I absolutely agree with the (birthplace of modern democracy, liberty and fraternity) French proposals and resolutions and reject completely and out of hand, your par for the course rejection of any viable or proposed, workable peace deal!

I suggest you'd be completely against anything that ended the ongoing epansion of illegal settlements annexed and held by force inside occupied territory.

Documents that claim them as legitimate lawful purchases are hardly worth the paper they're written on if they were printed and allegedly signed in downtown Tel Aviv?

Perhaps the only way to resolve this issue for all time, is for the UN to completely undo the original annexation that created today's Israel to begin with?

Then see just how quickly Israel can get to the negotiating table to hammer out a honorable deal that they and their Palestinian brotherhood can live with and truly respect!?
Alan B.

<<"Fully ending" the 1967 occupation means kicking 650000 Jews out of their homes>>

Not necessarily - some of them could remain where they live even after Israel withdraws. Many Jews live outside of Israel, so this would not even be a precedent.

In one scenario, those who choose to remain outside Israel's borders would be granted, under agreement, Palestinian residency/citizenship rights. In another scenario, they would form their own new Jewish state outside Israel: given there are 22 Arab states, why not have 2 Jewish states? Still, the options are not exhausted.

Regardless, about half of those 650,000 Israelis would be jumping for joy when offered compensation and an alternate home within Israel. Many Israelis were forced out into the occupied territories, especially the eastern suburbs of Jerusalem, due to economic pressures, having been offered preferential treatment by the government for willing to leave Israel, including interest-free mortgages, reduction in taxes and business subsidies. Many are still struggling to save enough in the hope of one day being able to return to Israel with their now-larger families. For them, an Israeli withdrawal will be like manna from heaven. The others who are there for ideological reasons could well form their own state and pay for it with their own blood and morals rather than with the blood and morals of Israelis.

Thank you France for keeping up the pressure and trying to save Israel from itself, reminding Israel that its 1967 occupation was only meant as a temporary security measure and will not forever.

Why not one democratic state with separation of religion and state? Jews and non-Jews live peacefully together in the United States, Australia, France and other places. Ethnic nationalism has been a source of conflict in many parts of the world. Religious ethnic nationalism is worse. Integrated schools and civil marriage in a secular state could result in a model democracy for the Middle East. A nation cannot be both Jewish and democratic, Christian and democratic, Hindu and democratic, Muslim and democratic or Buddhist and democratic. Since the settlements are illegal it is reasonable that they be evacuated. We could have a bit of honesty from the Israeli government which would admit that Israel cannot be both Jewish or democratic. It could choose to be one or the other rather than maintaining a nonsense claim to be both.

Dear David F.,

<<Why not one democratic state with separation of religion and state?>>

It is only possible up to a certain point.

Even secular states define their week, week-end and public holidays.

Australians, having a Christian background, chose Sunday as their main weekly day of rest and Saturday as their main shopping day. Religious Jews who live in Australia face difficulties as a result: can you blame them for wanting to live in a country where they are not expected to work on Saturdays and are allowed to start preparing for the Sabbath on Friday afternoons, before sunset (but make up for it by working on Sundays)? A place where no one would expect them to answer the phone or appear in court on the Sabbath or the Jewish holidays?

And Muslims need similar provisions on Fridays and have their own holidays too, like Ramadan.

There is also the issue of language.
Yes, I know that in Switzerland every child is expected to know a minimum of 4 languages - but it's not easy, it's inconvenient and some people's brains are simply not wired for it.

In the end it boils to those little things that define life for people. Isn't it sufficient for Jews and Muslims to live in peace, each in their own territory? why force them both to live together and suffer?

david f

Could you please name one Islamic nation where Jews or even homosexuals live safely. If not stop using your idiotic analogies.

Dear runner,

Apparently you didn't even read my post before you ranted on.

I wrote: "A nation cannot be both Jewish and democratic, Christian and democratic, Hindu and democratic, Muslim and democratic or Buddhist and democratic."

