Settler colonialism in action

[Travis B.]

I'm not like a super expert on the history of colonialism but it seems to me exceedingly similar, especially anglosaxon colonialism, we're talking a) invading non-white peoples land and b) giving it to white people c) with military backing and d) justifying it as bringing civilization, punishing barbarians, and securing a place for the "us" to live. look at the indian wars in north america for an example

Why "especially anglosaxon colonialism"? Do you think Spanish, Portuguese, Belgian, and French colonialism was different– nicer, more uplifting? Do you think the Indian wars in South America were nice and freindly compared to the British?

To be clear, I think they were all awful; I just find singling out the UK/US baffling.

Agreed.

[keenir]

it wasn't invented or improved by that, no...but if the market votes say nah, work on something else, its one of the quieter examples of the Leopards Ate My Face trope, when those voters later go "where is all my stuff?" as said stuff depends on kernels.

Free time. The Linux kernel is developed on people's free time.

Ah, so you expect busy people to have free time after spending all day working on what the voters vote for. o-kay.

the biggest problem is probably systemic: humans will always be humans.

Humans are not the last men yet. They are but a transitory step on the path to Superman. :p

Superman requires photosynthesis. Not sure thats in the cards, at least not while there are kerfuffles over GMO crops.

I believe the expression is "well theres your problem."

seriously, did you expect...oh, nevermind, I thought you'd typed nationalist forums. my bad.

(though, perhaps there are lots of nationalists on those forums? or a lot of FoxNews fans)

Are you aware that the Hindutva leader Modi is currently the most popular elected leader in the world?

Right now, that is so very much not a high bar.

though I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me or disagreeing or neither.

Most people who work on the Linux kernel these days are paid by corporations whose products depend on the Linux kernel (including Linus Torvalds himself, even though he is not directly employed by these corporations).

Then its development being abandoned would be the equivalent of everyone moving on from it under the market system.

...which would be like voting to put satilites in orbit, while refusing to build, use, or have anything at all to do with launching.

Read: moving on may not be a good term for wanting to use tech that relies upon kernels, yet nobody voting to fund kernels.

[bradrn]

Looks like this thread is devolving into yet another instance of ‘arguments about capitalism’; could that be moved elsewhere please?

This is certainly the argument which resonates most with me (and which I’ve used in the past). I do not feel safe as a Jew, even in Australia, and my relatives in other countries are even more scared.

and I can see why! I don't think this aspiration justifies the extermination or submission to apartheid of other people groups but it *is* a valid aspiration, and one I think should be fulfilled. man, I wish they'd have built Israel in someplace a lot more uninhabited. there being so much empty space, they had to build it in literally the most contested chunk of the world. still, that still entails an ethnostate, and that feels... problematic.

You’re right, of course. I will defend Israel’s right to exist and right to defend itself, but beyond that I have a lot of issues with its current conduct. Luckily, it’s a democracy, so with luck Netanyahu and his cronies will get a drubbing and someone saner can have a go at fixing the issues.

(Also, you have that last bit backwards: this is the most contested chunk of the world precisely because the Jews want to live there. Don’t underestimate the influence of antisemitism.)

[Ares Land]

Hmm… but were they really part of the same wave which propped up Trump, Johnson, Morrison, Meloni, the current Netanyahu government, Le Pen, et al.? There may be a connection, but I’m not sure it’s quite the same thing.

I'm inclined to think so. I think intellectually all of this proceeds from the whole 'Clash of Civilizations' theory.
We can also note that the West pretty much stopped caring about Palestine after Clinton.

As for Le Pen and Meloni... I do believe there's a certain continuity. Most noticeably in seeing Arabs and Muslims as some sort of barbarian enemy.
Though of course, there is also a strong anti-semitic element in the far-right too. It's all a mess of contradiction, but contradiction is in the nature of fascism.

To be more specific, I think the current wave of pseudo-fascism is the logical immediate consequence of late-90s conservativism.

The analogy to colonialism is really not helping; the colonial wars ended up with the colonial power being kicked out.
Israel is not going away. Nor should it!

You’re right, of course. I will defend Israel’s right to exist and right to defend itself, but beyond that I have a lot of issues with its current conduct. Luckily, it’s a democracy, so with luck Netanyahu and his cronies will get a drubbing and someone saner can have a go at fixing the issues.

Sadly, I don't really see this happening. I think I could be vaguely hopeful if the Israeli left was in power... but it's tiny.
The rest of Netanyahu's coalition looks even worse than Likud.

[Travis B.]

Looks like this thread is devolving into yet another instance of ‘arguments about capitalism’; could that be moved elsewhere please?

My apologies.

and I can see why! I don't think this aspiration justifies the extermination or submission to apartheid of other people groups but it *is* a valid aspiration, and one I think should be fulfilled. man, I wish they'd have built Israel in someplace a lot more uninhabited. there being so much empty space, they had to build it in literally the most contested chunk of the world. still, that still entails an ethnostate, and that feels... problematic.

