Israel / Palestine

[winjim]

What would a 'free' Palestine look like to you?

If I thought it was possible for me to engage this thread in a sensible discussion I would have joined the diplomatic corps.

Free Palestine 🇵🇸

 

[Ian H]

What would a 'free' Palestine look like to you?

This might be a starting point
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine

 

[theclaud]

With Every 4 gallons of Petrol at a BP Petrol Station?🤡

 

[Ian H]

View attachment 6811

My thoughts exactly.

 

[AuroraSaab]

This might be a starting point
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine
View attachment 6810

That doesn't seem to be what Palestinian groups mean when they say Free Palestine though. What would it be the starting point for?

 

[Ian H]

That doesn't seem to be what Palestinian groups mean when they say Free Palestine though. What would it be the starting point for?

Negotiations? But this is a fanciful idea as Israel appears to have no intention of negotiating. In fact they have probably never negotiated in good faith.

 

[Rusty Nails]

Negotiations? But this is a fanciful idea as Israel appears to have no intention of negotiating. In fact they have probably never negotiated in good faith.

Exactly.

Negotiation has never been a strong point on either side of the visceral partition argument, including 1947.

The reality is that it is fanciful to think negotiation over territory, if it took place at all, would start from anything other than the status quo, certainly not the 1947 proposal and will be doomed to failure. There is no win-win solution.

 

[theclaud]

That doesn't seem to be what Palestinian groups mean when they say Free Palestine though. What would it be the starting point for?

What, for you, is the barrier to even imagining Palestinian self-determination? Do you think there's something about Palestinians that makes it fundamentally unthinkable that they might just potter about tending olive groves, practising medicine or becoming tik-tok influencers, if they weren't shot in the head by Israeli snipers?

 

[AuroraSaab]

I suppose my imagination is limited by both Hamas and their wish to completely destroy Israel and remove every Jew 'from the river to the sea' and Netanyahu and his determination to stay in power regardless of the human cost. If you want to free Palestine you need a definition of what being 'free' means in more detail than 'allowed to tend olive groves'.

Personally I vaguely imagine a 2 state solution with a democratically elected Palestinian government, but that doesn't seem a popular option with either Hamas nor the current Israeli government.

What do you imagine Palestinian self-determination looks like?

 

[theclaud]

If you want to free Palestine you need a definition of what being 'free' means in more detail than 'allowed to tend olive groves'.

"Allowed".

 

[theclaud]

https://reliefweb.int/report/occupi...illing-palestinian-woman-during-olive-harvest

I'm sure Aurora will be along any minute to explain that olive trees are Hamas, or something.

 

[AndyRM]

I reckon the right to go about your daily business without being killed or battered is pretty compelling. I have a couple of olive trees and I would be pretty annoyed if I was shot while watering them, vainly hoping they might actually grow some olives one day. Likewise if my front path was annexed, but the Jewish community seems fairly happy in Bensham up here and as yet haven't shown any signs of aggressive expansion.

 

[winjim]

I know our neighbours don't like us, because our kids are noisy, but I've come to work fairly confident in the assumption they won't have incinerated them with an F-35 by the time I get home.

Sad to say, this does feel like privilege these days. We have a lot of challenges as a family but I'm not collecting pieces of my children in bin bags and none of us are in detention being raped to death so it seems awkward to complain about the situation.

Free Palestine 🇵🇸

 

[AuroraSaab]

Looks like nobody has any specific idea what they mean when they say Free Palestine, apart from Ian maybe. We'll be where we are now in 10 years time then.

 

[BoldonLad]

Looks like nobody has any specific idea what they mean when they say Free Palestine, apart from Ian maybe. We'll be where we are now in 10 years time then.

Sadly, I suspect you are correct, unless that is, it escalates and kills us all.