Biden: Israel-Hamas war must end with vision for a 'two-state solution'

return2ozma@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 154 points –
Biden: Israel-Hamas war must end with vision for a 'two-state solution'
cnbc.com
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I feel like Biden just keep repeating the talking points that worked for Clinton in the 1990s and being confused why progressives today don't take him seriously. He's better than the other guy by a long shot but his policies are decades old.

Okay, so if a two-state plan is the "old" policy solution what is the new, progressive one?

Admit that the project of establishing a democratic Jewish state has failed, and try to salvage a democratic state out of the rubble.

That’s a fair point because there isn’t another proposal. Except mine which is a one state solution where they all get access to their fscking holy sites and it actually becomes the Middle East’s only democracy instead of democracy theater propped up by apartheid.

The problem is that if the resulting state is a democracy with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians, Israel will no longer be a Jewish state. This is the reason why I believe a democratic Palestine, with control of all Israeli and Palestinian territories, equal rights and protections, rule of law, separation of church and state, an independent judiciary, and a system of checks and balances, would be the best solution to this problem. However, neither Israelis nor Palestinians have shown to be particularly accepting of a democratic, one-state solution, so I'm not getting my hopes up.

The problem is religion being the founding basis for the Israeli state, and the solution is separating religion from the administration of the state.

The problem is … Israel will no longer be a Jewish state.

Yep. You hit it on the head. This is their problem. And they seem to prefer being evil and insecure over not being a Jewish state. Which is why a lot of people say “fuck them.”

They’ll have to decide if they want to be a Jewish homeland and secure, pluralistic democracy, or a “Jewish state.” They can’t have it all.

Right now they’re pretending to have it all through constant war and apartheid. I can’t believe they’ve subjected themselves to so much of this. Let alone the Palestinians.

If their priority is to be a Jewish state, they need to stop crying about Arabs letting Islam run their states, and stop bragging about being a democracy. They’re just another Middle East theocracy with a different style of funny hat.

The problem is less there's no Jewish state, and more that a Muslim majority will not lead to a country that is accepting of other religions.

One Palestinian state and Israel can fuck off to wherever seems to be popular on lemmy.

Yeah but this is also how he sailed through the primary. I don’t know what fucking boomers are out there eating his shit up but they must exist.

Netanyahu has made a two state solution impossible. There are 500,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank who would violently oppose being removed.

100%. The Palestine territories are more like a handful of islands at this point, not a contiguous space.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_C_(West_Bank)#/media/File:West_Bank_Access_Restrictions_June_2020.pdf

Just look at this map, and look at how integrated the populations are.

A two-state solution is not viable, not anymore, they have to figure out how to live in peace together. And that means integrating into one country, no more apartheid, equal rights, freedom of religion, the end of the ethno state, the end of the theocratic state.

Upon some reflection, I suspect when politicans are talking about two State solutions today, they don't mean independent countries, they mean Bantustans ... Which isn't going to solve anything, nobody's going to be happy with this

Bantustans is exactly right. They want to enact the South African apartheid model.

Well, Hamas specifically has rejected a 2 state solution twice in recent history. Their official stance is to not negotiate for it and instead kill all jews and end the state of Israel. There's no chance at peace til Hamas is gone, rightwing Israeli government is gone, and Iran's nutjob religious class no longer control the state and export its cancer around the world.

But the Palestinian Authority hasn't. It has, specifically, called for it.

Is this war against Hamas or Palestinians?

That's the thing though, if Hamas have an approval rate above 50% isn't it getting awfully close to a disorganized government and it's people that's engaging in a full scale war? It's hard to say the war is against a terrorist group when the group is backed by a strong majority of the population that supports their actions.

I agree. When any group of people support something bad by 50% ten years ago it's okay to kill them all.

2 states are unviable. There needs to be one inclusive state for all people of the region with serious reparations for the Palestinian people. Dual citizenship if people want it and 2 official langauges.

Peace is the only way forward. It happened in South Africa and Northern Ireland. It can happen.

https://www.theleftberlin.com/why-the-two-state-solution-for-palestine-is-impossible/

It'll never happen. Israel will never allow the possibility for a non-Jewish majority to coalesce and take over the government.

And I don't see hardcore al-Islamiyyun living side by side with jews. This would be a powder keg right from the get go, just look at how they treat each other for years now.

Same goes for Kahanites. Fascists on both sides will have to be taken care of.

A Belgian model might work. Two or for completeness' sake three (Christians) federal entities, joint army, separate police forces, give municipalities the right to switch who they belong to by 2/3rd majority. Jerusalem becomes federal territory.

I just don’t see it. There are too many vested interests in maintaining an ever-present conflict to justify consolidated power in the hands of those who have it.

I’m going to save this comment and copy and paste it into comments on basically every news story ever.

