Jimmy Carter has died

I was surprised to find an article about his death as the top article on espn.com. I mean, I know the death of a president is a big deal, but ESPN? That's some serious cultural influence.

And they were not removed by Reagan. The roof had to be redone and they were simply not re-installed because they leaked so badly and weren't worth the time and expense.

> So we're all on the same page then. I never said Israel shouldn't exist, and your whole history lesson before (as much as you're leaving out) doesn't really matter.

Yes, I believe we are. I kind of have to be pro-actively defensive about the history, because lots of other people (even in this very thread) express exactly that - that Israel shouldn't exist, or that Israelis are uniquely evil, or something.

> The ethnostate nature of Israel now is what matters, and that it requires Palestinian statelessness is key. At least this is the approach of the current Israeli government.

I don't think this is fair, though. First, calling the "nature of Israel" an ethnostate is misleading - it's not any more an ethnostate than France is an "ethnostate" for the French. Indeed, Israel has a sizeable Arab/Palestinian minority (~20%) that have full rights and full voting rights.

And I certainly don't think anything about Israel requires Palestinian statelesness.

But yes, the current government is certainly of the approach that the Palestinians should never have a state - they literally voted on disallowing them ever having a state. The current government is awful, and not just for the Palestinians - dragging Israel towards dictatorship is (IMO, of course) a terrible thing for Israelis too!

> Leaving out that the PA renounced violence against Israel as part of the Oslo Peace Process, which only led to more land theft, that Israelis so badly did not want Palestine to have a state that they murdered Rabin to stop it, that multiple Israeli PMs constantly sabotaged the process to Palestinian statehood thru the PA (most notably Netanyahu preferring to allow Hamas to threaten their rule and ultimately expel them from Gaza). Let's be honest about failures on both sides, not prop up one story or the other solely.

I believe I am honest about the history, certainly honest about the experience of the Israeli left.

There was a genuine push for peace, sustained over many years and multiple PMs, and the experience of the country is that every push for peace ended up with more violence and less security, which just doesn't make any sense - why did the Palestinians ramp up the violence when on the way to getting what they ostensibly want? It makes sense from the POV of Palestinian extremists like Hamas, because they were explicitly against the peace process, and explictly refused to accept anything except getting rid of Israel. So for them, any concessions on the Israeli side were "proof" that Israel would eventually be able to be pushed out, which is what they really want, and represents (afaict) a majority view.

> Unfortunately, giving Palestine the one thing that can actually enable peace (deterrence) is also a huge risk for Israel.

I really, really disagree with this. Again, Mexico and the US have peace, but it's not because Mexico deters the US in any meaningful way. They just aren't fighting because they aren't competing over anything.

If Mexico tomorrow decided that it has a claim on (say) Texas, and were determined to conquer it - and started shooting rockets at the US and invading the US - would your reaction really be "well the only thing that can solve this is the US giving Mexico enough weapons so there was mutual deterrence"?

What brings peace is agreeing to live next to each other without killing each other.

> Thanks for sharing. I guess I never thought of anti-Israel or being pro-Israel and also pro-two-state-solution. There are fewer and fewer who balance both positions.

A generation ago, Israel was working towards a two-state solution. I think even in 2017, a majority of Israelis supported a two-state solution in polls.

> Israel is hostile to Palestinians as Palestinians are to Israelis. The killing of many people during the march of return. The starvation plus diets. The treatment of the West Bank after the PA renounced violence as part of Oslo, there are numerous examples Palestinians will cite to show that Israel is hostile to them.

I agree that there's a list of supposed reasons, but I think they're being considerably blown out of proportion in terms of showing that Israel is "actively hostile" to Palestinians. The average Palestinian in the West Bank would never have to interact with any Israeli or anything to do with Israel and have full freedom of movement. The average Gazan would even less interact with Israel, though obviously the blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt affect things.

Also, tens of thousands of Palestinians work within Israel, and that number had grown over time (until October 7th).

Remember that Palestinians and Israelis used to fairly freely interact, Israelis could once visit Gaza, etc. Things closed down because of the violence by Palestinian terrorists.

> At the end of the day, right now, both countries are materially and physically threatened by the other. And those threats materialize into violence often.

This is kind of true and kind of not. Had October 7th not happened, there would be no invasion of Gaza, and tens of thousands of Palestinians that are now dead would be alive. Israel had never and would never do anything like this war were it not for the ultimate proof that Hamas delivered, showing it could simply not be lived next to.

That said, it's true that Palestinians had a legitimate fear of Israel continuing to expand settlements, and potentially annex the WB or something. Still pretty clear to me that the answer to that fear is not violence - not only is it morally wrong, I think it's inarguable that Hamas has set back the Palestinian cause in terms of Israel's attitudes immensely.

> It is also not true that the Palestinians did not accept any peace. They accepted Oslo, in which they conceded far more than Israel, and were rewarded for that with basically nothing. But again, it doesn't really matter now, that is long gone and dead, and if you see it differently, fine.

It's true that the Palestinians accepted Oslo, but it's not even close to being true that they got nothing from it. Those accords literally created the Palestinian Authority, which is the official governing body of the Palestinians, and as close to being a "real" state as anything the Palestinians have. That body is still governing 30 years later, and the vast majority of West Bank Palestinians have lived for the last 30 years under their own governing body, not Israel, which is supposedly the point!

Of course, the idea of the accords was to set up an eventual Palestinian state, but the later negotiations ended with the Palestinians walking away from deals that gave them almost everything they supposedly wanted. Obviously I'm not truly objective, but I've done a lot of reading on this topic, and as far as I can tell - this is the view of almost everyone involved. There were, at least at some points, offers that the Palestinians could've taken that would've given them almost everything they ostensibly want, and they chose to walk away instead.

(And of course, also started the second intifada, making a mockery of the Israeli left; it promised security through peace, and while holding out the hand of peace and trying to reach a deal, was rewarded with a massive suicide bombing campaign that tore apart the country.)

> You could of course swap Palestine and Israel and have the American left-wing reading of the situation. You would balk at that saying "But the Palestinians are a security threat. Israel cannot be expected to allow that on its border. The US would never allow Mexico... Etc." and that is of course the same logic Palestine uses to justify its attacks on Israel. Palestine, being inferior by air, land, and sea militarily resorts to terrorism in its attacks, just as the IRA did with a similarly overmatched foe.

The American left-wing reading of the situation is simply wrong. I'm not American, but if I were I'd certainly be considered on the left. But you can't just swap the names and pretend that everyone is equal in this situation in terms of their goals.

And btw, this whole notion of "the Palestinians are fighting back" is itself detached from reality - the Palestinians are ostensibly represented by the Palestinians Authority, that's their official governing body. Hamas overthrew that governing body. They are shooting rockets at Israel and coordinating terrorist attacks. The actual government of the Palestinians is working together with Israel to stop terrorist attacks, and get rid of Hamas and other terror groups. (To some extent. The PA is not blameless.)

If the roles were reveresed, if the Palestinians had the capacity to actually eliminate Israel in a day (as Israel has towards the Palestinians) - Israel would simply be destroyed. I'm as sure of that as I am of anything.

Any analysis of the situation that doesn't take into account that the Palestinians getting what they want means the destruction of Israel and likely death of all Israelis - not taking that into account is simply choosing to ignore reality.

I would like to see one of these surveys since all data I’ve seen suggests Israelis support the genocide. I even posted the survey data we do have.