This seems about right, and the observation about spoilers is apt. Egypt and Jordan are willing to clamp down on diehards and prevent a spoiler effect from their own borders, which is why Israel hasn't fought another war with them in 50 years. Though the fact they won't accept Palestinian refugees or annex Palestine is also why the problem is interminable.
Part of the reason Egypt and Jordan are willing to maintain peace is that they have a corrupt leadership class that's wary of the Islamists and that doesn't want its military wrecked in any more wars, but I imagine another reason is that those countries have an entire life and existence that's independent of Israel. If you're a typical Muslim living in Cairo, sure you hate the Israelis, but you also have the ability to tune them out. They have nothing to do with your daily life or the life of anyone you know. If they disappeared tomorrow, nothing would change. So most of the time, while you're annoyed at your government for not doing more, it's one of many things about your government that annoys you. Not something you're prepared to risk your life over at this moment. In the end, you enjoy living in a stable society.
If you're a Palestinian, Israel isn't something you can ignore, it actually does do things that screw up your life and the lives of people you know, and it's easy to blame all the problems in the world on it. You can't really build a political coalition around anything besides wanting to be rid of Israel, which means that you have limits to how harsh you can be towards people whose only sin is hating Israel more than you.
There's no two-state solution; either Israel one day swallows the Palestinian poison-pill (whether as an act of national murder or suicide) and becomes Lebanon 2.0, or the Palestinians are eventually expelled or annexed into one or more functioning states. Until then, the status quo prevails. Which is livable for Israel, so long as it keeps its guard up.
To be clear, I'm not really as pro-Israel as Richard seems to be these days. It's probably more in the US national interest to try to cultivate better relations with the Arabs and create some distance from Israel. I naturally find the Israelis more sympathetic, but I can sympathize with the Palestinians too.
That doesn't really explain why there isn't the same kind of desire for peace by Palestinians we saw with Ireland.
The Palestinians are just as capable as anyone else (in theory) of deciding that they hate Israel but would rather stop the violence so they can improve their lot and not die.
IMO what distinguishes this conflict is the extent to which it is supported, financed and encouraged by a Palestinian diaspora (and other Muslims) who don't pay any price from continued violence.
The difference between northern Ireland and Palestine is that 1) the Irish diaspora (and the country of Ireland) just weren't all that invested in hating the unionists the way the original IRA was and 2) the IRA leadership personally benefited from peace rather than being harmed by it (Gary Adams went from living a dangerous life of violence to being a well to do politician the Palestinian leadership will go from being courted in 5 star international hotels to being grilled about corruption and democratic rights under a peace deal)
Good points. Though I think there are a lot of differences from Northern Ireland, which basically settled on the "one-state solution" that the UK wanted but for Israel would be a suicide pill.
I also think there are cultural differences that are relevant to why the Palestinian "spoiler" element is so persistent. Unlike Ireland, the Israeli-Arab conflict occurs along a civilizational fault line, with a much higher level of animosity. The two sides in the Troubles often tried to minimize casualties, calling in warnings ahead of many (most?) of the bombings. Hamas, conversely, is clearly trying to maximize casualties. It brings a much more genocidal energy to the table than the IRA ever did.
The point about IRA leadership vs. likely outcome for Hamas is something I hadn't really thought about too much though. The PA probably fares better, but how much better? It's easy to imagine any Palestinian leader who signs a peace deal being assassinated. For another Irish comparison, look at Michael Collins and the response to the treaty with Britain.
Just spitballing because I don't know exactly how you accomplish it, but maybe the peace settlement includes making the Palestinian leader into a king. Marry him to a Saudi or Jordanian princess, if that helps. Produce a family tree; if the House of Windsor is descended from Mohammed, surely every living Arab also is at this point. If Bahrain can be a kingdom, then Gaza and the West Bank are each populous enough to be a kingdom.
If you can make it stick, Arab kingdoms are almost universally better than their republics, both for their own citizens and the US.
Yes, I didn't mean to suggest there weren't other differences, only that I didn't buy the idea that the factors raised so far were enough to explain why peace was so elusive as most of those factors were also there in northern Ireland.
I agree Hamas is different than the IRA and a one state solution isn't likely to work here (tho TBF there also aren't unionists who wanted to prevent a 2 state solution in Northern Ireland) but I think Hamas itself is partly a reaction to those factors.
Regarding making the Palestinian leader a king. I think if that had been on the table we'd have already had peace back in the 90s. I think it's an interesting idea, just not a practical one. While the potential for assassination is real, I think it's actually the fact that they'd go from being wined and dined internationally to being pressed about the corruption and etc while simultaneously losing much of their international support that creates the bigger problem.
And now, without any single Palestinian leader in charge, negotiation is virtually hopeless. You can hope to grudgingly find a deal between an Israeli and Palestinian leader but Israel isn't interested in a deal that doesn't end the conflict and any deal that does that likely won't be in the interest of at least one of the two Palestinian parties.
Brilliant comment and an idea I’ve never encountered despite reading thousands of words on the Israel/Palestine conflict. It’s analogous to studies showing that civil wars are longer and more deadly when one or both sides are supported by external great powers. The external support serves as a disincentive for the local players to compromise because they never run out of money or resources so why not continue fighting. OTOH if the Palestinian diaspora is making the conflict worse then so is the Jewish diaspora + US military aid, for the same reasons.
Yes, to some extent the Jewish diaspora may be making things worse too but I think the incentivizes look different because of the lopsided military and economic situation. The pressure Israel feels to make peace isn't huge economic costs or high death tolls or lack of opportunity but one of status and avoiding being constantly critisized and called bad names.
The Jewish diaspora likely feels those incentives just as strongly if not more strongly. Sure, they may not risk getting drafted but realistically the risk to Israeli lives posed by the conflict is far smaller than to Palestinian lives.
I'd say that the pressures discouraging Israel from seeking peace relate more to internal politics in Israel than diaspora related pressure. Also, Israel's military is funded by a massive tax base with little contribution from foreign remittances relative to Palestinians.