Im sick of hearing this "two state solutions" like iraeli are incapable of sharing their living space with palestinians. Everybody should chill and start to create bonds. This bs "centuries old enmity" was fabricated and fed through the decades.

Any chance was destroyed when trump officially moved the capital of Israel to Jerusalem.

I propose a no-state solution: Depopulate the area, then seed it with Caesium-135. Area becomes unlivable, and thereby peaceful.

I'd argue it's the perfect case for a no-state solution. Multiple faith groups have history in the region, they should rally around that and preserving it instead of some colonialist military state that's practically a U.S outpost in all but name. But blind dogma is rarely conducive to peace I guess.

How is a non-state supposed to defend itself from people who want to make it their state?

Militia, diplomacy, blackmail, molotovs... Imagination is the limit. Ideally the second and third I suppose.

Responses like these that so confidently state obviously incorrect information/poor perspectives really remind me of answers generated by AI. Things that appear syntactically correct, but at the same time are bizarrely illogical.

Thanks, GONADS125. Totally can't say the same about your post. Not one bit. Maybe I was a little unserious there but I mean what I say lol. I'm a anarchist, I honestly think any given government has a vested interest in fucking over their people. And a lot of Israelites don't seem to support their own government's actions as of late. People can sometimes solve problems as individuals, just look at netanyhu or trump- we see they can certainly cause them.

If you're going to call yourself an anarchist you need to have a serious answer to that question or you make your cause look like a joke.

edit: your takes on prohibition are on point though

If you form a militia you're halfway to reinventing a state, but without even a pretense of accountability to the citizenry—basically what Hamas is.

If you want diplomacy to work, you have to 100% re-invent the state, because nobody will negotiate with a self-appointed "diplomat" who can't guarantee the people they claim to represent will abide by the agreements they make. Now you're talking about something like the Palestinian Authority.

Your other options are ways to make life hard on occupiers, which means you've already lost, like people in Iraq or Afghanistan. You'll note that neither territory is currently without a government, and the one that "won" the occupation by driving out the invaders has an especially brutal government. And in both cases a shitload of people died before the invaders left.

I can't see Palestine ever accepting a 2SS. What do you think "from the river to the sea" means? The US knows this very well, so they're happy to prop up Israel in a peaceful sounding way that is fully untenable. Maybe some sort of federated solution could be possible, but I've got my doubts there too. Either way, both states would need to compromise for any realistic possibility of peace.

tl;dr: shit's fucked beyond repair :S

It's two-sided. Israel also does not want a functioning Palestinian state that isn't under Israeli domination. Just look at how they treat the West Bank.

The Palestinians already agreed to a 2 state solution at Camp David in 2000. Then Arafat turned around and told Israel and the US to fuck off because he wanted more money.

Biden keeps lying. What else is new?

Remember when Biden said he saw "confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading babies"? Then his office had to clarify that actually no, he didn't. What a horrific and oddly specific thing to lie about.

I was pretty shocked when he said the Oct 7th attacks were "like 15 9/11s". When did we become so sycophantic to Israel that a president could downplay the most sacred American date and receive so little criticism?

Now he wants to give away another $100 billion for war, and I can't afford healthcare. Remember Bidens campaign when "public option" was his #1 talking point? Maybe Grandpa Joe forgot about it, or maybe he was lying the whole time.

Yeah, downvoting cuz of American partisan politics. As a non-american, this whole approach to politics like supporting your fav sports team baffles me. Here in Europe, we try to catch politicians lies, especially when in government. Americans defend their politicians lying to the public. It can't be more bizarre than that. Of course Biden lies with every chance he gets. He is just as rotten as any republican before, but since he is blue (democrat), let's ignore all that lying. Same approach US takes when dealing with Israel.

Here in Europe, we try to catch politicians lies, especially when in government. Americans defend their politicians lying to the public.

Don't generalize, neither of those are absolutes.

There are plenty lying sacks of shit still in European politics and lots of Americans who don't want it from any of their politicians.

In American presidential elections we only get to choose from 2 shitty candidates. Many well intentioned voters view it as a zero-sum game; thus any criticism of Biden is seen as pro-Trump rhetoric.

I agree that Trump is worse than Biden, bit this politics-as-teamsports mentality is a race to the bottom.

Judging by policy, I believe the last left-of-center president was Nixon. He finalized the Civil Rights Act and created the Environmental Protection Agency. He didn't do it because he was a leftist (he wasnt) or because he was a good guy (he wasnt). He did it because he was afraid of the massive protest movement happening at the time.

I wish we could apply this same broad based, mass protest energy to every president including Biden. But America(and Israel) has written the modern anti-protest playbook, and it's super effective. Anti-Iraq war, Occupy Wall Street, George Floyd, etc. were all marginalized and crushed.

It sure feels like things will have to get much worse before they start getting better.