Common Sense on Israel
This is a topic fraught with so many emotions, that I feel it’s best to write down some seemingly contradictory statements that I believe.
Israel is a country, has a right to be one, and has a right to self defense.
The international community is really bad at drawing international borders and should never do it again.
Thinking of Israel, the post WWI boundaries, Africa, probably others
A two-state solution is incredibly stupid.
Israel is an apartheid state.
While not about the ongoing war in Israel, let me state first and foremost how devastating the reporting coming out of Israel and Palestine are. I hope those who perpetrated and planned these heinous acts are brought to justice and I hope the fighting can be over quickly. Unfortunately, while I trust the Israeli government much more than I trust Hamas, I am not hopeful that they will be particularly discerning when it comes to who is a militant and who is a Palestinian civilian. My heart goes out to innocents on both sides.
All that being said; Israel, the international community, and Palestinians of good faith should push to tear down this facade of two states. I’m no expert on Palestine, but as far as I can tell they don’t have a functioning government and the government they do have seems to be, if not run by terrorists, sympathetic to them. And Israel already controls the borders of all Palestinian territory. Uniting under one country and one flag is the best way to stop these attacks in the future and both Israeli and Palestinian people deserve for the fighting to stop. It’s time we acknowledge that two states sharing one capital and one state split down the middle by another are incredibly stupid, untenable ideas. I mean Americans can barely share the same capital and we’re one nation.
However, after Israel officially controls the territory and routes Hamas, the US government and other allies of Israel have to actually pressure them to stop treating Palestinians living in their borders as second class citizens. I don’t know how we do this without threatening the security of Israel, but what’s going on there is disgusting. And I really can’t emphasize this enough, it’s not as if Hamas appeared out of nowhere, terrorists tend to be driven to terrorism by desperation. Palestinians need to be given full rights - specifically voting rights, movement rights, and property rights - and international observers need to be there to ensure free and fair elections for all. It’s truly the only way out of this.
How do we feel about me writing so much? Fingers crossed I can keep it up!