Excellent comment. I think you are a bit too reductive with respect to the pressures Israel faces to make peace. Twenty percent of Israel's voters are Arabs. A significant portion of Israeli Jews are left-wing hippies that (like other lefties) believe all the violence is downstream of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians. It's true that Israel has had right-wing governments for nearly two decades, but basic electoral politics constrain even those governments to keep the dream of peace alive.
About half of the Jews in the world live in Israel. Nearly all diaspora Jews have close relatives and friends living in Israel. Diaspora Jews absolutely do not see Israelis as the tip of their spear. They are immediately affected by violence in Israel because close friends and family are killed or displaced, not because of some identity association.
Moreover, diaspora Jews are fine with the status quo. Israel exists and is a generally pleasant country for their family and friends to live in. They would be happy for the status quo to persist, with less violence all around. It is the Palestinian diaspora, and the Muslim and left-wing worlds that despite the status quo and are (to varying degrees) open to or sympathetic to violent means of uprooting that status quo.
As for US military aid, I think it's a red herring. Israel has received about $300B (in 2022 dollars) in aid from the US since the state was formed in 1948 (https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts), including both economic and military aid. Israel's GDP in 2023 was over $500 billion. If the US didn't give Israel another penny it would impact the balance of power in the I/P conflict negligibly. On the other hand, I think aid represents a very significant fraction (most?) of Palestinian income. The situations are not remotely comparable.
Sure. The present situation was produced by everyone more or less following his own rational interests. No one benefits from any of the real solutions that could be pursued for Palestine, except for the Palestinians, who have this spoiler problem and in any event are too poor and weak to influence the outcome.
Egypt was and probably still is the strongest Arab state. They could demand the full return of the Sinai with no land swaps because they could credibly threaten Israel. From the point of view of the Palestinians their demands (return to 1967 borders including all East Jerusalem) are already a compromise. The most the Israelis have ever offered is something a bit less than that. Even leaders like Barak don't want to fully give up the West Bank, which has huge symbolic and strategic value to Israel. And unlike the Egyptians the Palestinian Arabs are weak and stateless so the Israelis feel they are entitled to concessions. But the Palestinians leaders are too proud to accept any.
Israel offered to return the Sinai to Egypt in 1967, immediately after they seized it, in return for peace with Egpyt. No land swaps. Same with the Golan Heights / Syria.
It was the Arab side that responded with the infamous Three No's resolution. (No peace with Israel, No negotiation with Israel, No recognition of Israel).
It was only after the 1973 war, a surprise attack on Israel, that Egypt-Israel peace could get rolling. Although Israel won that war (Egypt failed to re-conquer the Sinai), Egypt was able to inflict far more damage to Israel than in past conflicts. Now that the Egyptian ego was adequately repaired, they could make peace with Israel without losing too much face.
Pretty neat just how wrong you are on this. I find your perspective a bit typical of anti-Israel takes. You project pragmatism on the Arab actors that just isn't reality.
Though with the looming Iran threat, it's arguably in the Arab states' interest to normalize with Israel for the sake of technology and intelligence sharing.
That's probably true, but the complication is the issue of managing domestic political opinion by not appearing to forsake the Palestinian cause. Saudi, for example, has a large, strategically-located Shi'ite population that it has to manage and that is susceptible to Iranian influence, which becomes harder if Iran appears more authentic and credible in its support for Palestine.
To "sympathize" with Palestinians is to imply you understand their current suffering AND what they consider as just alleviation. The immediate dissolution/destruction of the state of Israel is perhaps the most tame objective out of all the things the Palestinians want.
This is why I call into question people like you that sincerely "sympathize" with Palestinians. You and others like you look at the world with a geopolitical associative bias. This makes you unable to accept let alone understand societies like the Palestinians.
As someone from America/the West I don't "sympathize" with Palestinians, I pity them in the same way I pity the Japanese or Germans during ww2.
Israel is not screwing up the lives of Palestinians. Hatred of Israel and the constant attempt to destroy Israel is what destines Palestinians to lives of poverty, violence and corruption. As for Egypt, from what I've heard from actual Egyptians, they don't tune out Israel at all. It is ever on their minds as it is in most Arab countries.
Any American who is not pro-Israel is oblivious to the fact that the Islamic extremism that defines most of the Middle East has, as its prime target, the United States. Israel is just the first stone in its path -- which Islamic leaders have stated repeatedly. However, I firmly believe that the best way to solidify an important lesson in the minds of unwilling students is through personal experience. Let it begin.
I agree 100%. It seems like the Arab world agrees that by mere population growth they'll be able to destroy the state of Israel. That's not gonna happen anytime soon, so the endless suffering of Palestinians will continue.
This is actually also Israel's greatest fear. It's not just the idea that the Arabs would get strong enough to defeat Israel. It's also that if the Arabs were stronger, other nations around the world would be less open to opposing their aims.
In the Arab world, it's also broadly believed that they are held back from becoming strong mainly by the US and Israel. Israel sincerely doubts that and is pleasantly suprised over and over by the Arab failure to build strength, given their huge resource and population advantages.
It's very clear that functioning Arab countries, like UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain etc think in terms of striking down against spoilers. When asked, they are utterly dumbfounded by Western liberal rituals, such as extending Islamist extremist immigrants the courtesy of the benefit of a doubt about their motivations. They think we are insane.
Brilliant analysis. (Caveat: With the exception of the hint that other countries (e.g., the US) should perhaps be willing to volunteer to take in thousands of Gazan refugees. May it never be.)
One could wish that Tony Blinken and Jake Sullivan would pick up the phone and call Richard for advice on such matters. (No one would even have to know.)
The current, oft-repeated, "Western elite" mantra of "we need to find a path to a two-state solution" is as facile as it is fatuous.
The descriptive part of Hanania's analysis is good, but the prescriptive part is retarded.
The obvious solution is for Palestine to (re)join Jordan as part of a confederation, with King Abdullah in charge of the common military and security services.
