The Ivy League and other elite private colleges are losing esteem

Jaffa and Tel Aviv are now a single municipality, it's considered a mixed city where we have both Arabs and Jews. This has advantages and disadvantages. Gentrification raises prices which make it hard for typically larger families to get homes (impacts Arab families more). But it also means that education and work opportunities are more equal. We get to live together and know each other.

A lot of Arabs fled during the independence war. There were atrocities done on both sides during that war which was especially tragic.

> Aside, the annexations of Jaffa into Tel Aviv, is colonialism 101. The eradication of the place names and administration boundaries is straight from the playbook of the colonization of Ireland by the British.

That is pure nonsense. Tel Aviv is a new city that evolved and grew. It wasn't built on top of anything. Jaffa is ancient and as such has very limited growth potential. The names in Jaffa are the same as ever as are the mosques and everything there. New construction sometimes gets new names, that's it.

> The thing is, they don’t still live there, they were overwhelmingly displaced

That's a strawman argument. I specifically said "still live there". You're trying to bring people who never saw Jaffa into this argument. It's ridiculous redundant and pointless. Should I refer to our ancestors from 2,000 years ago and their connection to Jaffa and Jerusalem?

> By the same logic you could claim that Dublin has no claims on Belfast because Belfast has some Catholics that vote for the DUP.

Let's talk about the Irish. The Irish were able to finally get a country when they accepted reality and compromised with the British. Yes, it sucked. Yes, the British did some pretty nasty things. But they compromised and negotiated.

Do the Irish want to take back Belfast by force? Are they opening a war on England in an attempt to do so?

That's the right analogy.

> 13000 of those are for Yesh Atid and Labour which are a liberal/reformist versions of Zionism

They are mostly centrist, I vote left of both. Notice that even the Arab parties in the election recognize Israel and its borders as they are legally defined. Based on our definition of Zionism, they are all Zionists.

Zionism means the desire of Jews to return to Zion. That's it. People often pull words they don't understand and associate false meaning with them trying to pollute the discussion. That is one such victim of the discussion.

> But what I get from this is this is that it is not that easy to claim that “Palestinians” that still live in Jaffa vote Likud in shocking numbers.

To me this is a shocking number, especially with how bad the Likud is in terms of policies towards minorities. Historically they were far more popular with the arab/Palestinian population as their message was more about helping the downtrodden population. Bibi slowly burned down their support, especially since coupling with Ben Gvir.

I think you're framing the history of the peace accords in a way that is very unfair to Israel.

Many people have opined over the years on the negotiations between Israel and Palestine, and while it's certainly not one-sided, I think it's unfair to say that it is Israel's fault that a peace was never achieved. The Palestinian leadership multiple times turned down offers that most outside observers considered very good for the Palestinians, and didn't come up with any acceptable substitute; they walked away from the negotiations instead.

> The whole implicit promise of Oslo was that the Palestinians would get a sovereign state, but that wasn't explicitly spelled out anywhere in the text, and the Israelis never committed to it.

Here are some snippets from the beginning of the Oslo accords. I'm not sure what you mean by "not spelled out", they're fairly explicit about the Palestinian people ruling themselves:

> The aim of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations within the current Middle East peace process is, among other things, to establish a Palestinian Interim Self-Government Authority [...] It is understood that the interim arrangements are an integral part of the whole peace process and that the negotiations on the permanent status will lead to the implementation of Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973).

> In order that the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip may govern themselves according to democratic principles, direct, free and general political elections will be held for the Council under agreed supervision and international observation, while the Palestinian police will ensure public order. [...] These elections will constitute a significant interim preparatory step toward the realization of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and their just requirements.

>> E.g. pro-Palestinian protests help create a message that the Hamas sees as support to it. That means most Palestinians will fall back into the loop of bad leadership that keeps landing them to a worse positions than they were before.

> The major problem is just the opposite. The Israelis have felt for the last 20 years that they can do anything to the Palestinians and ignore the Palestinians' demands for basic rights and a state of their own. The Israelis believe there will be no consequences, because the Palestinians are weak. October 7th was a complete aberration, the first time in 20 years that Israelis have suffered at all because of the occupation. Left to their own devices, the Israelis would just continue to expand settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, would never concede to the creation of a Palestinian state, and might even try to expel the Palestinians at some future date. Without outside pressure, there will never be an end to the conflict, except perhaps for a final expulsion of the Palestinians.

