Quote Originally Posted by jon1959 View Post
I don't know why you always come out with this 'there is no hope and no solution' view Sludge. You do it all the time and with all sorts of issues - from anti-Tory electoral pacts to climate change to global conflicts. I don't understand why you are so pessimistic and defeatist. There is always hope.

Israel/Palestine is certainly one of the biggest and most difficult conflicts - over 75 years old and now more entrenched than ever - but the same things were said about South Africa and Ireland.

There is a will for peace amongst many Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs and Palestinians from the occupied territories. As you said in your post there are brave, committed and non-sectarian people across the divide. That is positive. There also has to be leadership within the Israeli state and from the Palestinian side - not an endless cycle of oppression, rage, provocation and reaction. There is little sign of that at the moment - but even a corrupt thug like Netanyahu could be drawn into a new peace process if he thought it was inevitable or in his own best interests (not so many of his far right, racist, government partners) as happened with South Africa, and even vilified and isolated Hamas has leading members who have made back channel contacts with the Israelis to begin a new peace process as recently as 2018.

I have no idea where a new process will begin - beyond Egypt and Qatar trying to create a short-term truce. Most of the world (including the UN, EU and other regional organisations) claim to support a two state solution, whilst standing by while that option has been dismantled by creeping annexation over the past 20 odd years. Israel gets a diplomatic, economic and military free pass whatever it does in defiance of international law and conventions. Hamas, a product of the occupation, poses as the defender of Palestinians when no one else gives a toss - but ends up using civilians as pawns in a desperate high-stakes game. Yet there is opposition to the current Israeli government in Israel and there is a new generation of Palestinian activists who reject both Hamas (violent Islamists) and the Palestinian Authority (who make big statements but act like the puny agents of the Israeli state on the West Bank - like a Vichy regime).

It won't be easy and it won't be quick but I believe there are enough elements of a solution out there for a settlement to emerge. Not a biblical Jewish supremacist apartheid state that has annexed the West Bank and Gaza and expelled the remaining indigenous people. Not the obliteration of an Israeli state that has existed and created its own roots and history over 75 years. But a compromise that most can live with. Ideally it would be a single democratic state with equal rights for all citizens - but more likely a new partition (creating a viable Palestinian state) where there would be another round of losers (land and citizenship) but a long term internationally guaranteed deal that can be established and protected over the next three generations - with some joint institutions (as in Ireland) and a reconciliation process once the time is right (as in South Africa).
Interestingly the Oslo accords were 30 years ago now. A beginning of a roadmap for peace was set. Netanyahu killed it with vitriolic rhetoric that played a big part in the Israeli pm being killed by a Jewish extremist. Hamas killed it with suicide bombs.

But at the time it was signed the vast majority of both Israeli and Palestinian populations supported it. The sad thing is, those poisonous b*stards who ruined the peace process are still around on both sides. But as you say, there is definitely hope. If they managed to get close before there's no reason they can't get further in the future. I just hope it's sooner rather than later, before too many more have to die