Not sure how anyone can make Jordan take Palestine when they clearly don't want to. Same issue with trying to make Egypt either retake Gaza or resettle Gazans in the Sinai.
I'd identify different problems as the reason why it's so difficult for the Palestinians to make peace. Principles:
1) The people who are supporting the struggle financially and with enthusiasm are largely not the same people who are suffering from the conflict.
It's very hard to end a struggle when so much of the support comes from a diaspora who don't bear the costs of conflict but whose identity is tied into supporting it.
2) Secondary to one, the fact that the material wealth or social status of many Palestinian leaders would be called into question under a peace deal.
3) The continued ambiguity created by western elite's talk about international law regarding what might be achieveable and what is reasonable or fair to accept.
I wonder if we could have the Israelis stop the gaslighting and admit they intended to expel Palestinians all along as that is what had to be done to get a state and admit Arabs were perfectly correct to be alarmed and threatened in the 1900-1948 time span, but then also say "just like the Arabs before us in taking out the leftovers of the Byzantines by the same processes, we won and this is the way it is going to be". If the Israelis would just stop the gaslighting and act like Arabs could have done something to avoid being dispossessed (as if the Don't Tread on Me American gun toting crowd wouldn't have acted the same way as Palestinians up to and including the present), I'd be much more amenable to Israeli hawkishness in the present given it is obviously sill to expect modern people to self suicide or self deport regardless of how valid the original Palestinian complaint was. No Americans are like "those violent evil white hating Sioux, what was wrong with them"? We can get that the Sioux were completely sensible in fighting back against the US without any thought that we need to abrogate everything downstream of our ancestors victory. Why can't the Israelis act like this?
They were already being expelled before that. And Ben Gurion convinced his side to
nominally accept it for the moral high ground knowing full well nobody is going to agree to giving you half their house after you barge in and take it and assured the hardliners they would just provoke a war to take the rest later. Don't listen to me, listen to decidedly not woke Darryl Cooper's series about this on his Martyr Made podcast. People have the strangest idea, completely contrary to what primary source Zionist documents tell us, about what the 1900-1948 period was. Zionism was a militant revolutionary program, like Bolshevism, and its goal was conquest, not being neighbors in a biethnic state as a tolerated minority. They were pursuing that goal from 1917 on using the British as their protection. Perfectly understandable why - they were tired of their murderous treatment in Europe and their own victimhood blinded them to anything else (sound familiar?). Weird how many anti-woke people play the woke role when it comes to Zionism. Zionism is the woke analog here. The thing we can't criticize without being called racist or being accused of not acknowledging their historical victimhood. How was the Palestinian reponse to the Zionists, who called themselves colonists over and over, any different from the Maccabees fighting the Macedonians or Bar Kochba the Romans. Zionism is at its heart and anti-colonialist ideology itself, merely obsessed with colonialism from ancient history where they have the exact opposite take on what a colonized people is entitled to do. And exaggerating its effects (that is, Jews were not expelled from Palestine by the Romans and that isn't the main cause of the diaspora - they were pretty much treated like the Gauls or Britons in defeat).
Were there any statements made about this by the involved parties of the partition plan that I could read about? Genuine question; I would like to know more
All right, it's entirely possible that Arabs would've been forced to relocate under the original partition plan, even had the Arabs accepted it (and I'm guessing the same would have gone for Jews living in the Arab state). My question is, is there any evidence for this? Statements made by Ben-Gurion, the Arab leadership, the UN, anything? Again, genuine question. I would like to know more
What are you talking about? The Israelis have been far more good-faith in all negotiations for a two-state solution over the past century. The Arabs have rejected all offers because they fundamentally cannot accept Jews having dominion over even one square meter of land in the Middle East.
But why should Israel have any of it in 1948? Jews were 8% of the population in 1917. The Palestinians had fought the war that got rid of the Turks - 1/3 of them had died during WWI either fighting with the British or of the Turk-imposed famine. Then Zionists take it out from under them politicking at London cocktail parties with many of them having fought for the other side. I can't comprehend how the party of "Don't Tread on Me" and stockpiling guns can't understand this. I'll never understand anti-woke Zionism unless anti-wokeness is just western chauvinism - Zionism plays all the cards of wokeness. Again, none of this is to say that modern Israelis should self-deport or anything. These things have a statute of limitations. I agree that the Palestinians should have accepted defeat long ago and there is a point where murdering people is just murdering people. But a defeat it was and Arabs before 1948 were completely justified in seeing what was happening and where this was all going. Its the denial of how Israel came to be that is annoying - this idea that the Zionists were just moving there to be neighbors. Plenty of Israelis with impeccable Zionist credentials such as Moshe Dayan have said the same thing.
First, it needs to be said that Jews are indigenous to that region and have continuously populated it for thousands of years. Arabs were latecomers on that scale of history. Second, the region was very sparsely populated until the British mandate era. There was significant immigration of Arabs in mid to late 19th century, and much more during the Mandate era. Thus most of the “Palestinian” Arabs did not have the kind of longstanding connection to the land that so many people imagine. Third, Jews legally purchased all their land; the vast majority of Arabs owned none. You can look up a map of the Jewish/Arab land ownership in the 40s and see for yourself what the situation actually looked like. How is it “Arab” land if Jews legally owned it? How did they “take it out from under them”?
I’m genuinely curious, were you aware of any of this history? My sense is that most people with your point of view imagine that the Palestinian Arabs were all people who’d lived there for many hundreds of years and had a deeply rooted identity as a “Palestinian”. This just isn’t so - that identity essentially didn’t exist until the 1960s.
Last, I’ll note that about 2 million Arabs live in Israel as full citizens. They serve in the Knesset and in the courts. Virtually *zero* Jews live in any of the Muslim MENA countries.
Do you ever spend decrying the injustice of this? Do you ever spend any time arguing against the legitimacy of other countries born around the same time as Israel, such as Jordan and Pakistan?
The two don't contradict. The current map is the result of Palestinians rejecting the original partition plan, and trying to take back the land by force. They lost so badly that instead of shrinking, Israel's borders grew.