Please read the above. That's what I wrote. That's what you ignored. Perhaps you didn't know that Muslim and Islamic are synonyms.

Synonym: a word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase in the same language, for example shut is a synonym of close.

Dear Yuyutsu,

Jews and Muslims have chosen to come to both Australia and the United States. I don't think any of them are suffering because they live in the same country.

"The US made several treaties with the Barbary states. Due to the concern for separation of church and state of Adams and Jefferson and the desire not to see the conflicts between the US and Barbary states as a religious conflict the US explicitly declared in the Tripoli Treaty of 1797 that it was not a Christian state."

Frank Lambert "The Barbary Wars" NY: Hill and Wang (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), 2005

Even though most US citizens are Christians the US government explicitly stated the US is not a Christian country. There is separation of government and religion. That makes it possible for people of different religions and no religion to live together peacefully. I would like to see the same in the Middle East.

Dear David F.,

Even though the USA and Australia are not formally defined as Christian countries, the unavoidable fact remains that their main day of rest is Sunday and their main day of shopping is Saturday.

For orthodox Jews, this ranges from inconvenient to discriminatory and tough. Those who find it too tough often migrate to Israel where they do not face this difficulty.

You claim that "That makes it possible for people of different religions and no religion to live together peacefully", however I fail to see how this is either a sufficient or a necessary condition for peace.

Why can't one enjoy BOTH peace AND the ability to conveniently follow their chosen way of life?

Dear Yuyutsu,

One can enjoy BOTH peace AND the ability to conveniently follow their chosen way of life without going to a religious state. In the United States people who wish to establish an enclave populated by like-minded people can do so. Two examples follow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiryas_Joel,_New_York tells about an orthodox Jewish community.

"Kiryas Joel is a village within the town of Monroe in Orange County, New York, United States. The majority of its residents are Yiddish-speaking Hasidic Jews who belong to the worldwide Satmar Hasidic dynasty."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish

The Amish are a group of traditionalist Christian church fellowships ... The Amish are known for simple living, plain dress, and reluctance to adopt many conveniences of modern technology. The history of the Amish church began with a schism in Switzerland within a group of Swiss and Alsatian Anabaptists in 1693 led by Jakob Ammann. Those who followed Ammann became known as Amish.

In the early 18th century, many Amish and Mennonites immigrated to Pennsylvania for a variety of reasons. Today, the most traditional descendants of the Amish continue to speak Pennsylvania German, also known as "Pennsylvania Dutch," although a dialect of Swiss German is used by Old Order Amish in the Adams County, Indiana area. As of 2000, over 165,000 Old Order Amish lived in the United States and about 1,500 lived in Canada. A 2008 study suggested their numbers had increased to 227,000, and in 2010 a study suggested their population had grown by 10 percent in the past two years to 249,000, with increasing movement to the West. Unlike most Americans who have had a birthrate too low to maintain the population since the early 1970s, most of the Amish continue to have 6–7 children while benefiting from the major decrease in infant and maternal mortality in the 20th century. Between 1992 and 2013, the Amish population increased by 120%, while the US population increased by only 23%.

A group wishing to keep their traditions and religion doesn't need their own state. They can live in a country with separation of religion and state where the government leaves tham alone.

Dear David,

Yes, once the Messiah comes, the wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling will graze together, a little child will lead them and governments will leave people alone.

Until then, assuming you don't plan to move 8 million Israelis and 4 million Palestinians to America, what practical measures do you propose for Israelis and Palestinians, considering their actual life-style, rather than hoping them all to forsake their customs, religions and languages, to become American-like or Australian-like instead?

If it's all about forming enclaves of like-minded people rather than about changing peoples' minds, then why not keep the existing situation (except for ending the occupation and making peace)?

Yuyutsu wrote: “If it's all about forming enclaves of like-minded people rather than about changing peoples' minds, then why not keep the existing situation (except for ending the occupation and making peace)?

