Hopefully getting back to something useful, I would like to ask a few questions to get your views on them:
1) Do the Palestinians have any legitimate claim to an independent state or should the state of Palestine never exist?
2) Do Jews have the ultimate right (as in it can pre-empt all other claims) to Jerusalem? (I understand the city to be claimed by Palestinians and Israelis as a capital.) That is, does either group have a sole claim to the city, or should/can it exist as a capital of two independent nations?
3) Do you believe the expansion of Jewish settlements into what the Palestinians claim is Palestinian lands is justified? (Or do you believe Palestinians have no legitimate land claims, so the question is moot?)
4) And finally, if there should be a two-state solution, what border should Israel occupy now? Was the 1947 plan that was devised by the UN inherently flawed or biased against Israel, or was it only the Arab wars against Israel that made the original plan unworkable?
I'm just looking for brief responses initially and we can get into more color and the justification of the answers after that (if we hold different views on something). Mostly I'm asking because I'm trying to figure out what I think, but I don't know the things I don't know.
I'll try to be brief, but it's a challenge.
1a.
Do the Palestinians have any legitimate claim to an independent state?I'll answer this "no," but for somewhat technical reasons. "Legitimate" seems too related to law or legal authority, and I don't believe there's any legal authority through which the Palestinians have a "legitimate claim" to an independent state. Someone else could answer it "yes" by pointing to U.N. general assembly resolutions, but I don't accept the U.N. as any kind of legal authority. It's reasonable for Palestinians to want to have an independent state, and maybe that's more in the spirit of what you're asking. I'm skeptical that this is the primary desire of Palestinians.
So what it is the "legitimate" claim for Israel as a state then? It seems to me the same situation: Israel declared itself a state in 1948 at the end of the British Mandate, and then it was accepted as a state by the international community. It seems just as arbitrary as Palestine, which has declared itself a state and is recognized by a majority of the world, both in terms of number of governments, and a vast majority of the population represented by those governments. I'm just trying to drill down as to what the specific difference is here, on a technical "what is a state" level.
1b. Should the state of Palestine never exist?
If a state can be established that isn't regularly attacking Israel, I don't have an objection. I have serious doubts about whether such a state can live in peace with Israel. I don't think much would change if it were recognized as a state. There would still be regular attacks, responses, and recriminations.
I agree with you for the most part, the violence and the rockets need to stop. The only thing I would add here is the question, do you believe the Israel does nothing to perpetuate hostilities? I guess specifically I mean the expansion of Jewish settlements into what both sides have at times previously recognized as land designated as part of a future Palestinian state.
2. Do Jews have the ultimate right (as in it can pre-empt all other claims) to Jerusalem? (I understand the city to be claimed by Palestinians and Israelis as a capital.) That is, does either group have a sole claim to the city, or should/can it exist as a capital of two independent nations?
I don't think Jews have an ultimate right to Jerusalem. I can't think of any situation where I would say an ethnic or religious group has a "right" to some land. As a practical matter, Israel will not give it up. (It's as unrealistic as Turkey giving up Istanbul.) However, the deal offered in 2000 shows some Israelis are willing to give up some parts of Jerusalem to be a capital of Palestine. I'm skeptical that this would work in practice, but I have no objection to it being tried.
Ok, I was just wondering. I agree with this viewpoint.
3) Do you believe the expansion of Jewish settlements into what the Palestinians claim is Palestinian lands is justified? (Or do you believe Palestinians have no legitimate land claims, so the question is moot?)
While I don't believe the Palestinians have "legitimate" land claims, I can still try to answer the first question. The expansion of Jewish settlements into new parts of the West Bank makes the effective land area for a future Palestinian state smaller. I think this is a reasonable price the Palestinians should pay for decades of committing, encouraging and rewarding terrorism. Imagine there were a magical force field that determined the border, and that every time there were a Palestinian terrorist attack on Israel that force field expanded outward by one meter. I would consider that a good thing. I would feel differently if Palestinians discouraged terrorism and punished terrorists.
I think your analysis of the situation and the motivation of Israel is reasonable. I don't disagree with it, but I do also feel that this approach makes victims of people who aren't deserving in many cases. By lumping all Palestinians together, Israel looks to punish "them" by taking "their" land when the radicals commit violence against Israel. But the blanket use of force against "Palestinians" and not the specific individuals who commited the violence makes victims out of people who had nothing to do with the violence. I think this is where much anger comes from. And then the radicals use this as proof of how 'evil' Israel is and radicalize more people for the intifadas and the rocket campaigns. I'm not justifying the violence, but I'm saying that I don't believe the Israeli approach to it doesn't solve the problem, and actually makes it worse. It hasn't solved it for decades, and I guess at this point it only looks like it will when there are no Palestinian lands left, and then it still won't, because there will continue to be terrorist attacks.
As for the Palestinians stopping it themselves, I hardly know how they could. There are no resources in Palestine for police or courts or just general society. To the extent Palestinians have jobs, they travel to Israel for work, when they are allowed to cross the border. There are just no resources for a functioning society, and it is very easy to say "that's the price of being terrorists, because then Israel has to wall them off from everyone else" but this is also an overslimpification of what is happening (IMO). It creates victims of people who are innocent, and this creates anger and resentment, and then a radical group wants to use them as a proxy for their war against Israel, and it's easy to marshal that anger at that point.
4. And finally, if there should be a two-state solution, what border should Israel occupy now? Was the 1947 plan that was devised by the UN inherently flawed or biased against Israel, or was it only the Arab wars against Israel that made the original plan unworkable?
The peace deal offered in 2000 gives a realistic idea: something close to the 1967 borders but with land swaps to account for Jerusalem and the "facts on the ground." I don't know if the 1947 partition plan was workable in 1947, but I seriously don't think it is today. There has been too much population growth and movement since then, in addition to other issues.
This works for me. I think you're right about the original plan not being relevant today. I think the biggest impediment to peace is the radical groups in Palestine, but obviously from what I've written, I don't hold Israel blameless. I think their actions, while perfectly predictable to their strategic aims of securing their borders, also perpetuates the problem by continually stoking anger. But I also don't think politicians on either side want peace. While they wouldn't deny it if it fell on to them, their primary objective is like all other politicians: to stay in power, and they can use the anger at the other side to do that. Marshal the hatred for political gain because it's easier than trying to convince your own people to want peace instead.