Taking land is okay/legal if done to those who started the war. If Ukraine somehow manages to conquer Moscow, that would be legal because the war was started by Russia.
Lots of Americans were saying otherwise. And now almost nobody does. When you look at Nat Turner, do you say "what the hell is wrong with this murderous white hater"? Or if you look at L'Overture and Dessalines in Haiti do you say "Man, what murderous crazy people!" Now granted, Virginia obviously can't tolerate Nat Turner killing people and he had to be hung, but this shit came from somewhere. The Zionists themselves - why do they idolize Judah Maccabee and Simon bar Kokhba? . If they could fight outside colonizing powers, why can't other people?
Given your assumptions re Palestinian as a community being able to be peaceable, one could conclude that this is a zero sum game rationalising ethnic cleansing by Israel
Fair enough, but then South Africa is ethnically cleansing its white population, Algeria ethnically cleansed its French population, India and Hong Kong ethnically cleansed their British populations, etc.
It isn’t a form of ethnic cleansing any more than letting Syrian refugees emigrate to other places is ethnic cleansing. A fifth column started a war against a state. That fifth column, Hamas, hides among civilians and uses them as human shields. Letting those humans go elsewhere is mercy.
I think you're underestimating what a liability Israel is for the United States and the West. NOTHING makes 1.5Billion Muslims more pissed off against the US than Israeli atrocities against Palestinians. Of course, it is heavily influenced by tribal-religious affiliation and antisemitism. It is not strictly rational and they weigh what Israelis do to Palestinians more heavily than what Muslims do to other Muslims. But it's real. It is a giant albatross around the neck of the US. It is unthinkable to me that 9/11 and the War on Terror would've even occurred were it not for decades of US support for Israel.
We spent trillions of dollars on these wars and thousands of US lives. We are currently on the precipice of another regional war that the US is being dragged into, costing us Billions and Billions. At least if we force the issue, force Israel to contract, we will have some moral clarity.
Thank you. I was somewhat persuaded by Hananias points and went to the comment section to see if there were any good rebuttals, and your comment has completely changed my mind.
Rebuttals are deserved when the argument is presented in an objective manner and in good faith. But if someone like Hanania doesn't bother to even do their homework and instead provides an intellectual cover for the official Israeli government talking points, that's called propaganda. You want a rebuttal? Go read about the history of the region.
Palestinian extremism can be overcome with intensive social conditioning campaigns, hate speech laws, and counter-extremism surveillance within an inclusive and pluralistic one-state. A two-state solution is a fantasy. A one-state solution implemented over say 50 years is the only humane solution. Jews and Palestinians need to learn to love one another. It will be difficult but many said that about other conflicts.
"Jews and Palestinians need to learn to love one another..." lololol
any political solution predicated on 2 warring parties needing "to love another" is preposterous and juvenile. people don't even love one another when they're part of the same tribe, never mind part of opposing tribes!
we have 5k years of human history to teach us what humans are and what they are and aren't capable of, no matter how much we wish it were otherwise.
the modern Western campaign to turn territorial chimps into placid conciliatory bonobos (sung to the tune of "Imagine") is a sentimental delusion that needs to be left in the realm of fantasy.
That works if you have a dictator who will commit to these policies over 50 years. But could fall apart when the government falls leading to an ethnic cival war. This can't work in a democracy. There are reasons, but really just think about how people come to power in multi-ethnic democracies, and what would be required to make this true. Make Israel lebanonn seems like a bad idea.
A well thought through piece. I've lived and worked in the middle east (3 countries, many more visited including the West Bank) and came to this conclusion a long while back after extended spells in the region. The Palestinians have no hope of defeating Israel in any sort of near timeframe. That leads them to either total defeat or continued (often justified) suppression.
Total defeat of Hamas didn't occur in this most recent round of conflict, though they are now severely crippled and the wider regional alliance backed by Iran is weakened beyond imagination even a year ago. If there was a moment to try and find a solution, imperfect and fraught with difficulty as it would be regardless of what it is, it is probably now.
Why do you single out Palestinan opinions? It's not different from other neighboring countries, so instead of trying to depopulate the whole area, better to relocate Israel in a more favorable environment such as Argentina?
Because Israel isn't going anywhere without a nuclear armeggedon first. Neighbouring countries are, for the most part, reconciled to the reality that Israel is there to stay and so their governments do not enter into war to appease the man on the street's desire to rid the region of Israel. That doesn't apply to the Palestinians, in Gaza above all.
This seems about right, and the observation about spoilers is apt. Egypt and Jordan are willing to clamp down on diehards and prevent a spoiler effect from their own borders, which is why Israel hasn't fought another war with them in 50 years. Though the fact they won't accept Palestinian refugees or annex Palestine is also why the problem is interminable.
Part of the reason Egypt and Jordan are willing to maintain peace is that they have a corrupt leadership class that's wary of the Islamists and that doesn't want its military wrecked in any more wars, but I imagine another reason is that those countries have an entire life and existence that's independent of Israel. If you're a typical Muslim living in Cairo, sure you hate the Israelis, but you also have the ability to tune them out. They have nothing to do with your daily life or the life of anyone you know. If they disappeared tomorrow, nothing would change. So most of the time, while you're annoyed at your government for not doing more, it's one of many things about your government that annoys you. Not something you're prepared to risk your life over at this moment. In the end, you enjoy living in a stable society.
If you're a Palestinian, Israel isn't something you can ignore, it actually does do things that screw up your life and the lives of people you know, and it's easy to blame all the problems in the world on it. You can't really build a political coalition around anything besides wanting to be rid of Israel, which means that you have limits to how harsh you can be towards people whose only sin is hating Israel more than you.
There's no two-state solution; either Israel one day swallows the Palestinian poison-pill (whether as an act of national murder or suicide) and becomes Lebanon 2.0, or the Palestinians are eventually expelled or annexed into one or more functioning states. Until then, the status quo prevails. Which is livable for Israel, so long as it keeps its guard up.
