Why is the West supporting an apartheid vision of Israel?

[gla22]

[Gremlin]

[Spider]

[The Comrade]

a two state solution is no longer feasible. palestine would be a fragmented mess of exclaves and strips of unconnected land. not a viable state at all. and every year israel slowly creates more "militarily necessary land" for "defense purposes" that is just de facto annexation.

[Spider]

[exploited]

[Spider]

[Spider]

[Spider]

Get some sleep for srs. Hope your trip down to the sunshine was good.

[broken robot]

Impressive to see an actual sober, rational discussion on this topic. Kudos you two.

In terms of practical matters the only way I see the israel/palestine conflict getting resolved is through a major shift in geopolitics. so long as the US remains Israel's primary supporter there's just not much anyone can do on the ground or otherwise. I tend to think arguments about the US's influence across the world are overstated but in the case of the Middle East it's just too obvious. There is currently an attempt by pro-palestinian activists in the US to employ divestment and other measures to pressure the US government into demanding a political solution, but unlike the case of South Africa they so often cite there is a very strong diasporic and domestic Jewish identity that inhibits a full-blown attempt to transform this battle into "good multicultural folks" and "evil racists." In fact I think on that end the rhetoric of the BDS campaign can be counter-productive even as they try to allay the fears of Jewish Americans by emphasizing the fact that they are targeting the Israeli state and not Jews themselves. The whole thing is really messy, and having been involved in some of the uni activism around the issue I've seen the same discussions happen over and over again with no real change or shift in the debate. Again, I think it'd require a major shift in geopolitics for there to be a real chance at a solution.

That said I'd disagree spider regarding what you consider pragmatic, that's always liable to shift and I fear that emphasizing incorporating Palestinians into Jordan or some other "realistic" measure may just reinforce the age-old inequalities separating Israeli Jews from Palestinians. There is a very real struggle involving people whose identities are grounded in a belief of dispossession in the case of Palestinians and I don't think a few pragmatic measures such as offering Jordanian citizenship will address the underlying historical conflict. Meaning, expect more shit to happen.