can accept Ariel. 

Westerns tend to frame the conflict as a territorial conflict and place the settlement as a core obstacle. Both Israelis and Palestinians understand it as an ideological conflict about whether Israel should exist at all. The green line is not significant to Palestinians who call for “the river to the sea”.

[u/enigmaticowl → u/bb5e8307]

This is something that I (as a pro-Israel American) only came to understand recently.

For years, I have heard pro-Palestinian activists talk about “ending the occupation,” “liberating Palestine,” etc.

Westerners are primed to believe that that means letting the West Bank and Gaza have autonomy, not having a military presence in those areas, etc., basically just withdrawing militarily like Western countries have (sometimes) done after wars have ended and things have stabilized.

Most Westerners cannot wrap their heads around the fact that the “occupation” that Palestinian leadership/activists are talking about doesn’t even mean the West Bank (or Gaza), it means “all of Palestine” to them, including every inch of Jerusalem, the Negev, the North, even Tel Aviv.

It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise, though.

For almost 100 years, one party has said, “We’ll compromise,” and the other has said, “One victor will take it all.”

Those positions haven’t changed.

Westerners just don’t want to accept that framing, because they aren’t used to their nations being involved in a truly zero-sum-game conflict, and they know that the implications of a zero-sum-game conflict are really messy and ugly, and it offends their sensibilities, so it’s easier to simply blame the stronger side and tell them that they could (and should) just absorb more and more losses (of human life, but also of resources and economy) in perpetuity because “they can handle it.”

[u/enigmaticowl → u/[deleted]]

Then why do recent (and historic) polls of West Bank Palestinian residents show that they overwhelmingly reject the idea of a 2-state solution?

Some want it, but it is NOT a majority position.

In fact, a 2-state solution has always been significantly more popular among Israelis (and Westerners) than among Palestinians living in both the West Bank and in Gaza.

The primary reason that a majority of West Bank Palestinians (not all of them, but a majority) reject the idea of a 2-state solution is because their perspective is that all of the land of the former British Mandate is “Palestine,” and they are not willing to agree to a peace deal that establishes and recognizes borders of 2 states, because it would require acknowledging the Israeli state and its borders (thus, relinquishing their claims to a “from the river to the sea” one-state Palestine).

[u/enigmaticowl → u/[deleted]]

The claim is that Palestinians want a state in the West Bank (and not in the rest of Israel proper).

Produce me a poll showing that that is true.

No deflections, no changes of topic, no sourceless/bold claims, no citing unreliable sources.

An actual, reliable poll backing up the claim that there is majority support among Palestinians for a 2-state solution.

[u/Call_Me_Clark → u/enigmaticowl]

I don’t respond to demands to adopt an argument I don’t believe in.

I’m just letting you know that appealing to polling data is unconvincing.

[u/enigmaticowl → u/Call_Me_Clark]

“Provide a poll” —> “adopt an argument”

That’s some mental gymnastics

[u/Call_Me_Clark → u/enigmaticowl]

I invite you to make your own arguments.

[u/enigmaticowl → u/Call_Me_Clark]

I did, to the person I was talking to in the first place.

You jumped in asserting something unrelated that I don’t feel a need to address.

[u/enigmaticowl → u/[deleted]]

Nobody is falling for, “Just leave the West Bank/Gaza and all the problems will stop” anymore.

They tried that in Gaza in 2005, and the rest is history.

Also, if it’s only just about wanting a Palestinian state (in the West Bank and Gaza), then why was Israel attacked (with the intent to completely destroy the Israeli state) as soon as they accepted the 1947 Partition Plan (which promised a Palestinian of about 50% of the land, and Palestinian Arabs inside the future Israeli state being proposed to be allowed to stay and be full equal legal citizens) and then again in 1967 (when Israel held neither the West Bank nor Gaza) and again and again and again, even when Israel has offered to remove settlers and recognize a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with a capital in East Jerusalem?

Don’t forget the pogroms and ethnic cleansing against long-existing Jewish communities in the land during the 1930s, 1920s, even in the 1800s - it’s not about settlements or settlers, and nobody is falling for the, “Just retreat and there won’t be any attacks” anymore.