To be clear, I'm not really as pro-Israel as Richard seems to be these days. It's probably more in the US national interest to try to cultivate better relations with the Arabs and create some distance from Israel. I naturally find the Israelis more sympathetic, but I can sympathize with the Palestinians too.
That doesn't really explain why there isn't the same kind of desire for peace by Palestinians we saw with Ireland.
The Palestinians are just as capable as anyone else (in theory) of deciding that they hate Israel but would rather stop the violence so they can improve their lot and not die.
IMO what distinguishes this conflict is the extent to which it is supported, financed and encouraged by a Palestinian diaspora (and other Muslims) who don't pay any price from continued violence.
The difference between northern Ireland and Palestine is that 1) the Irish diaspora (and the country of Ireland) just weren't all that invested in hating the unionists the way the original IRA was and 2) the IRA leadership personally benefited from peace rather than being harmed by it (Gary Adams went from living a dangerous life of violence to being a well to do politician the Palestinian leadership will go from being courted in 5 star international hotels to being grilled about corruption and democratic rights under a peace deal)
Good points. Though I think there are a lot of differences from Northern Ireland, which basically settled on the "one-state solution" that the UK wanted but for Israel would be a suicide pill.
I also think there are cultural differences that are relevant to why the Palestinian "spoiler" element is so persistent. Unlike Ireland, the Israeli-Arab conflict occurs along a civilizational fault line, with a much higher level of animosity. The two sides in the Troubles often tried to minimize casualties, calling in warnings ahead of many (most?) of the bombings. Hamas, conversely, is clearly trying to maximize casualties. It brings a much more genocidal energy to the table than the IRA ever did.
The point about IRA leadership vs. likely outcome for Hamas is something I hadn't really thought about too much though. The PA probably fares better, but how much better? It's easy to imagine any Palestinian leader who signs a peace deal being assassinated. For another Irish comparison, look at Michael Collins and the response to the treaty with Britain.
Just spitballing because I don't know exactly how you accomplish it, but maybe the peace settlement includes making the Palestinian leader into a king. Marry him to a Saudi or Jordanian princess, if that helps. Produce a family tree; if the House of Windsor is descended from Mohammed, surely every living Arab also is at this point. If Bahrain can be a kingdom, then Gaza and the West Bank are each populous enough to be a kingdom.
If you can make it stick, Arab kingdoms are almost universally better than their republics, both for their own citizens and the US.
Yes, I didn't mean to suggest there weren't other differences, only that I didn't buy the idea that the factors raised so far were enough to explain why peace was so elusive as most of those factors were also there in northern Ireland.
I agree Hamas is different than the IRA and a one state solution isn't likely to work here (tho TBF there also aren't unionists who wanted to prevent a 2 state solution in Northern Ireland) but I think Hamas itself is partly a reaction to those factors.
Regarding making the Palestinian leader a king. I think if that had been on the table we'd have already had peace back in the 90s. I think it's an interesting idea, just not a practical one. While the potential for assassination is real, I think it's actually the fact that they'd go from being wined and dined internationally to being pressed about the corruption and etc while simultaneously losing much of their international support that creates the bigger problem.
And now, without any single Palestinian leader in charge, negotiation is virtually hopeless. You can hope to grudgingly find a deal between an Israeli and Palestinian leader but Israel isn't interested in a deal that doesn't end the conflict and any deal that does that likely won't be in the interest of at least one of the two Palestinian parties.
Brilliant comment and an idea I’ve never encountered despite reading thousands of words on the Israel/Palestine conflict. It’s analogous to studies showing that civil wars are longer and more deadly when one or both sides are supported by external great powers. The external support serves as a disincentive for the local players to compromise because they never run out of money or resources so why not continue fighting. OTOH if the Palestinian diaspora is making the conflict worse then so is the Jewish diaspora + US military aid, for the same reasons.
Yes, to some extent the Jewish diaspora may be making things worse too but I think the incentivizes look different because of the lopsided military and economic situation. The pressure Israel feels to make peace isn't huge economic costs or high death tolls or lack of opportunity but one of status and avoiding being constantly critisized and called bad names.
The Jewish diaspora likely feels those incentives just as strongly if not more strongly. Sure, they may not risk getting drafted but realistically the risk to Israeli lives posed by the conflict is far smaller than to Palestinian lives.
I'd say that the pressures discouraging Israel from seeking peace relate more to internal politics in Israel than diaspora related pressure. Also, Israel's military is funded by a massive tax base with little contribution from foreign remittances relative to Palestinians.
Excellent comment. I think you are a bit too reductive with respect to the pressures Israel faces to make peace. Twenty percent of Israel's voters are Arabs. A significant portion of Israeli Jews are left-wing hippies that (like other lefties) believe all the violence is downstream of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians. It's true that Israel has had right-wing governments for nearly two decades, but basic electoral politics constrain even those governments to keep the dream of peace alive.
About half of the Jews in the world live in Israel. Nearly all diaspora Jews have close relatives and friends living in Israel. Diaspora Jews absolutely do not see Israelis as the tip of their spear. They are immediately affected by violence in Israel because close friends and family are killed or displaced, not because of some identity association.
Moreover, diaspora Jews are fine with the status quo. Israel exists and is a generally pleasant country for their family and friends to live in. They would be happy for the status quo to persist, with less violence all around. It is the Palestinian diaspora, and the Muslim and left-wing worlds that despite the status quo and are (to varying degrees) open to or sympathetic to violent means of uprooting that status quo.
As for US military aid, I think it's a red herring. Israel has received about $300B (in 2022 dollars) in aid from the US since the state was formed in 1948 (https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts), including both economic and military aid. Israel's GDP in 2023 was over $500 billion. If the US didn't give Israel another penny it would impact the balance of power in the I/P conflict negligibly. On the other hand, I think aid represents a very significant fraction (most?) of Palestinian income. The situations are not remotely comparable.
Well, the current King of Jordan almost got whacked by "refugees" in 1970, so I can't blame Jordan for not accepting more Palestinians.