Dear Yuyutsu,

It is not all about forming enclaves. Some people want to live in a vibrant open society where people with different views interact. In the United States those who want to form enclaves can do so. Those who want to live in an open society can also do so. Enclaves are stifling. They should be only a matter of choice. A nation designed as an enclave is a prison. Ethnic nationalism stinks.

In the US those in the orthodox Jewish and Amish enclaves who find the enclave stifling can leave and move out into the wider society, and some of them do.

If there are separate Jewish and Palestinian enclave-states next to each other they will continue hating each other, being next to each other and waiting for the day they can wipe out each other. It is a recipe for continued conflict as one or the other may try to wipe the other out. After South Africa ended apartheid Zulus and Afrikaners wanted to establish separate states. They were not allowed to, and the post-apartheid South Africa is one country. All is not peaceful there, but they are learning to live together

Dear David F.,

Keeping the peace may justify such painful measures, but I still hope that there are other, less draconic ways to achieve peace.

Same for south Africa: I am not sufficiently informed to tell whether or not independent Afrikaaner and Zulu states would likely be a cause for wars. All I can therefore say about it, is that if that was not the case, then a great injustice was inflicted on both.

Israelis vary quite a bit in their level of affiliation and observance of Judaism, it's far from being black-and-white. Only a small minority of Jewish-Israelis are so detached that they would be happy to go along with having a Saturday-Sunday weekend instead of Friday-Saturday;and a much tinier minority even, would be happy to let go of the Hebrew language and speak English or Arabic instead.

On the other side, many Arabs have adjusted in varying degrees to modern life, but still for example appreciate the voice of the Muezzin calling them to prayer on his loud-speaker at 5AM. Will the civil law prohibit this practice due to excessive noise? They would also probably prefer the weekend to be Thursday-Friday, so would government offices be open only Monday-Wednesday then to make everyone happy?

What language(s) for example will legal and official forms be written and court-proceedings conducted in? There are many such differences and incompatibilities which you may find hard to appreciate from distant Australia, but would make everyday life difficult, so why?

You see, this idea of living together as one state would make life difficult for the people involved. If there are other ways to have peace, or even non-war, then I would try them first.

How about just forcing Israel to withdraw from the West Bank?
- No need to change calendar, language and customs: so much simpler!

Leaving the West Bank by itself will probably be no more effective at bringing peace than leaving Gaza did. The Israelis made a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza with no agreement with the people in Gaza. Rockets get fired from Gaza into Israel, and the Israeli army periodically goes in and kills a lot of Gazans. If Israel evacuated the West Bank the same thing could and probably would happen.

Dear David F.,

This time it would not be an Israeli initiative as in Gaza. What if on the one hand Israel is forced, kicking and screaming, by the international community to leave the West Bank, but on the other hand, along with that the Palestinians are told unequivocally: "this is your last chance. The area is now yours and you are invited to create your own state there which we will all recognise, but if despite this you still create trouble afterward then we will support Israel in taking your land again and making your life bitter than ever, this time for good"?

Effectively, this is a recognition that the sides are unable to negotiate in good faith and therefore the world does the negotiation for them.

Dear Yuyutsu,

You are recommending coercion. I thought Ahimsa condemns coercion.

Dear David F.,

Ahimsa is non-violence. Coercing someone under threat of physical violence, which is what states do, is a form of violence. If people refuse to obey, then they are physically handled and thrown and locked up in a small cell among violent criminals.

States are not "someone", they are not sentient beings, they cannot suffer, they cannot feel hurt.

The metaphoric "kicking and screaming" does not refer to actual flesh and blood people being hurt. There might of course be some people who would choose to physically scream about the change, but it's not that they would be pushed or pulled in person, only the inanimate body called "The state of Israel" will be affected.

