Friday, August 1, 2014

What should Israel do to make its Arab neighbors happy ?

In the end, the question of Palestine is simple:

What should Israel do
to make its Arab neighbors happy ?
As long as the only answer is "to disappear", there is really nothing to discuss.

Yes, Israel does sometimes disgusting things. But what other choice it has ?

The problems in the Palestine are the usual problems of disappeared empires. The Ottoman Empire in this case. It's very similar to situation after the fall of Austro-Hungarian Empire or Russian Empire. The populations which don't like each other live intermixed, it is difficult to create new states, to draw new borders. It takes time, it's very painful, but eventually, it succeeds. Not in this case, because one of the players is zionist.

Israel is probably the only state in the world which has absolutely no real international guarantee to stay alive. All others are either big enough or protected by their alliances (like NATO). Israel is a small country in the middle of largely hostile environment. When Israel is attacked, nobody helps. And Israel is attacked almost without interruption since its creation.

Two more facts to clarify:

  1. There is no right of return. There are hundreds of millions people who has been forced to leave their homes. Hindus of Pakistan, Muslims of India, Jews in most Arab countries, Tatars of Crimea, Germans of Sudetens, Germans and Poles of Konigsberg. The list is endless. None of them have a right of return. Why Arabs of Palestine should be different ?
  2. Gaza was not blocked when Israel has left it. The border was open. It is closed only since terrorist have won the election and Gaza has become a fortress in the war against Israel. Israel (and Egypt) have closed its borders with Gaza after constant terrorist attacks of Israel from Gaza. They can only re-open them when they have a solid guarantee that the attacks will not start again.

In  fact, Dilbert (Scott Adams) can say it better:
This got me thinking again about my own opinions on the Palestinian problem. People like to say it’s unsolvable because it’s so “complicated.” But to me it really boils down to one question: If Israel did everything that was asked of it (short eliminating itself), would its enemies stop trying to annihilate it ?
As a rational person, you might be tempted to imagine yourself in the shoes of the Palestinians and say “of course!” Unfortunately, you are not in charge of the Palestinians. Hamas is. And their stated policy is the elimination of Israel. As long as that’s their written objective, Israel’s only sensible policy is to keep them so weakened they can’t raise a proper army. And while I feel that collective punishment in disguise is grotesque, how do you ask Israel to stop acting sensibly ? And while Israel is at it, they might as well pick up some real estate too. What’s the worst thing that could happen – the Palestinians will get mad ?

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