Please share your ideas for SOLUTIONS to the middle east crisis

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's my crazy idea: Move all the settlers (700,000) to Gaza. Move the Gazans into the settlements (1.8 m) and give a little more land to accommodate numbers. Turn the West Bank into the Palestinian State and Israel so that all land and people are contiguous. Voila! Live in peace and harmony. Everyone has to sacrifice, everyone has to move, everyone takes care of themselves.

Or as my husband said, now I only have to become the PM!

Makes Palestine landlocked...

But otherwise creative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Israel is a wealthy nation. Everyone has their price. A massive investment program in Gaza to essentially buy off the population would whither the support for Hammas and radical Islam.

Radical Islam is run by some of the richest people in the world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Israel is a wealthy nation. Everyone has their price. A massive investment program in Gaza to essentially buy off the population would whither the support for Hammas and radical Islam.

People in Gaza do not want to live in Gaza. They want to return to wherever they were forced from. I don’t think Israel has the kind of money to appease all of the refugees

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's my crazy idea: Move all the settlers (700,000) to Gaza. Move the Gazans into the settlements (1.8 m) and give a little more land to accommodate numbers. Turn the West Bank into the Palestinian State and Israel so that all land and people are contiguous. Voila! Live in peace and harmony. Everyone has to sacrifice, everyone has to move, everyone takes care of themselves.

Or as my husband said, now I only have to become the PM!

This is elegant but it’s a bit like buying property with stolen money— the only reason it “works” is because of the illegal settlements. When the settlers return what do the Palestinians have to give up to get rid of them again? Better evict the settlers, and swap Gaza for more contiguous land— settlers return to Israel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Right to return. Treat property rights the same way we treat property stolen during WWII. Israel brags about being a democracy, take them up on it- one person one vote

I asked before, what does the right to return mean? Who does it apply to?

Refugees registered by the UN. Fortunately lots of families kept their deeds, so recovering the houses they were forced out of should be easy

I foresee some problems with this, because the definition of refugee as it has been applied to Palestinians is different to the way it is applied generally. For example, the 1951 Refugee Convention says that once you have citizenship elsewhere, you can’t be a refugee. But under the UNRWA mandate, Palestinians can be citizens of another country and still be refugees, and can be 4 or 5 generations removed from the original refugee. Giving back property is going to be hard when the people living there now are highly unlikely to be the people who lived there in 1948. It seems that you’d be creating a new refugee crisis and a new theft of property if that happened. Also all of that ignores the way the state of Israel was created - by UN Resolution. The people living there now didn’t literally steal the land from Palestinians, the state was created in a way that may now seem wrong but at the time was a perfectly normal way to divide lands that were formerly parts of empires. See also Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, etc.

Anything other than a right of return legitimizes ethnic cleansing

What do you do when right of return is also ethnic cleansing? Two people can't live in the same house. So what is your solution to that?

I guess that’s what happens when you found a country by driving off the inhabitants and then giving away their homes.

??
The UN founded Israel. Then it was attacked and expanded in response to fighting that war. Then did that again under the same conditions. They didn’t just show up and one day start taking houses out of no where.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Israel is a wealthy nation. Everyone has their price. A massive investment program in Gaza to essentially buy off the population would whither the support for Hammas and radical Islam.

People in Gaza do not want to live in Gaza. They want to return to wherever they were forced from. I don’t think Israel has the kind of money to appease all of the refugees

And that is the whole problem and why it feels like there is no solution. They want to go back to wherever their families lived 75 years ago. But generations of people have been living there in that time, and if Palestinians were given those homes, where would the Israelis go? The Israelis who legally bought their homes in the state that was legally created, and who, in many cases, are the descendants of people who were thrown out of their own homes in other countries.
I don’t think there is a realistic solution that involves Palestinian descendants being given back their old properties in Israel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Right to return. Treat property rights the same way we treat property stolen during WWII. Israel brags about being a democracy, take them up on it- one person one vote

I asked before, what does the right to return mean? Who does it apply to?

Refugees registered by the UN. Fortunately lots of families kept their deeds, so recovering the houses they were forced out of should be easy

I foresee some problems with this, because the definition of refugee as it has been applied to Palestinians is different to the way it is applied generally. For example, the 1951 Refugee Convention says that once you have citizenship elsewhere, you can’t be a refugee. But under the UNRWA mandate, Palestinians can be citizens of another country and still be refugees, and can be 4 or 5 generations removed from the original refugee. Giving back property is going to be hard when the people living there now are highly unlikely to be the people who lived there in 1948. It seems that you’d be creating a new refugee crisis and a new theft of property if that happened. Also all of that ignores the way the state of Israel was created - by UN Resolution. The people living there now didn’t literally steal the land from Palestinians, the state was created in a way that may now seem wrong but at the time was a perfectly normal way to divide lands that were formerly parts of empires. See also Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, etc.