I don't even advocate to remove the settlers out of their homes by force. I think that the way Israel treated them when it evacuated Gaza was despicable. What Israel should have done instead is to tell them: "Listen, in 4 weeks the army is leaving. You can receive a nice compensation package if you come along. If you choose to stay, then whatever happens is all between you and Hamas, we wash our hands".

Mahatma Gandhi successfully employed a range of non-violent passive-resistance measures against the British state, otherwise India would still be a British colony.

Dear Yuyutsu,

It is moot that the British evacuated India because of Gandhi. The feelings of the Indians had been aroused against the English. The Indians seeing what happened to the British in Singapore and other places during the war were no longer in awe of the British. I think that the British were wise enough to see they could not hold on to India any more and left. This was unlike the Dutch who tried to hold what is now Indonesia by force of arms and were forced to leave. Gandhi played a part by inspiring the Indians to resist. I think Gandhi said it is best to resist non-violently, but if you can't do that it is better to resist in any way you can rather than submit.

Dear David F.,

Regardless what Gandhi said or did not say, I do not advocate that international forces should shoot or otherwise harm Israeli soldiers or settlers in the West Bank (unless of course they are being shot at and need to act in self-defence, then only to the extent they need to save their lives).

My point was that the international community can learn from (and teach the Palestinians) some of the non-violent passive-resistance methods employed by Gandhi. Had the stupid Palestinians used those methods rather than terror, they could have gotten all their territory back long ago, releasing Israel itself from that burden of occupation. Nay, the occupation itself would not have occurred in the first place had they not senselessly attacked Israel in 1967.

Dear David F.,

I agree with your nice reply (accidentally posted under "Five atheist miracles").

One comment though:

<<If both the Israelis and Palestinians had been devoted to non-violence they could have formed one state in 1948 rather than being partitioned by the UN.>>

Yes, if they were devoted to non-violence then they could have done just anything.

But violence aside, what if they simply didn't want share a state?

Some of the Jews that came to Israel simply looked for refuge, others envisioned a Western-style cosmopolitan culture and others again sought a place where they will be able to fully fulfil all the Mitzvoth (commandments) of the Torah and live in its spirit.

The Arabs (who now call themselves "Palestinians") were not particularly bothered by the refugees nor by observant Jews who came to live according to the Torah - they rather feared, rebelled and rioted against the Western cosmopolitan influence that some of the Jews brought, including the exposed women which threatened their traditional values. In his book "Altneuland" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_New_Land), Herzl patronisingly fantasised about the Arabs kissing the hems of Jews for bringing "enlightenment" and "advancement" to them: he failed to understand why the Arabs wouldn't appreciate his well-meaning advances.

I think that if Jews and Arabs were committed to non-violence, they would have followed the example of Abram (later to become Abraham) in Genesis 13:8-9, `So Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herders and mine, for we are close relatives. Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.”`

Dear Yuyutsu,

my response in the right place.

Neither Palestinians nor Israelis are stupid. Their culture forms them. One reason Gandhi got as far as he did was that satyagraha was part of the Indian culture. Non-violence to some degree is part of every culture. In appropriate cases it has worked even against the Nazis.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/jorgen-johansen/hitler-and-challenge-of-non-violence tells of an occasion where non-violence worked in 1943 in Nazi Berlin.

If both the Israelis and Palestinians had been devoted to non-violence they could have formed one state in 1948 rather than being partitioned by the UN.

Both Judaism and Islam have a tradition of non-violence. However, it is not as known among those groups as it is in the Indian society.

https://centerforjewishnonviolence.org/ tells about a centre for Jewish non-violence. From that site:

“Just as other traditions around the world draw from their heritage to engage in nonviolent resistance to oppression, so too do we look within our own tradition for inspiration, from Shifra and Puah’s noncooperation with Pharoah’s instruction to slay Hebrew baby boys to Honi the Circle Maker’s insistence that “he shall not be moved” until the rains fall from the sky.”

