this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2024
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Netanyahu has not come up with any end plan for his Gaza war (because the whole thing is a ruse to keep him in office and out of jail at this point). It seems the Palestinians have so generously done so for him.
The logical end plan is probably a tenuous peace with Israel. The Palestinian Authority is smart they'll either make peace with Hamas or betray them all and turn them over to the Hague. The former will stabilise the Palestinian state at the expense of risking another Israeli invasion. The latter will stabilise relations with Israel in exchange for potentially weakening the unity of Palestine. But the PA cannot keep their heads in the sand and ignore Hamas.
Elections must be held. The Palestinian Authority has no claim to any mandate from the Palestinian people. Their latest election was over 18 years ago. If they want international legitimacy then they will need to demonstrate they have the confidence of the Palestinian people.
With a strong PA, there are two logical endpoints—a two-state solution with strong cooperation between Palestine and Israel, perhaps even to the point where there can be freedom of movement between the two or even united citizenship; or a one-state solution with the entirety of Palestine being absorbed under the state apparatus of what is now Israel, forming a bi-religious or secular successor state (due to the new voting power of Palestinian citizens).
Nobody will be entirely happy and get everything they wanted in the end, nor will everyone think that the result was totally fair, but I think at some people, people get tired of endless war and become willing to compromise. This may not happen in our generation, but it eventually must.
Remember that time Nethanyahu gave Hamas a duffle bag full of money?
I've never heard of that. Do you have any further reading?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/israel-drove-suitcases-stuffed-cash-185354972.html
Wow. Shocking.
Not going to lie, I thought it was fake news.
They actually caught it on camera, Jon Stewart did a report on it and pointed out how Hamas and Nethanyahu came into power at the same time and have been at war since. Poor people fight rich peoples wars again. The Jewish people that actually have less bias like Jon Stewart, Bernie Sanders and even Steven Spielberg don't like what's Isreal is doing to the innocent people to get back a Hamas.
Same for Hamas. The last election was held so long ago that the majority of Palestinians were not born yet and the vast majority could not vote. There simply is no remaining democratic mandate.
There are currently more Muslims in the borders of Israel-Palestine, and I doubt they're in a forgiving mood. I think there is a good chance that a unified state would turn into a Muslim state. I don't think it's unfounded to say that the current situation of a large Muslim population that is essentially disenfranchised is entirely to the liking of Israel's leaders.
Hang on a minute—the population of Israel is some ten million but the population of Palestine is only some five and a half million. Israel is 74% Jewish and 18% Muslim. Palestine is 93% Muslim. The rest follow other religions or no religion (they are mostly Christians).
This seems to mean that there are 7 million Muslims and 7.5 million Jews. And these figures predate the Gaza war; no doubt the number of Muslims in Palestine has gone down, due to obvious reasons.
You have to have very up-to-date information to see this. Muslims in Israel-Palestine have a higher birth rate than Jews and are much younger. This article is from 2022, when Muslims became a majority. The difference is only expected to grow larger.
However, birth rates are more correlated to wealth, not to religion. Poorer people have more kids than wealthier people. Palestine is much poorer than Israel, partly because of the constant war and unrest there, as well as the lack of a strong state apparatus. This means nobody wants to invest money to start businesses and create good jobs Meanwhile, Israeli companies and people exploit this by hiring Palestinian workers at very low wages.
Palestine is also beholden to the monetary policy of Israel as they are forbidden by treaty from establishing a national currency. Thus, the currency of Palestine is largely the Israeli new shekel.
Once there is peace, there can be work to fix these problems and increase the living standards of Palestinians. Once that happens, history tells us that their birth rate will naturally decline.
Sure, but poverty is also generational. The type of poverty that Palestinians have been experiencing won't be shaken off quickly, even under the best of circumstances. I'm just not sure what circumstances Israeli Jews would consent to a single state solution unless they're guaranteed to stay in power. Many Israeli Jews came from majority Muslim countries where antisemitism drove them out. Their descendants are unlikely to forget that in any discussion.
You're probably right. At the same time, stability and the right environment for business can do wonders for a country's economy. Just compare the dirt-poor China that Deng Xiaoping opened to global investment and the now-dominant regional superpower of today.
Do they have the confidence of the people?
Well, we'll see. The thing is that if the Palestinian Authority wants to be recognised as a state, it needs to act like a state and not like an ephemeral government-in-exile. Democratic governments can change through elections, but the state as an organisation is still there. The PA uses the name "State of Palestine" in its formal communications, so it needs to live up to that instead of acting like a ragtag band of desperados begging for whatever scraps of power Israel tosses to them.
Does the current government of the Palestinian Authority have the confidence of the people? Maybe. We don't know. But I assume the answer is "no" until I am proven wrong. Fatah controls the PA but technically lost to Hamas in the 2006 election. Again, that was 18 years ago. A lot has changed since then! Hamas has turned Gaza into a shit hole. The pockets of the West Bank run by the PA at least are serviceable.