The thing is, no one knows how things will work out demographically, either. If there is a hard line drawn in a two-state settlement where there are no Jews in the West Bank and no Palestinian Arabs in Israel; however, I doubt this is going to be the case.

All groups, whether minorities or whatever, must be made equal under the laws, and those laws will need to be strictly enforced. When there is a strict enforcement, including significant penalties, people eventually get the idea that discrimination is wrong. The Civil Rights Act of 1965 did not make the US a utopia, but it did a lot to change the way Americans both perceived and treated each other.

I think we’re all aware of what would lie ahead when (and I do mean when) there is a peace agreement. But we have to get there first.

What you folks don’t realize is that whatever happens in the region we call Israel-Palestine will be a state that is profoundly ethnic and religious in its makeup. It won’t be a secular democratic state shorn of religious or ethnic identity. So the question is how do you protect the minority ethnic/religious group? Do you do it by pretending every citizen of this state will be the same as every other? If you do, then you create a recipe for social implosion. Or do you somehow protect the rights or all minorities?

I don’t know whether this gets worked out via one or two-states in the long run. But if one state, then I know that the anti-Zionists are far too glib in terms of what they think will happen to minorities within the new state & how it will work.

Pragmatism be damned; Israel’s idea of pragmatism is nothing more than demanding those phony “concessions” from Palestinians who have been ripped off more than enough.

I have only read about Laor’s book. Fr. what I have read I would prob. agree w. most or all of it. If you read this blog you will find criticism of all the liberal Zionist figures mentioned by Laor. And I am not a liberal Zionist.

At the risk of being banned, I think Richard does too. Richard I wish you would respond to my post above. Is justice divisible? Do you believe Palestinians are entitled to Justice so long as providing that justice does not impinge on Jews having a state?
Apparently….but I’d like to see you say so.

You see I think you are hypocritical, making a big deal of how humanitarian you are, attacking those right-wingers, yet you (as it seems to me) are on a spectrum with them – albeit a kinder, gentler embodiment.

If I’m wrong please explain.

ellen

I think the anti-Zionist Left within Europe (which I compared to Petlyura, not the Palestinians, who are at least more ideologically diverse) will engineer Israel’s ostracism from the UN, world trade networks, etc. within 10 years, when they realize an Israel-Palestine peace treaty
will leave Israel intact with a Jewish majority.

I think you are much more optimistic, and without cause. I think a Hezbollah-style continued resistance is more likely, whatever a US-tainted PA agrees to, and the more interesting union is going to be between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs who have no wish to live under an “Islamic resistance”-ruled unitary state. Remember that Lebanon is still in an existential war with Israel, despite the UN certification of withdrawal. Palestine is likely to go the same way–useless UN-certified withdrawal, a diffident PA on the US payroll, and Islamic resistance indefinitely.

And which Zionism would that be? The Zionism which only steals 75 percent of the West Bank and 80 percent of the water? Or would they steal less than that, but still persist in the ongoing theft?

The sad thing of Zionism is that it created a time bomb in the middle east which never had to happen. Jews and Arabs lived peacefully in Palestine for ages and would have no doubt continued to do so, if the Jews had chosen peace over war, and compromise over theft. Instead a slow genocide is taking place. So many Israeli politicians have come and gone, all saying different things, some wanting also to “minimize” the destruction, but Israel’s government merely carries out the Zionist mission, regardless of which party holds power.