What would be the problem of having a single secular state for Israel and Palestine?

shit. didn't mean to use impetus there, but you know what i mean.

Israel was set up intended as a Jew majority nation. After the Holocaust they don't want to take they chances as a persecuted minority. Massive Arab birthrates would make them a minority in no time. I know you were trolling, but thought you deserved a real answer.

Palestinians consider the land (that is now Israel) to have been stolen from them. Realistically, I suppose they've got a point...

Anyway, Israelis justify the "theft," and their country's existence, based on their religion. Given that religion is the country's whole raison d'etre, it seems unlikely that they'd give it up any time in the recent future.

You are correct, most Palestinians are not Islamic fundamentalists. But they want their land (their "country") back; and, like anybody else, they'll choose parts of their religion that seem to justify whatever they want to do, in order to get it back.

What would be the problem of having a single secular state for the US and Mexico? Oh, wait.

They don't justify it based on religion, they justify it based on safety (and, as I alluded to above, today economics plays an important role). Israel has been repeatedly attacked since its inception.

In short, the existence of Israel and Palestine (in so much as Palestine exists) is the problem.

That said, there are a lot of Jews in Israel who seriously question the very existence of the country and question why it even exists. In fact I recall reading that a majority of Jews worldwide believe it shouldn't exist. But I'm not sure if that is true.

ryan foreman wrote:

...In fact I recall reading that a majority of Jews worldwide believe it shouldn't exist. But I'm not sure if that is true.

Who the heck cares what Jews worldwide believe about the state of Israel? Not relevant in any way.

The argument about massive Arab birth rates is fallacious on so many levels its hard to approach. A secular state would not change current or future birth rates. In fact, economic growth spurred by peace would be the only thing that would prevent that in the Palestinian community.

If the whole thing is about nationalist pride then it is easier to understand, but that just makes the whole thing even stupider. I am still convinced that the easiest way to resolve this issue is to say that the land belongs to no group and for everyone to commit to the basic ideas of human, civil, and property rights.

TCB wrote:

Israelis are ration enough to accept the principals of liberty so why are they so adamant about maintaining this destructive status quo?

Isreal is not rational.

They are the most murderous community that has ever existed.

Maybe not. Except that the overwhelming majority of American Jews have more or less the same background as Israeli Jews. They fled the Antisemitism of Europe in the early 20th century. They just chose America and not Israel. In part because they didn't feel the answer was to create a country that existed as a homeland for Jews. Maybe that is meaningless. But just don't be so surprised if and when America turns its back on Israel and leaves it alone to fend for itself in the Middle East. I think that scenario has some relevance to the thread.

So what if they do wrote:

ryan foreman wrote:

...In fact I recall reading that a majority of Jews worldwide believe it shouldn't exist. But I'm not sure if that is true.

Who the heck cares what Jews worldwide believe about the state of Israel? Not relevant in any way.

many like falk have proposed a one democratic state or Israetine solution but that's easier said than done and will not solve the problem of instability within the region. you see every government and faction in the middle east is a facist democracy or a facist dictatorship. israel of course is well known a nazi populist state based on theodor herzl's racist theories. so is turkey who won't allow kurds their rights within society nor will they allow the kurds to form a separate nation. so is egypt, syria, lebanon, iran, uae, qatar, iraq, afghanistan, pakistan, etc. none of those countries have any semblance of a modern democracy. only hamas and hezbollah have attempted to have human rights but they falied since they are ruled by militarists. so basically the entire region is run by warlords, dictators, and facist democracies.

Someone has to "win" and win decisively - let them go at each other, then no more arguing.

Because that defeats Zionism: the desire for a state that is exclusively Jewish with a Jewish majority. Even in 1948, the areas allocated to Jews had mostly Palestinian Arabs living within it, which led them to expel over 700,000 Palestinians living within it. Suffice it to say that Israel's creation was an abomination, a tragedy that has robbed a people of 60 years of possible prosperity, not to mention their land, homes, villages, men, women, children, and even their reputation. Israelis and Palestinians can make peace, provided a better set of circumstances: for one, the differences in military might cannot be so large, because as long as Israel has the upper hand in this (fed by America's $3 billion a year in economic and military aid that it DOES NOT NEED) and Palestinians are deprived of any means of self-defense, then Israel will always have free hand to abuse, persecute and humiliate Palestinians with impunity. Second, get rid of ultra-right wing fundamentalists who aren't interested in peace, and third stop the settlement building: it's illegal and it's destructive.

Israel was set up to be a "Jewish state".

This means that the Jews must be in the majority, a difficult goal to obtain given both the small number of Jews living in the arab world and the relatively low birth rate of the Jews compared to the arabs. Therefore absolute power must be retained via strategies.

In Israel proper, you keep the Jewish to non-jewish ratio at @ 80% by recruiting Jews from all over the world (whose resettlement costs are paid for by the US taxpayer, thank-you very much)and by allowing none of the original non-Jewish inhabitants the same "right of return".

In lands that Israel conquers and begins settling with Jews (an illegal act under international law), you declare an occupation for security purposes and completely disenfranchise the non Jewish inhabitants.

This is not accurate. Israel has done a bunch of stupid things (plus even more immoral ones), but...1. The UN gave the land to the Jews after the holocost in 1947, voted on by the general assembly. (and gave another large bit to the palesitinians)2. Palestinians began killing jewish farmers.3. There were reprisal by the farmers on random Palestinians.4. Palestinians organized into an army and blockaded the jews inside their communities.5. The actual arab part of Palestine was invaded by jordan, ensuring the Palestinians did not have a homeland.6. The Jews finally armed themselves and organized.7. The palestinians had an idiotic military plan and were defeated, resulting in about 400,000 of the 450,000 people fleeing (not to the rest of palestine, but to lebanon, since jordan would not let them into their former homeland.8. The Arab League Secretary, is said to have declared, "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades". There were several massacres of jewish communities after defeats in battle.9. The Palestinians did not want to go back to israel after there defeat since they figured they would be persecuted (probably correctly, since they had just tried to exterminate the jews). The jordanians wouldn't let them back into what used to be palestinians-this led to the refugee crisis.10. Later on the arabs tried to exterminate the jews a few more times, each time being defeated.11. The jews seemed to not like the idea of being exterminated and don't seem to take the palestinians at their word-they want to destroy isreal.12. Therefore, the do nasty stuff to the everyone in palestine to keep them from being in a position to kill all of the jews.Its perfectly logical, even though what the israelies are doing is certainly totally immoral. They will all go to hell, but they won't be dead. Why let someone who has been trying, not to take power, but to exterminate your people, gain power over you again. Incidentally, the majority of palestinians in a recent poll still want to kill all israelis. I'd argue that both sides have to just end this thing and ignore the past. Too many dead people and its neither good for israel or palestine.

Any attempt to unify the Nazi Zionists, Israeli Moderates, and Israeli Arabs with Hamas and Fatah will have to be supported by drastic improvements in human rights and a cease fire by warring and collaborative nations in the region.

You just can't civilize Israel and Palestine, you have to civilize every other facist state in region, which is means every warlord, ruling family, and government.

Autocratic countries have make concrete moves towards democracy and human rights. Jews, Muslims, Christians, Zorastrians, Druze, etc. must be guaranteed civil and human rights, and provided protection from harm in every country. Not just in Israel, but in Iran, Lebanon, Iraq too.

Nations have to agree to stand down, demilitarize, and disarm in syncrhonized, orchestrated phases.

In effect, Clinton's Yugoslavia solution or Truman's post WWII Europe solution would have to be repeated here, but of course the Middle East is much different.