Asking Palestinians to say that Israel has a right to exist is like asking Native Americans to say the USA has a right to exist. What about Israel exists and has the right to continue to exist?
Asking Palestinians to say that Israel has a right to exist is like asking Native Americans to say the USA has a right to exist. What about Israel exists and has the right to continue to exist?
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That offer has been made multiple times in the form of the Arab Peace Initiative.
And was followed by the first intifada iirc. Its not only about the rights of Palestinian people but obviously about "chasing the Jews into the sea".
I hate the current government of Israel for being right wing, religious and downright populist. The settlers policies are plain provocation. That doesn't influence my conviction that the state Israel absolutely must keep existing and that the people are not the same as their government (also worth remembering this when you hear people speaking Russian omnthe streets right now).
This brings up the very important distinction between nation and state. We think of them now interchangeably, but as I understand it, the Peace of Westphalia created the modern system of nation-states that comprises the international order. It was very recent, historically speaking, such that even Germany didn't unify into one until the early 20th century.
It's important, because while various nations existed in Palestine, the region got integrated into the Westphalian system under outside, colonial powers, rather than as a nation-state. That allowed room for the Zionist slogan, "a land without a people for a people with a land." That was a clever distortion—there was not "a people" in the sense of the new international order, but there certainly were people who lived there, and had lived there for generations.
The bottom line is that the Israeli state must absolutely be distinct and separate from the nation of Israel—and that the nation of Israel must be allowed to exist in peace in the region. The current state can go kick rocks, as far as I'm concerned.
I'm talking about the meaning of those statements to different different people. Take a look at this video interviewing Elisha Wiesel from the Elie Wiesel Foundation and Michal Cotier-Wunsh, Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQn5X4ra8KY
She says that Anti-zionism is Anti-semitism. To many people, Anti-Zionism is a value statement on the history of the creation of the modern Israeli state by the British, the UN, and America in the 1940s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Zionism I think people who hold the view that creating a the modern state of Israel as a Western colonial action (one could have simply opened up immigration to Jewish folk and ensuring that one state guaranteeing the protection and safety of Jews and declaring it the ancestral home of Israelites and the Jewish religion and Palestinians (who are also Canaanites like the Lebanese) was created, as opposed to having some asshole somewhere else draw a border (like they did in India between India and Pakistan), and unleashing the subsequent ethnic cleansing that ensued (like it did in India and Pakistan)), but don't hold Hamas's views that Israel and Israelis should be driven off the land (or the equivalent that Pakistan or India should be destroyed and the subcontinent reunited) can be called anti-zionist but not anti-semitic.
My point is that if we change the statement from Israel has the right to exist to Israel exists (like the US exists) and has the right to continue exist separates the folks who think the creation of Israel in its form was a historical mistake (mostly because of all the suffering that's resulted from it) from the folks who think it and its people should be driven off the map. That statement that Israel has the right to continue to exist is something I think both Israelis and many Palestinians can agree on and can clarify what the goal of peace should be.
The other thing in that video is declaring Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian American, blaming Israel for the bombing of the Gazan hospital based on early news report, as blood libel is weaponizing the label of anti-semitism against a person who I don't believe is Anti-semetic (she's not declaring the Jews are trying to replace us or creating space lasers or that they created covid, or engaging in millenia-old anti-semitic tropes) and is instead trying to protect her people from violence (like the folks in the video are trying to protect their people from Hamas violence), and trying to silence her and trying to silence criticism of Israel and the occupation and settlement of Palestinian land. And I think we while the evidence seems to be mounting that Hamas lied about scale of death and damage and who fired the rocket, it's not completely crystal clear, and I think Tliab should be given more time to judge before being accused of blood libel and being an anti-semite who should be driven out of congress, eliminating one more voice that tries to bring balance to American policy to include Palestinian interests. Edit: Someone pointed out in a Majority Report clip that Israel and Biden initially claimed that Hamas beheaded babies and children. And they (I think it was a pro-Palestinian Israeli) called it blood libel too. I think it's the fog of war, and we need to stop calling both people blood libelists, and focus instead on the reality of the situation and see what the best options are for saving lives, getting the hostages back, achieving peace, and getting justice.
We can talk about offers after. But that's not what the post was about. It's about creating clarifying statements that clearly define peace and what peace will be while avoiding obfuscating value statements. Not only does it make discussion easier, but it also separates people who hate the history of what Zionism has created from the true anti-semites who want to wipe Israel and Israelis off the map.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=BQn5X4ra8KY
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Holy cow, that was a loaded question after all! Very interesting reading, though. I agree. As to what the post was about, it was my understanding at the time of the offer(s) that the Arab League was not declaring that the creation of the State of Israel was legitimate, but instead recognizing that it does exist now, and has the right to continue to exist.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/monitoring/media_reports/1899395.stm
It doesn't use that language explicitly as I understand it. It says:
In return the Arab states will do the following:
Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict over, sign a peace agreement with Israel, and achieve peace for all states in the region Establish normal relations with Israel within the framework of this comprehensive peace