Quote from: saddampbuh on April 25, 2015, 10:11:06 AM

Quote from: J. J. Phillips on April 25, 2015, 04:48:55 AM

Yes, I explicitly mentioned the 2000 deal a few times. Note that I didn't say "all Israeli settlers". The settlers that would have stayed would have been part of Israel (otherwise they'd be massacred) and some land was to be swapped to make up the difference.

but the settlers that would have stayed = practically all of them. you're making it sound like just a handful were going to remain and the arabs were making a fuss about nothing. here is a map of the best deal israel offered the palestinians. does it look like "It's always been part of the negotiation that Israeli settlers won't be allowed to stay in what becomes Palestine" to you?

I'm unclear on what the map you posted shows. In the pie chart on the side it says "White Area 6% 41 settlements, 65% of settlers" and "West Bank Brown Area 94% 87 Israeli settlements 35% of Israeli settlers". I had to stare at the map on a left for a while to decide what counts as "brown" and what counts as "white". I guess there are two different "browns" that both count as part of what would have been Palestine had the deal been accepted. And most of the settlements are in this "light brown" part and would have been abandoned. The "white" parts are small but can be found around Jerusalem and Ariel a bit north. I suppose the blue parts in these white parts are the ones that would have remained. Israel probably wanted to keep these because they are the most densely populated (based on the fact that 65% of settlers are in this small area). It's possible I'm misinterpreting the map. It took me three tries to find an interpretation that fit the statistics. Just tell me if you're reading it differently.

Well, a picture is sometimes helpful, so here's my modification of that map where I've blackened the Israeli settlements that would've been abandoned had the peace deal been accepted. Is this how you interpret it as well?

If this is correct, then it seems that land-wise most of the settlements would be gone. The settlements and settlers that remained would've been part of Israel, not part of what would have become Palestine. No Israeli settlers would've been left in what would've become Palestine. Maybe we're having trouble communicating because we interpret the phrase "become Palestine" differently. When I use it, I mean what would be the state of Palestine after such a peace deal. It's even more confusing here because the correct tense would be "would have become Palestine" since it's about a counterfactual world in which Arafat had accepted the proposal.

Quote from: saddampbuh on April 25, 2015, 10:11:06 AM

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Based on your last sentence, it sounds like you believe that land belongs to ethnic groups, not individuals. Is the correct? And the way to determine if the land belongs to an ethnic group is to see how many centuries they lived there? If the Israelis hold out for 200 years, would you then agree the land belongs to them?

this is like asking if apartheid had been able to hold out for another 200 years would i accept south africa now belongs to the whites. no solution is ever going to be acceptable that leaves millions of people in a state of limbo without national rights.

I assume this is a response to the final question. It's hard to tell, but I think you're saying you would never have accepted South Africa "belongs to whites" and will never accept the land in Israel "belongs to Jews". Or did I misinterpret this too?

You didn't directly answer the first two questions. However, what you're saying only makes sense if someone thinks of land as belonging to ethnic groups, not individuals. Presumably that's how you see the world. In addtion, it seems like your classification of land-to-ethnicity doesn't really depend on how long they've lived there (based on your South Africa response), so I'm not sure why you mentioned the fact that Arabs had ancestors living on that land for "100s of years." Presumably it doesn't matter how long they'd been there. You classify that land as "belonging to Arabs" just like South Africa "belongs to blacks" (I guess). It's not clear to me how you decided which parts of the world belong to which ethnic groups, but I guess it's not so important. All someone needs is a map with colors and conviction of being right.