Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said in May that Israel should approve 10,000 settlements in the West Bank, establish a new settlement for every country that recognizes a state of Palestine, and cancel travel permits for Palestinian Authority officials.
Emphasis mine because I can’t believe how childish that is.
Earlier this month, the Palestinian Authority applied to join South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
Yo holy shit, the PA actually standing up for itself? Could we see a reconciliation between them and Hamas? A unified government? Elections???
It’s all slipping between Israel’s fingers and their only response is to squeeze harder.
Netanyahu has not come up with any end plan for his Gaza war (because the whole thing is a ruse to keep him in office and out of jail at this point). It seems the Palestinians have so generously done so for him.
The logical end plan is probably a tenuous peace with Israel. The Palestinian Authority is smart they’ll either make peace with Hamas or betray them all and turn them over to the Hague. The former will stabilise the Palestinian state at the expense of risking another Israeli invasion. The latter will stabilise relations with Israel in exchange for potentially weakening the unity of Palestine. But the PA cannot keep their heads in the sand and ignore Hamas.
Elections must be held. The Palestinian Authority has no claim to any mandate from the Palestinian people. Their latest election was over 18 years ago. If they want international legitimacy then they will need to demonstrate they have the confidence of the Palestinian people.
With a strong PA, there are two logical endpoints—a two-state solution with strong cooperation between Palestine and Israel, perhaps even to the point where there can be freedom of movement between the two or even united citizenship; or a one-state solution with the entirety of Palestine being absorbed under the state apparatus of what is now Israel, forming a bi-religious or secular successor state (due to the new voting power of Palestinian citizens).
Nobody will be entirely happy and get everything they wanted in the end, nor will everyone think that the result was totally fair, but I think at some people, people get tired of endless war and become willing to compromise. This may not happen in our generation, but it eventually must.
Remember that time Nethanyahu gave Hamas a duffle bag full of money?
I’ve never heard of that. Do you have any further reading?
Wow. Shocking.
Not going to lie, I thought it was fake news.
They actually caught it on camera, Jon Stewart did a report on it and pointed out how Hamas and Nethanyahu came into power at the same time and have been at war since. Poor people fight rich peoples wars again. The Jewish people that actually have less bias like Jon Stewart, Bernie Sanders and even Steven Spielberg don’t like what’s Isreal is doing to the innocent people to get back a Hamas.
The Palestinian Authority has no claim to any mandate from the Palestinian people.
Same for Hamas. The last election was held so long ago that the majority of Palestinians were not born yet and the vast majority could not vote. There simply is no remaining democratic mandate.
bi-religious or secular successor state
There are currently more Muslims in the borders of Israel-Palestine, and I doubt they’re in a forgiving mood. I think there is a good chance that a unified state would turn into a Muslim state. I don’t think it’s unfounded to say that the current situation of a large Muslim population that is essentially disenfranchised is entirely to the liking of Israel’s leaders.
Hang on a minute—the population of Israel is some ten million but the population of Palestine is only some five and a half million. Israel is 74% Jewish and 18% Muslim. Palestine is 93% Muslim. The rest follow other religions or no religion (they are mostly Christians).
This seems to mean that there are 7 million Muslims and 7.5 million Jews. And these figures predate the Gaza war; no doubt the number of Muslims in Palestine has gone down, due to obvious reasons.
after several countries unilaterally recognized a Palestinian state.
…Unilaterally?? So, which one would be the other side in this??
