This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
orthoxerox
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1yr ago
The premise that the purpose of the West Bank settlements is to make a two-state solution impossible is more than a bit of a stretch, somewhere between over-reach, over-simplification, and ignoring other competing dynamics.
More than a bit of a stretch? What else are they? Unless the idea is to have them as Jewish citizens of the new Palestinian state, the counterpart of Israeli Arabs in Israel, they new Palestinian state will either have to remove them or have an impossibly fractal border.
Unless the idea is to have them as Jewish citizens of the new Palestinian state,
And why should this be so farfetched? Perhaps because implicit in the idea of both Israel and the Palestinian national project has been ethnic homogeneity, or at least hegemony, for the dominant ethny. Two states has always meant division of the Cis-Jordanian territory into two ethno-states, which simply isn't practical for any number of reasons (water distribution, population distribution, transport networks and ocean access, etc.) even before we get to the basic fundamental fact that significant factions in both sides see themselves as entitled to all of the land, and anything less as a bitter half-loaf to be mourned until revenge can be taken.
Precisely what I said? A number of settlements are fully expected to be traded away- those that would make things 'impossible'- while others are meant to shape the borders- the land swaps that have been a core component of 2-state talks to date.
To say the that the purpose of West Bank settlements is to make the two-state solution impossible is to ignore the history that 2-state negotiations were already built and being conducted on the acknowledgement that the 2-state borders weren't going to align with the occupied territory dividers, and that various settlements had different prospects and roles in said negotiations to different relevant actors.
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Notes -
More than a bit of a stretch? What else are they? Unless the idea is to have them as Jewish citizens of the new Palestinian state, the counterpart of Israeli Arabs in Israel, they new Palestinian state will either have to remove them or have an impossibly fractal border.
And why should this be so farfetched? Perhaps because implicit in the idea of both Israel and the Palestinian national project has been ethnic homogeneity, or at least hegemony, for the dominant ethny. Two states has always meant division of the Cis-Jordanian territory into two ethno-states, which simply isn't practical for any number of reasons (water distribution, population distribution, transport networks and ocean access, etc.) even before we get to the basic fundamental fact that significant factions in both sides see themselves as entitled to all of the land, and anything less as a bitter half-loaf to be mourned until revenge can be taken.
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Precisely what I said? A number of settlements are fully expected to be traded away- those that would make things 'impossible'- while others are meant to shape the borders- the land swaps that have been a core component of 2-state talks to date.
To say the that the purpose of West Bank settlements is to make the two-state solution impossible is to ignore the history that 2-state negotiations were already built and being conducted on the acknowledgement that the 2-state borders weren't going to align with the occupied territory dividers, and that various settlements had different prospects and roles in said negotiations to different relevant actors.
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