Sure. The present situation was produced by everyone more or less following his own rational interests. No one benefits from any of the real solutions that could be pursued for Palestine, except for the Palestinians, who have this spoiler problem and in any event are too poor and weak to influence the outcome.
Lebanon would like a word with you?
You underestimate status considerations.
Egypt was and probably still is the strongest Arab state. They could demand the full return of the Sinai with no land swaps because they could credibly threaten Israel. From the point of view of the Palestinians their demands (return to 1967 borders including all East Jerusalem) are already a compromise. The most the Israelis have ever offered is something a bit less than that. Even leaders like Barak don't want to fully give up the West Bank, which has huge symbolic and strategic value to Israel. And unlike the Egyptians the Palestinian Arabs are weak and stateless so the Israelis feel they are entitled to concessions. But the Palestinians leaders are too proud to accept any.
"The most the Israelis have ever offered is something a bit less than that."
So the stronger side, out of mostly just sheer goodwill, offers 95% of what the other side wants. Boohoo.
Israel offered to return the Sinai to Egypt in 1967, immediately after they seized it, in return for peace with Egpyt. No land swaps. Same with the Golan Heights / Syria.
https://ecf.org.il/issues/issue/89
It was the Arab side that responded with the infamous Three No's resolution. (No peace with Israel, No negotiation with Israel, No recognition of Israel).
It was only after the 1973 war, a surprise attack on Israel, that Egypt-Israel peace could get rolling. Although Israel won that war (Egypt failed to re-conquer the Sinai), Egypt was able to inflict far more damage to Israel than in past conflicts. Now that the Egyptian ego was adequately repaired, they could make peace with Israel without losing too much face.
Pretty neat just how wrong you are on this. I find your perspective a bit typical of anti-Israel takes. You project pragmatism on the Arab actors that just isn't reality.
Though with the looming Iran threat, it's arguably in the Arab states' interest to normalize with Israel for the sake of technology and intelligence sharing.
That's probably true, but the complication is the issue of managing domestic political opinion by not appearing to forsake the Palestinian cause. Saudi, for example, has a large, strategically-located Shi'ite population that it has to manage and that is susceptible to Iranian influence, which becomes harder if Iran appears more authentic and credible in its support for Palestine.
Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain, etc. found a way.
UAE is probably the vanguard of Arab moderates today.
The odds of a Saudi-Israel deal while Trump is president are quite high.
Tell that to Pakistan
To "sympathize" with Palestinians is to imply you understand their current suffering AND what they consider as just alleviation. The immediate dissolution/destruction of the state of Israel is perhaps the most tame objective out of all the things the Palestinians want.
This is why I call into question people like you that sincerely "sympathize" with Palestinians. You and others like you look at the world with a geopolitical associative bias. This makes you unable to accept let alone understand societies like the Palestinians.
As someone from America/the West I don't "sympathize" with Palestinians, I pity them in the same way I pity the Japanese or Germans during ww2.
Israel is not screwing up the lives of Palestinians. Hatred of Israel and the constant attempt to destroy Israel is what destines Palestinians to lives of poverty, violence and corruption. As for Egypt, from what I've heard from actual Egyptians, they don't tune out Israel at all. It is ever on their minds as it is in most Arab countries.
Any American who is not pro-Israel is oblivious to the fact that the Islamic extremism that defines most of the Middle East has, as its prime target, the United States. Israel is just the first stone in its path -- which Islamic leaders have stated repeatedly. However, I firmly believe that the best way to solidify an important lesson in the minds of unwilling students is through personal experience. Let it begin.
I agree 100%. It seems like the Arab world agrees that by mere population growth they'll be able to destroy the state of Israel. That's not gonna happen anytime soon, so the endless suffering of Palestinians will continue.
This is actually also Israel's greatest fear. It's not just the idea that the Arabs would get strong enough to defeat Israel. It's also that if the Arabs were stronger, other nations around the world would be less open to opposing their aims.
In the Arab world, it's also broadly believed that they are held back from becoming strong mainly by the US and Israel. Israel sincerely doubts that and is pleasantly suprised over and over by the Arab failure to build strength, given their huge resource and population advantages.
You are clearly an excellent candidate for the role of National Security Advisor in the upcoming Trump administration
It's very clear that functioning Arab countries, like UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain etc think in terms of striking down against spoilers. When asked, they are utterly dumbfounded by Western liberal rituals, such as extending Islamist extremist immigrants the courtesy of the benefit of a doubt about their motivations. They think we are insane.
Brilliant analysis. (Caveat: With the exception of the hint that other countries (e.g., the US) should perhaps be willing to volunteer to take in thousands of Gazan refugees. May it never be.)
One could wish that Tony Blinken and Jake Sullivan would pick up the phone and call Richard for advice on such matters. (No one would even have to know.)
The current, oft-repeated, "Western elite" mantra of "we need to find a path to a two-state solution" is as facile as it is fatuous.
The descriptive part of Hanania's analysis is good, but the prescriptive part is retarded.
The obvious solution is for Palestine to (re)join Jordan as part of a confederation, with King Abdullah in charge of the common military and security services.
Not sure how anyone can make Jordan take Palestine when they clearly don't want to. Same issue with trying to make Egypt either retake Gaza or resettle Gazans in the Sinai.
What makes you think that Jordan doesn't want to?
A lot of people make this assumption, but there's precious little evidence for it.
Black September, basically
Heh? How is Black September evidence that Jordan doesn't want to form a federation/confederation with Palestine?
The Jordanians have had experience governing Palestinians and they hated it enough to expel Palestinians from Jordan en masse.
The Palestinian territories are a hot potato that nobody in the Middle East wants to be responsible for.
I'd identify different problems as the reason why it's so difficult for the Palestinians to make peace. Principles:
1) The people who are supporting the struggle financially and with enthusiasm are largely not the same people who are suffering from the conflict.
It's very hard to end a struggle when so much of the support comes from a diaspora who don't bear the costs of conflict but whose identity is tied into supporting it.