So I somewhat agree with this sentiment, actually. I think some minority of Israelis would absolutely be fine with expelling the Palestinians, and obviously they've continued expanding settlements all this time. The majority of Israelis would never agree with actually expelling Palestinians, but were "fine" living in what on their side were relatively peaceful times, not doing anything to promote peace (and letting the more anti-peace side of Israel effectively call the shots).

I do take issue with your saying that "the major problem is just the opposite" though. I think they're both problems. The Israeli left and pro-peace movement has become far less powerful, exactly because of the perception of the Israeli public that there is no "partner for peace". I think that perception is actually fairly true - Hamas wants the destruction of Israel, the PA is weak and ineffectual and hated by the people, and the perception is that the majority of Palestinians don't want a peaceful two-state solution, but rather believe that they will eventually "drive out Israelis" or some such nonsense.

The failure of the peace process, which Israelis perceive as happening because of the Palestinian leadership (which is fairly true IMO), and the ramp up of terror attacks because of the peace process, really weakened the Israeli peace movement. The situation with the Gaza disengagement is only going to weaken the peace camp further.

Of course Israel isn't blameless here either - whether or not Israeli "should have" pursued peace for the last 20 years - and I think it absolutely should have, morally speaking - what Israel also did was in some ways to actively work against peace. Part of the reason for the lack of "Palestinian leadership" is because of actions taken by Israel.

> That's not the case. That's the "common wisdom" in the US, but it's not the dominant view among experts, and it's just objectively false.

Can you provide backup for this?

> If you read through the passages you've quoted carefully, you'll realize that the text does not say that the Palestinians will have their own sovereign state.

The passages don't say the word state, but they pretty explicitly say that Palestinians will govern themselves, and that this is an interim step towards full Palestinian rights. Is your only issue with it that it's missing the word "state"? Honestly trying to understand your view here.

> The Israeli government's position under Rabin was that the Palestinians would be given a semi-autonomous status in an "entity" - not a state - that would be under Israeli control.

I saw you referencing this earlier. I think you're making too much of this. He was probably playing politics to a country that wasn't yet ready to hear talk of a Palestinian state in full, but it seems fairly clear that that was his end goal, and the obvious end of the process he himself was most actively pursuing (and tragically gave his life for). See e.g. this article in Haaretz, which gives a lot more context on this [1], I'll quote a relevant part:

"Kurzman’s claim is supported by my interviews with close associates of Rabin who told me that he had come to terms with the eventuality of a Palestinian state. He and his foreign minister, Shimon Peres, had an agreement not to discuss a Palestinian state at that stage but clearly understood that this was the end game, then-Labor Party Secretary General Nissim Zvili told me."

I'll also note that we are not beholden to what Rabin believed at the time, and many people have since become far more on board with a two-state solution, as the article notes:

"It is difficult to imagine that he would disagree with the vast majority of other retired Israeli generals – as well as the former heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet intelligence service – who today argue that a Palestinian state, alongside the Jewish state, is a top national security interest for Israel."

> Effectively, some sort of limited ability to run their own affairs, but under ultimate Israeli control, and without the ability to vote in Israeli elections.

Now I'm confused. Why would they have the ability to vote in Israeli elections? The idea is to have a separate state, with its own government. How does voting in Israeli elections figure into this?

> This is a view that just flies in the face of reality. Netanyahu did everything possible to torpedo the peace process in the 1990s, and no Israeli government was prepared to accept the minimal acceptable settlement, which is a sovereign Palestinian state on 1967 borders.

While you're right about Netanyahu, you're still wrong about Camp David, Taba and the 2008 offer. More importantly, while I have multiple times put the fault on Israel for not working actively for peace in the last 20 years, there is also a lot of fault on the Palestinians for exactly the same reason, and for continually choosing violence and terror instead of pushing more for peace from their side. You seem to view everything as 100% Israel's fault, giving no agency at all to the Palestinians - "Israel didn't make a good offer so that's that". It's also on them to advance peace, denounce terror, and work towards a two-state solution.

[1] https://www.haaretz.com/2017-11-02/ty-article/.premium/fight...

> Can you provide backup for this?