Anything other than a right of return legitimizes ethnic cleansing

What do you do when right of return is also ethnic cleansing? Two people can't live in the same house. So what is your solution to that?

I guess that’s what happens when you found a country by driving off the inhabitants and then giving away their homes.

??
The UN founded Israel. Then it was attacked and expanded in response to fighting that war. Then did that again under the same conditions. They didn’t just show up and one day start taking houses out of no where.

Read a modern history. Once the war started, driving out Palestinians was one of the top priorities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Israel is a wealthy nation. Everyone has their price. A massive investment program in Gaza to essentially buy off the population would whither the support for Hammas and radical Islam.

This is good. Once the people of Hamas are killed the Israelis need to be magnanimous in victory toward the Gazans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Israel is a wealthy nation. Everyone has their price. A massive investment program in Gaza to essentially buy off the population would whither the support for Hammas and radical Islam.

This is good. Once the people of Hamas are killed the Israelis need to be magnanimous in victory toward the Gazans.

Make sure they return all their dead children to life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Encourage secularization of the populace.

That has zero impact on property and political rights.

When both the Ultra Orthodox Israelis and radical Islamists are jointly shunned by the rest of the population in the area then you may be able to make progress towards property and political rights.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Israel is a wealthy nation. Everyone has their price. A massive investment program in Gaza to essentially buy off the population would whither the support for Hammas and radical Islam.

This is good. Once the people of Hamas are killed the Israelis need to be magnanimous in victory toward the Gazans.

Make sure they return all their dead children to life.

Ruthless in war and magnanimous in victory. Those dead children would still be alive if their government didn’t start a genocidal war against Israel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Israel is a wealthy nation. Everyone has their price. A massive investment program in Gaza to essentially buy off the population would whither the support for Hammas and radical Islam.

This is good. Once the people of Hamas are killed the Israelis need to be magnanimous in victory toward the Gazans.

Make sure they return all their dead children to life.

Ruthless in war and magnanimous in victory. Those dead children would still be alive if their government didn’t start a genocidal war against Israel.

+1 I don't claim to have all the answers, or any of the answers, but I do know that Hamas is responsible for these deaths. It's exactly what they wanted. And the people of Gaza are suffering because of it.

[Anonymous]

The U.S. should welcome all Israelis with open arms; buy each family a nice house comparable or better to what they have now in Israel; and give U.S. citizenship on the spot to all Israelis. Israelis are highly-educated, Western-oriented, and would fit right in here in America. American Jews are a very successful and prestigious population.

The Palestinians can have the disputed land back.

We can afford to be very generous with relocating the Israelis here and would still spend far, far less than we do on aid to Israel every year. And no more fighting and killing.

Israelis get to live here in the greatest and wealthiest nation on Earth among their greatest allies and the largest Jewish community outside of Israel; America is strengthened by the addition of 7 million of our greatest allies and a highly-educated, talented addition to our national fabric; Palestinians get to live among themselves in peace.

Seems like a win-win-win for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Israel is a wealthy nation. Everyone has their price. A massive investment program in Gaza to essentially buy off the population would whither the support for Hammas and radical Islam.

This is good. Once the people of Hamas are killed the Israelis need to be magnanimous in victory toward the Gazans.

Make sure they return all their dead children to life.

Ruthless in war and magnanimous in victory. Those dead children would still be alive if their government didn’t start a genocidal war against Israel.

They would also still be alive if Israel didn’t bomb a refugee camp. Or a border crossing.

Do you think you really win a “hearts and minds” campaign with 5000 dead children and counting?

You can say every adult in Gaza was complicit in Hamas (you’d be wrong, but you could say it) but anyone under the age of 18 in Gaza right now never voted so “their” government is a fallacy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Israel is a wealthy nation. Everyone has their price. A massive investment program in Gaza to essentially buy off the population would whither the support for Hammas and radical Islam.

This is good. Once the people of Hamas are killed the Israelis need to be magnanimous in victory toward the Gazans.

Make sure they return all their dead children to life.

Ruthless in war and magnanimous in victory. Those dead children would still be alive if their government didn’t start a genocidal war against Israel.

They would also still be alive if Israel didn’t bomb a refugee camp. Or a border crossing.

Do you think you really win a “hearts and minds” campaign with 5000 dead children and counting?

You can say every adult in Gaza was complicit in Hamas (you’d be wrong, but you could say it) but anyone under the age of 18 in Gaza right now never voted so “their” government is a fallacy.

Hearts and minds aren’t won through a half-ass campaign as the Americans learned in the defeats of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Hearts and minds are only won when a society’s will to resist is shattered. War is ultimately a battle of wills.