The United States occupied Germany after WW2 and remained a democracy. It is quite common for one country to occupy territory after war. The settlements are illegal as a country is not supposed to make permanent settlements without a peace treaty. The settlements are illegal, but the occupation is not.

Agree!
Alan B.

Both Germany and Japan were occupied after WW11. But none of their territory was annexed by the democratic occupiers.

Not so in Palestine!

Which is an evil and illegal outcome that makes Israel look like the Nazi SS of long ago.

Give peace a chance and end the endless bloodletting that only serves evil political purpose!
Alan B.

Is there an invoice applicable to this twaddle, and does it includes a violin concerto.

Obviously the money was stumped up and paid for by Biden and his Democratic warmongering criminals; IE the same current wreckers of US Democracy beavering away at Israeli Democracy.

What a joke!

Israel's democracy and Israel's health can only be restored when its 1967 occupation is ended, and it can only end once Israel leaves the taken territories completely to the last millimeter.

This has nothing to do with the "Palestinian" question: Israel took these lands from Egypt, Syria and Jordan, not from any "Palestinians".
Also, no peace is possible with these people who now call themselves "Palestinians" because they are not only portrayed as being an irredeemable foe as the article suggests - but are indeed an irredeemable foe, albeit a very weak and insignificant foe, which therefore requires no further consideration. They are simply irrelevant.

Israel should leave its remaining occupied territories for its own good, and should do so independently even if not a single "Palestinian" remained there.

But can Israel do so?
I'm afraid not.

Israel's demography today is very different than Israel of the 1960's and 1970's. The fanatic and violent Jewish Messianic movement has gained power, is now taking over the country, and even if Israel's government somehow wanted to leave the occupied territories, they could never face the internal resistance.

Moderate Israelis have read the writing on the wall and are now giving up and while some are still on the back foot demonstrating, those who can are leaving the country in droves: they can see that in a few years their treatment will not be any better than those currently under occupation.

«Israel will end up being nothing but a pariah state, shattering the Jewish dream of having an independent, free, strong, and just state with which every Jew takes pride»

There was never one "Jewish dream", there was the original Zionist dream of those who initially settled and built Israel and who wished to include the native Arabs in their dream as equal partners, now replaced with the very different cultist Messianic-racist dream of Bigger Israel.

The best that can realistically happen to Israel now, its society already being split, is to be split in two, so democracy and the old dream are kept alive at least in some of its land.

Dear Yuyutsu,

I think your analysis is spot on. However, I don't think Israel can survive a split. I just hope those who want an independent, free, strong and just state will win out

Yuyutsu

Israel has no different problem than other Democracies.

Netanyahu and his coalition were elected by the majority.

Obviously you’re being very selfish to object to his leadership.

But, politics is a dirty game, so too is selling used cars, which is the level on which I see politicians; the integrity of a used car salesman. Buyer beware?

Whoe whoe Hold on you all have it A UP !
Israel is not the occupier !
The Arabs are the occupier !
They invaded the area in the 7th century and pushed out the people living in Mesopotamia, including many of the Jews.
Under Islam you either accept Islam as your religion or you pay the Jizya and accept second class citizenship or you leave or be killed.
They repeated the exercise in North Africa, Persia, Afghanistan and India
It is still going on in the rest of Africa in the Congo etc.
Currently they have turned their attention to Europe.
Jerusalem of course was a Jewish city for some thousands of years
before the Arabs INVADED long after the Romans had gone.
So get your facts right before sounding out !

Dear Bezza,

«Under Islam you either accept Islam as your religion or you pay the Jizya and accept second class citizenship or you leave or be killed.»

And that is just what the local Jewish population did over the centuries - they accepted Islam so to not have to pay the Jizya.
- These "Arabs", most of them anyway, are the original Jews who never left their country - only ONE Jewish family (the Zeinati family of Peqi'in) remained Jewish all along and never converted!
The actual invading Arabs counted only a few hundred soldiers, and even they did not remain in Israel, but proceeded on for other conquests.

«Jerusalem of course was a Jewish city for some thousands of years»

It couldn't be Jewish before there were Jews, which according to archaeology was around the time of King Josiah (640–609 BCE).
Before that, Jerusalem was just a small Canaanite town of about 40 acres and the local population (2000-5000 people) worshiped the idols Ba'al and Asherah in Jerusalem's temple.