“As Jews from around the world, we are implicated by the actions of the Israeli government when it claims to act in the name of all Jews. When our name and our religion is being used in ways that we disagree with and in ways that contradict international law, it is our responsibility to speak out.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e85OG3J2gsY tells about Palestinian non-violence. From that site:

“Taghyeer Movement advances non-violence as the foundation of a Palestinian national identity and core value of Palestinian state building. Informed by the civic transformation achieved by Mhatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela, Taghyeer Movement is organizing a network of Palestinian community activists and leaders. Participants in Taghyeer are committed to a non-violent end of the occupation and peaceful community building. Embracing Palestinian values and culture, we transcend the narrative of victimization, nurturing peace, Palestinian independence, and mutual security with our neighbors.

If both groups can gain enough followers there will be peace.

Dear Yuyutsu,

You wrote: "Some of the Jews that came to Israel simply looked for refuge, others envisioned a Western-style cosmopolitan culture and others again sought a place where they will be able to fully fulfil all the Mitzvoth (commandments) of the Torah and live in its spirit."

In my opinion the tension between grous 2 and 3 above means that the state will probably disintegrate with those dedicated to a Western-style cosmopolitan culture leaving and the religious Jews reaching an accommodation with the Palestinians. At least that is my hope for a peaceful solution.

Dear David F.,

I cannot discard this possibility.

While this could be your hope, I don't share it because it would mean that my family in Israel will be forced to take sides, either joining me in Australia as refugees or agreeing to live under clerical oppression. The worst part of this is that it can tear down families as some members decide to leave while others decide to stay on their land, especially since some in my family are farmers. Compared with that, peace or no-peace with the Palestinians is a minor issue. I can only hope that this doesn't happen in my lifetime or of those I love.

Dear Yuyutsu,

The utilitarian philosophy which aspires to the greatest good for the greatest number is not fair. It can condemn some to suffering for the greatest good. However, can you think of a solution for the Israel/Palestine conflict which is fairer? Both Palestinians and Israelis are diverse among themselves. I think no solution will please all of either group. From my point of view to be a refugee in a society which accepts refugees is not a terrible fate. I was born and lived most of my life in the US. I came to Australia when I retired to please my Australian wife who wanted to return home. I would rather be in the USA, but there are many worse places than Australia. If she were from Lebanon I would not have gone to Lebanon.

Dear David F.,

You probably noticed by now that I am not a utilitarian. My position in that regard is that the means are at least as important as the ends, so one should first do no evil - only then if they can afford to, they should do good.

If you ask a farmer to leave their land, including the trees they and their ancestors planted, the houses they built and where they grew and played as children, the graves of their parents, their childhood friends, their neighbours and community, their language, their customs, their calendar and everything else that is familiar - that's a big ask. Many, I suspect, would prefer to live under a clerical regime even while the do not agree with its doctrine and laws. This could mean the younger generations whose professions do not depend on land and language, forsaking their parents, leaving them behind in their old age. Even couples and siblings are likely to split over those issues - and children would suffer greatly.

The best solution I see, is first the separation of Israelis and Palestinians along the 1967 borders, under determined international pressure and using strong international guarantees and sanctions for breaking the arrangements. Those arrangements will include that Jewish settlers will be allowed, if they wish, to remain in their homes under Palestinian rule. Then [perhaps 20-30 years] later, once the conflict settles down and is no longer relevant, further divide the region into a confederation of 3-5 states, each with a distinct character, one of those suitable for cosmopolitan Jews and Arabs together.

Dear Yuyutsu,

Neither you nor I have any say in what will happen in Israel/Palestine. We can only hope for no more wars whatever is the mechanism by which it can come about. From my point of view I would like to see all nation-states become nothing more than convenient administrative units with boundaries based on ecological systems without patriotism, chauvinism or official religions.

Dear David F.,

I essentially agree, it's only that I seem to place more importance than you on "convenient" rather than on "ecological".