It's based on my reading from various people who were there and who have commented on the process afterwards. There is a massive gap between how this is discussed in the American popular media and how it's discussed among experts.

> Is your only issue with it that it's missing the word "state"?

In a process that is supposedly going to lead to a Palestinian state, don't you think it's a bit curious that it is never actually spelled out that there will be a Palestinian state?

The reason for the absence of any explicit statement that the "final status" will be a Palestinian state is that the Israeli government at the time opposed the creation of a Palestinian state. The Israeli government believed that it could resolve the Palestinian question through some sort of semi-autonomous status under ultimate Israeli control.

It may be that Rabin would eventually have accepted a Palestinian state, had he not been assassinated, but this was his public position at the time of his death [0]:

"We view the permanent solution in the framework of the State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

"We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six-Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines."

He goes on to state a number of conditions that would be utterly unacceptable to the Palestinians, including:

All of Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty: "First and foremost, united Jerusalem, which will include both Ma’ale Adumim and Givat Ze’ev -- as the capital of Israel, under Israeli sovereignty, while preserving the rights of the members of the other faiths"

Israeli military control over the Jordan River Valley, which would be the eastern half of the putative Palestinian "entity": "The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term." (emphasis added)

What Rabin is spelling out here is much less than a Palestinian state. It is essentially a plan for the Palestinians to be able to run local civic affairs, while under ultimate Israeli control. What that would mean in practice would be that the Palestinian "entity" would be at the mercy of the Israeli government, with little ability to take independent actions that the Israeli government disliked. The Israelis would control the borders, and their troops would be able to move in at any moment in the event of a disagreement. This Palestinian entity would not even include the largest, most important Palestinian city: East Jerusalem.

That's why the Oslo Accords do not mention a "Palestinian state." The Israelis were not prepared to accept one.

> Why would they have the ability to vote in Israeli elections? The idea is to have a separate state, with its own government.

Because the Israelis did not envision a separate state. They envisioned an entity under ultimate Israeli control. In practice, that translates to a kind of second-class citizenship, where you do not have the right to vote for the government that exercises ultimate authority over the territory you live on. Israeli citizens would get to vote for the government that has all the guns. Palestinian "citizens" would get to vote for a local civic government that doesn't have any guns, with Israeli troops standing by, ready to move in whenever they want.

> you're still wrong about Camp David, Taba and the 2008 offer.

Camp David was utterly unacceptable for the same reasons I've discussed earlier. The Israelis offered something far less than a sovereign state, and they demanded extremely significant concessions on territory and other issues. The Palestinians managed to move the Israelis a bit at Taba, but then the negotiations broke down because the Israeli government was facing electoral defeat, with Israeli hardliners under Ariel Sharon set to take over. The 2008 offer was again utterly unserious - it was issued as a non-negotiable ultimatum, and included poison pills like Israeli annexation of Ariel, that the Israelis knew the Palestinians could never accept.

> You seem to view everything as 100% Israel's fault, giving no agency at all to the Palestinians

The Palestinians have very little agency. They have no army and no money. They live under military occupation. They have no significant international backers, and their opponent, Israel, is backed by the world superpower. They tried nonviolent resistance in the First Intifada, and were met with a brutal military response. They tried recognizing Israel and negotiating, asking for a sovereign state on 22% of the land, but they got nowhere. They tried violent resistance in the Second Intifada, and got crushed. They tried slowly working towards international recognition to build pressure on Israel, but again have had very little success. Even their attempts to organize an international boycott Israel have been essentially made illegal in much of the West.

> It's also on them to advance peace, denounce terror, and work towards a two-state solution.

That's what the Palestinians did in the 1990s, and it got them nowhere. Israel is in a position where it does not feel that it has to make any concessions. Until Israel feels pressure from the outside world, it will not do so.

0. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/pm-rabin-speech-to-knes...

> Why is it an Arab land?

Because the population was nearly 100% Arab.

> But also look at Israelis who want to enter the universities and can't. ... Barred from entry.

Israelis are not barred from entry. I know of only one individual Israeli who has been barred from entering the Columbia main campus, and that's because he has more than 50 harassment claims against him, and because he tried to lead a counterprotest directly into a protest. The administration told him to hold the counterprotest at a nearby location, so as not to create a direct physical confrontation.