You're changing arguments. Your first comment was phrased in present tense and was about current Israeli aggression. Now you are supporting your one-sided view by claiming the original settlement was illegitimate.
The reality is at some point you have to move past history to make the best decision now. It's neither moral nor practical to uproot or kill the people currently living in Israel because the original settlement was wrong or misguided.
Palastinian claims over Israel make as much sense as Taiwanese claims over mainland China (or PRC claims over Taiwan). And I say that as someone who is very against continued aggression from Israel and for recognition of a Palastinian state.
>Your first comment was phrased in present tense and was about current Israeli aggression.
What about Israel regularly attacking the Syrian territory near its capital using Lebanese airspace without permission and allegedly using civilian aircraft to shield its warplanes from return fire? Yes, Israel and Syria are formally in a state of war, but so are Russia and Japan.
Iranian forces on the Syrian soil pose a threat to Israel? Sure. But they stay there with permission from the internationally recognized government (does not matter if you like it or not), so those strikes is a clear act of aggression against Syria and violation of its sovereignty.
And I haven't even touched the Golan Heights, continued occupation of which is clearly illegal under the international law. But who cares about the international law if it's your best buddy in the region, right? You may as well recognize its sovereignty over the territory with zero repercussions.
I think what's missing here is that Israel trying to defend itself from Syrian aggression. Israel's occupation of the Golan heights is in response to multiple Syrian invasions and attacks from the position, and Israel has offered to return the Golan heights to Syria in return for peace. Unfortunately, Syria still chooses not to recognize Israel, and as you point out, hosts Iranian forces on Israel's border. It's fair to say Israel has violated international law in an attempt to protect its sovereignty from Syrian aggression.
> The reality is at some point you have to move past history to make the best decision now. It's neither moral nor practical to uproot or kill the people currently living in Israel because the original settlement was wrong or misguided.
Indeed. No one in the right mind would suggest that the European settlers that colonized North America should go home. However, we very much expect them to treat the remaining Native Americans that they didn't exterminate as equals and also to recognize that a genocide took place.
Israel was founded in much the same way. In 1948, 80% of all Palestinians in what became Israel were driven into exile by Jewish forces. They were prevented from returning while Israel confiscated their property and handed it over to Jewish immigrants. "In Israel, only Jews have a right to return" Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion proclaimed.
To this date, Israel still doesn't allow the Palestinian refugees to return while granting every Jew in the world the privilege of settling in Israel. Israel has not even considered compensating the Palestinians that it ethnically cleansed and whose property it stole.
I think your misconception of the conflict is that it is "all in the past". It is not. 50% of all Palestinians live in exile, unable to visit their homeland. A large fraction of those live in refugee camps or are destitute and dependent on UNRWA for subsistence. Gaza is an open air prison and the underemployment rate is approaching 80%. In the West Bank, extremist Jewish settlers harass Palestinians daily and more and more settlements are being built. In Israel, Palestinians are treated as second-class citizens and explicitly condemned as a threat to the state by leading politicians.
My argument is consistent. Israel was an illegally created colony and it continues its illegal expansion.
I strongly disagree that we should just give up on stopping the Palestinian colonization. For example, one concrete thing that is absolutely politically attainable would be to completely cut the US funding sent to Israel (billions of dollars a year).
I do not think a colony that's less than 100 years old has to be taken "as a given".
a country or area under the full or partial political control of another country and occupied by settlers from that country.
Which country is controlling and settling the Israel? It's not a colony you are thinking of, at best you can claim it's a part-invasion part-colony, but you are not. you are saying that its all a colony. so you are wrong.
There is no requirement that the colonizers be from a single country. The US is certainly playing part in the colonization by funding Israel. The UK also played a huge role in the creation of Israel. The point is that the colonizers of Israel were not from Palestine, then they created a nation over the top of someone else's land and have aggressively expanded the borders of that nation.
> at best you can claim it's a part-invasion part-colony
I think that's a pretty apt description actually. You have to invade a place before you colonize it.
The significance of the disengagement plan [from Gaza] is the freezing of the peace process, and when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress. That is exactly what happened. You know, the term `peace process' is a bundle of concepts and commitments. The peace process is the establishment of a Palestinian state with all the security risks that entails. The peace process is the evacuation of settlements, it's the return of refugees, it's the partition of Jerusalem. And all that has now been frozen.... what I effectively agreed to with the Americans was that part of the settlements would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns. That is the significance of what we did.
Dov Weissglass, senior advisor to prime minister Ariel Sharon
The reality is at some point you have to move past history to make the best decision now. It's neither moral nor practical to uproot or kill the people currently living in Israel because the original settlement was wrong or misguided.
Palastinian claims over Israel make as much sense as Taiwanese claims over mainland China (or PRC claims over Taiwan). And I say that as someone who is very against continued aggression from Israel and for recognition of a Palastinian state.