2) Secondary to one, the fact that the material wealth or social status of many Palestinian leaders would be called into question under a peace deal.
3) The continued ambiguity created by western elite's talk about international law regarding what might be achieveable and what is reasonable or fair to accept.
I wonder if we could have the Israelis stop the gaslighting and admit they intended to expel Palestinians all along as that is what had to be done to get a state and admit Arabs were perfectly correct to be alarmed and threatened in the 1900-1948 time span, but then also say "just like the Arabs before us in taking out the leftovers of the Byzantines by the same processes, we won and this is the way it is going to be". If the Israelis would just stop the gaslighting and act like Arabs could have done something to avoid being dispossessed (as if the Don't Tread on Me American gun toting crowd wouldn't have acted the same way as Palestinians up to and including the present), I'd be much more amenable to Israeli hawkishness in the present given it is obviously sill to expect modern people to self suicide or self deport regardless of how valid the original Palestinian complaint was. No Americans are like "those violent evil white hating Sioux, what was wrong with them"? We can get that the Sioux were completely sensible in fighting back against the US without any thought that we need to abrogate everything downstream of our ancestors victory. Why can't the Israelis act like this?
I seriously doubt any Arabs would’ve been expelled had they accepted the original UN partition plan. Or the Peel commision plan for that matter
They were already being expelled before that. And Ben Gurion convinced his side to
nominally accept it for the moral high ground knowing full well nobody is going to agree to giving you half their house after you barge in and take it and assured the hardliners they would just provoke a war to take the rest later. Don't listen to me, listen to decidedly not woke Darryl Cooper's series about this on his Martyr Made podcast. People have the strangest idea, completely contrary to what primary source Zionist documents tell us, about what the 1900-1948 period was. Zionism was a militant revolutionary program, like Bolshevism, and its goal was conquest, not being neighbors in a biethnic state as a tolerated minority. They were pursuing that goal from 1917 on using the British as their protection. Perfectly understandable why - they were tired of their murderous treatment in Europe and their own victimhood blinded them to anything else (sound familiar?). Weird how many anti-woke people play the woke role when it comes to Zionism. Zionism is the woke analog here. The thing we can't criticize without being called racist or being accused of not acknowledging their historical victimhood. How was the Palestinian reponse to the Zionists, who called themselves colonists over and over, any different from the Maccabees fighting the Macedonians or Bar Kochba the Romans. Zionism is at its heart and anti-colonialist ideology itself, merely obsessed with colonialism from ancient history where they have the exact opposite take on what a colonized people is entitled to do. And exaggerating its effects (that is, Jews were not expelled from Palestine by the Romans and that isn't the main cause of the diaspora - they were pretty much treated like the Gauls or Britons in defeat).
Were there any statements made about this by the involved parties of the partition plan that I could read about? Genuine question; I would like to know more
All right, it's entirely possible that Arabs would've been forced to relocate under the original partition plan, even had the Arabs accepted it (and I'm guessing the same would have gone for Jews living in the Arab state). My question is, is there any evidence for this? Statements made by Ben-Gurion, the Arab leadership, the UN, anything? Again, genuine question. I would like to know more
The original partition plan had the following minority populations:
Jewish state: 407,000 Arabs
Arab state: 10,000 Jews (not a typo)
What are you talking about? The Israelis have been far more good-faith in all negotiations for a two-state solution over the past century. The Arabs have rejected all offers because they fundamentally cannot accept Jews having dominion over even one square meter of land in the Middle East.
But why should Israel have any of it in 1948? Jews were 8% of the population in 1917. The Palestinians had fought the war that got rid of the Turks - 1/3 of them had died during WWI either fighting with the British or of the Turk-imposed famine. Then Zionists take it out from under them politicking at London cocktail parties with many of them having fought for the other side. I can't comprehend how the party of "Don't Tread on Me" and stockpiling guns can't understand this. I'll never understand anti-woke Zionism unless anti-wokeness is just western chauvinism - Zionism plays all the cards of wokeness. Again, none of this is to say that modern Israelis should self-deport or anything. These things have a statute of limitations. I agree that the Palestinians should have accepted defeat long ago and there is a point where murdering people is just murdering people. But a defeat it was and Arabs before 1948 were completely justified in seeing what was happening and where this was all going. Its the denial of how Israel came to be that is annoying - this idea that the Zionists were just moving there to be neighbors. Plenty of Israelis with impeccable Zionist credentials such as Moshe Dayan have said the same thing.
First, it needs to be said that Jews are indigenous to that region and have continuously populated it for thousands of years. Arabs were latecomers on that scale of history. Second, the region was very sparsely populated until the British mandate era. There was significant immigration of Arabs in mid to late 19th century, and much more during the Mandate era. Thus most of the “Palestinian” Arabs did not have the kind of longstanding connection to the land that so many people imagine. Third, Jews legally purchased all their land; the vast majority of Arabs owned none. You can look up a map of the Jewish/Arab land ownership in the 40s and see for yourself what the situation actually looked like. How is it “Arab” land if Jews legally owned it? How did they “take it out from under them”?
I’m genuinely curious, were you aware of any of this history? My sense is that most people with your point of view imagine that the Palestinian Arabs were all people who’d lived there for many hundreds of years and had a deeply rooted identity as a “Palestinian”. This just isn’t so - that identity essentially didn’t exist until the 1960s.
Last, I’ll note that about 2 million Arabs live in Israel as full citizens. They serve in the Knesset and in the courts. Virtually *zero* Jews live in any of the Muslim MENA countries.
Do you ever spend decrying the injustice of this? Do you ever spend any time arguing against the legitimacy of other countries born around the same time as Israel, such as Jordan and Pakistan?
The two don't contradict. The current map is the result of Palestinians rejecting the original partition plan, and trying to take back the land by force. They lost so badly that instead of shrinking, Israel's borders grew.
It's illegal to:
1) Start a war, and then
2) Take land
Taking land is okay/legal if done to those who started the war. If Ukraine somehow manages to conquer Moscow, that would be legal because the war was started by Russia.
Heh?