Anyway, this article is not about Arabs, it is about the internal troubles of Israel which started due to its taking and holding on to these cursed territories in 1967. Suppose even no Arabs were left alive in the whole world, still Israel ought to get out of these territories for its own good. I repeat: this is an internal Israeli matter which has nothing to do with Arabs or Islam.

Yuyutsu, you say it is an internal Israeli problem.
Then why do the "people" in Gaza fire rockets at Israel ?
You say they are Jews, well that might have been so 1400 years ago
but it is not so now. The Arabs occupied Jerusalem for good
except for intervals when the Crusaders took over.
The Arabs were there for a long time and not just passing through.
They were there long enough to build such as the Alasca Mosque on the Temple Mount.
In fact they were supporters of Adolf Hitler and advised him on how
to deal with the Jews.

Kill the Jews and the Christians if they do not convert to Islam or refuse to pay Jizya tax. (9:29)

There is another clause in the Koran that says an area once occupied
by moslems remains moslem land forever.
That is why the current dispute can only be settled by all Jews being
killed or expelled. A settlement is forbidden by Allah !
Doesn't sound like they were just passing through !

It is about time that everyone stop expecting a settlement.
It won't happen, it is forbidden by Allah !

Arguing by quoting sections from the Koran or Bible is pointless. Sections from either document may be applied or not applied. In the Bible one is condemned to death for violating the Sabbath. Since the sabbath was originally declared to be Saturday all who do not observe Saturday as the sabbath are condemned to death. I know of no instance where anyone has been executed for such an offense since the times that the Bible was written. Since the Bible is not a peer reviewed document with evidence to support its words I do not know that it happened even then.

David F, I know that many clauses in the Bible are not enforced but
we have had a lot of examples of clauses in the Koran being enforced
in recent times. The slogan "From the River to the Sea" will be
enforced given the opportunity.

Dear Bezza,

«You say they are Jews, well that might have been so 1400 years ago but it is not so now.»

You raise a serious question here which the best scholars have not been able to answer: "What is a Jew?"!

If Judaism is measured by religious observance, then the majority of Israelis cannot be counted as Jews: Even Israel's prime-minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was recently caught eating non-kosher sea-food in a London restaurant when he went there to visit King Charles.

If Judaism is measured by race then most Ashkenazi Jews are not of Middle-Eastern ancestry.

If Judaism is measured by Hitler's ideas then many faithful Christians who believe in Jesus but have Jewish ancestry should be sent along to the gas chambers, while Aryans who converted to Judaism should be allowed to live.

If Judaism is measured by the Rabbis' Jewish law (Halacha) then what counts is maternal lineage, and so most of those who now identify as "Palestinian" are actually proper Jews, whether or not they know it, whether or not they like it.

Secondly, it was not 1400 years ago, but a gradual process that took many centuries. Initially all conquered Israeli Jews paid the Jizya, but then one by one, all except one family, they said "what the hack" and converted to Islam. Can you say with hand on heart that finding yourself in their difficult situation you would not have done the same?

[continued...]

[...continued]

«Yuyutsu, you say it is an internal Israeli problem.
Then why do the "people" in Gaza fire rockets at Israel ?»

I stayed on the topic of this article, which is the disastrous social effects of Israel's 1967 occupation on its citizens. Not even any occupation, past or future, just that particular one of 1967. That is an internal Israeli problem, that is what now threatens to break Israel apart from within.

As for the Arabs/Muslims, yes you are right, they have many problems and pain they inflict on themselves and on others, but that is outside the scope of this article.

As for the rockets, here in Australia we have fires and floods, other countries have severe earthquakes and cyclones, others yet have debilitating heat, cold and viruses, Ukraine has invading Russians and Taiwan is under constant threat from China. There is no place on earth without severe troubles and the surface of Mars is not any better - so Israel has these rockets from Gaza, OK, nobody likes it but life goes on!

The only flaw in this partisan homily about the downtrodden Arabs is the multiple and ongoing attempts at the genocide of Jews by these "victims" that created this situation and their rejection of every peace initiative.

That Palestinian children are taught to hate Jews and the Palestinian authorities pay a bounty for every Jewish man woman or child murdered leads to a level of distrust by the Israelis.

While the Israelis are not without blame, the Palestinians have to lie in the bed that they built and are continuing to build.