No. International law wouldn't allow Ukraine to annex Russian territories in the event of a Ukrainian victory.
What miles said. That whole “evolution of the map” narrative is based on lies and has been thoroughly debunked many times.
Because, unlike the Sioux, the Palestinians haven't been effectively destroyed.
In the time of the Sioux, the average American did wonder: "those violent evil white hating Sioux, what is wrong with them"?
Lots of Americans were saying otherwise. And now almost nobody does. When you look at Nat Turner, do you say "what the hell is wrong with this murderous white hater"? Or if you look at L'Overture and Dessalines in Haiti do you say "Man, what murderous crazy people!" Now granted, Virginia obviously can't tolerate Nat Turner killing people and he had to be hung, but this shit came from somewhere. The Zionists themselves - why do they idolize Judah Maccabee and Simon bar Kokhba? . If they could fight outside colonizing powers, why can't other people?
Huh? Makes no sense.
Given your assumptions re Palestinian as a community being able to be peaceable, one could conclude that this is a zero sum game rationalising ethnic cleansing by Israel
"Could" conclude?
Hanania openly calls for ethnic cleansing. It's not something that has to be inferred.
Depends if you consider encouraging self-deportation as a form of ethnic cleansing.
It is a form of ethnic cleansing.
Fair enough, but then South Africa is ethnically cleansing its white population, Algeria ethnically cleansed its French population, India and Hong Kong ethnically cleansed their British populations, etc.
Yes.
It isn’t a form of ethnic cleansing any more than letting Syrian refugees emigrate to other places is ethnic cleansing. A fifth column started a war against a state. That fifth column, Hamas, hides among civilians and uses them as human shields. Letting those humans go elsewhere is mercy.
I think you're underestimating what a liability Israel is for the United States and the West. NOTHING makes 1.5Billion Muslims more pissed off against the US than Israeli atrocities against Palestinians. Of course, it is heavily influenced by tribal-religious affiliation and antisemitism. It is not strictly rational and they weigh what Israelis do to Palestinians more heavily than what Muslims do to other Muslims. But it's real. It is a giant albatross around the neck of the US. It is unthinkable to me that 9/11 and the War on Terror would've even occurred were it not for decades of US support for Israel.
We spent trillions of dollars on these wars and thousands of US lives. We are currently on the precipice of another regional war that the US is being dragged into, costing us Billions and Billions. At least if we force the issue, force Israel to contract, we will have some moral clarity.
Israel is more likely to launch nukes than to contract; that's how pissed off they are at the moment.
Disgusting article exposing Hanania’s complete lack of self awareness and poor understanding of the history of the region.
Thank you. I was somewhat persuaded by Hananias points and went to the comment section to see if there were any good rebuttals, and your comment has completely changed my mind.
Rebuttals are deserved when the argument is presented in an objective manner and in good faith. But if someone like Hanania doesn't bother to even do their homework and instead provides an intellectual cover for the official Israeli government talking points, that's called propaganda. You want a rebuttal? Go read about the history of the region.
No need for me to study more: your argumentation has already made my mind up. How can Hananias writing stand up to counterarguments of this quality?
Palestinian extremism can be overcome with intensive social conditioning campaigns, hate speech laws, and counter-extremism surveillance within an inclusive and pluralistic one-state. A two-state solution is a fantasy. A one-state solution implemented over say 50 years is the only humane solution. Jews and Palestinians need to learn to love one another. It will be difficult but many said that about other conflicts.
"Jews and Palestinians need to learn to love one another..." lololol
any political solution predicated on 2 warring parties needing "to love another" is preposterous and juvenile. people don't even love one another when they're part of the same tribe, never mind part of opposing tribes!
we have 5k years of human history to teach us what humans are and what they are and aren't capable of, no matter how much we wish it were otherwise.
the modern Western campaign to turn territorial chimps into placid conciliatory bonobos (sung to the tune of "Imagine") is a sentimental delusion that needs to be left in the realm of fantasy.
Lennon got shot, after all.
Gandhi as well. It says a lot he was shot by a hindu nationalist and not by an English colonizer. What has the anti-colonial left to say about that?
That's going to be an absolute bloodbath over those 50 years.
That works if you have a dictator who will commit to these policies over 50 years. But could fall apart when the government falls leading to an ethnic cival war. This can't work in a democracy. There are reasons, but really just think about how people come to power in multi-ethnic democracies, and what would be required to make this true. Make Israel lebanonn seems like a bad idea.
The Xinjiang solution, I see.
Why does a Palestinian Government has to enact War on Palestinians to give Land to Israel? What Land!
Be at least honest and say what you want:
Erez Israel from the River to the Sea!
Stepping in the middle of what is a tribal war is a fool’s errand, especially if both tribes don the mantle of perpetual victimhood.
The one thing that is certain is that victims can become oppressors and oppressors can become victims.
A well thought through piece. I've lived and worked in the middle east (3 countries, many more visited including the West Bank) and came to this conclusion a long while back after extended spells in the region. The Palestinians have no hope of defeating Israel in any sort of near timeframe. That leads them to either total defeat or continued (often justified) suppression.
Total defeat of Hamas didn't occur in this most recent round of conflict, though they are now severely crippled and the wider regional alliance backed by Iran is weakened beyond imagination even a year ago. If there was a moment to try and find a solution, imperfect and fraught with difficulty as it would be regardless of what it is, it is probably now.
Insightful analysis. Would be more persuasive if President Trump were willing to accept some Palestinian refugees to the US, but this seems unlikely.
Why do you single out Palestinan opinions? It's not different from other neighboring countries, so instead of trying to depopulate the whole area, better to relocate Israel in a more favorable environment such as Argentina?
Because Israel isn't going anywhere without a nuclear armeggedon first. Neighbouring countries are, for the most part, reconciled to the reality that Israel is there to stay and so their governments do not enter into war to appease the man on the street's desire to rid the region of Israel. That doesn't apply to the Palestinians, in Gaza above all.
You're just stating the obvious: of course Israel never and doesn't have a right to exist.