You’re right, of course. I will defend Israel’s right to exist and right to defend itself, but beyond that I have a lot of issues with its current conduct. Luckily, it’s a democracy, so with luck Netanyahu and his cronies will get a drubbing and someone saner can have a go at fixing the issues.

(Also, you have that last bit backwards: this is the most contested chunk of the world precisely because the Jews want to live there. Don’t underestimate the influence of antisemitism.)

I believe that Israel has a right to exist in the way that America has a right to exist. Sure, both are the products of settler colonialism, but a large proportion of both Israelis and Americans were born in those countries, and it is unfair to tell them that they have no right to live in the countries in which they were born.

I do not believe that Israeli Jews have a right to take any more land from the Palestinians, and Israeli Jews cannot justly keep land that they themselves have taken from the Palestinians, because Palestinians have a right to the land on which they live, whether as part of a united national homeland for both Palestinians and Jews or as a separate country existing alongside Israel. If anything, if Israeli Jews want to have a Jewish state the settlers are leading them to essentially commit so-called "national suicide" by making the only viable just outcome be the one-state solution.

Note, though, that I do not think that the one-state solution is incompatible with a right for Israel to exist just like how Native Americans being American citizens (for a long time they were not American citizens, just so you know) is not incompatible with a right for the United States to exist, and does not deny other Americans their various religions, languages, and cultures. Adopting the one-state solution does not mean driving Israeli Jews into the sea, or denying them their religion, language, or culture. It does not even mean forbidding further Jews from making the aliyah -- it just means that Palestinians have all the rights of Israeli Jews, including also having a right to return just like Jews do. (And even for those who complain about a "demographic bomb" potentially denying Israel its "Jewish character", actually Palestinian birth rates are falling.)

About the current war, I think that Israel has a right to defend itself, but the actual conduct of the war by the Israeli gov't has been so disproportionate that it must be criticized. Even if 50 percent of those killed by the IDF are Hamas terrorists, as they so claim (which frankly is very doubtful), that still means that huge numbers of Gazan civilians have also been killed, far outstripping the numbers of Israelis killed or kidnapped by Hamas by well over an order of magnitude. And this does not even address things like blocking things like food from coming into Gaza, and it is stuff like this, in addition to the sheer disproportionate nature of the Israeli conduct of war, that leads to people calling the actions of the Israel gov't "genocide". (For instance, some people call the Bengal famine "genocide", as in a prior discussion here, and that was far less deliberate than what the Israeli gov't is doing here.)

On another note, though, I think that the conflation of "Israel" with "Jews" is very unfortunate and has fed into a lot of modern-day anti-Semitism (i.e. accusing Jews in countries outside Israel of "dual loyalties" just like how in days past Catholics were often accused of "dual loyalties", i.e. loyalty to the Pope in addition to loyalty to the countries in which they lived).

[WeepingElf]

Concurred in all points.

[Torco]

The Soviet Union had to import food from private capitalist countries just to feed their own people, as their economy just couldn't do it by themselves.

yes, at times. then again, that's true of almost every other country. the us imports food, do you think that entails capitalism "doesn't work" ?
(also lmao private countries is kind of right innit)

Why "especially anglosaxon colonialism"? Do you think Spanish, Portuguese, Belgian, and French colonialism was different– nicer, more uplifting? Do you think the Indian wars in South America were nice and freindly compared to the British?

To be clear, I think they were all awful; I just find singling out the UK/US baffling.

all awful, agreed. then again, they're all qualitatively different too: the belgians were so brutal it never functioned as a viable, long-term colonization, more like hyperviolent plunder. the french, according to some, were more likely to pay the natives off as mercenaries than raise armies in old country to fight in the new, kind of like the carthaginians i suppose. the portuguese were more into importing black slaves than the spaniards, i think, who in turn did a colonialism that was more about enslaving and assimilating the natives into a lower class for the new regime, as opposed to the anglosaxon method more based in extermination and displacement to make room for, well, settlers. of course spaniards did send settlers, in the sense of just spanish dudes that ended up settling in the new world, but in a different way: we didn't have, at first anyway, just random civilians coming and buying a piece of land: it was more the conquistador (or roman, I suppose) model of come as a soldier, fight the barbarians, and if you survive till you retire you and your family get a bunch of land and indians not as private property, necessarily, but as more of a fief. this made differences downstream.

I don't think these differences are essential or hardwired, tho: the brits are perfectly able to conquer a territory and incorporate the inhabitants into the lower class of a new regime, ask the scots, irish and hongkongese, but things went how they went.

an interesting piece of evidence for this distinction is that in the US most people are not descended from native americans, whereas in south america almost everyone is: said more plainly, we're all mestizos, y'all are not, and that's not an accident: far as I can see, this is because the brits conquered the land and engaged in ethnic replacement instead of ethnic subjugation.

(Also, you have that last bit backwards: this is the most contested chunk of the world precisely because the Jews want to live there. Don’t underestimate the influence of antisemitism.)

nah. even without jews (and it's only some jews that wanna live there, a lot don't want to be settlers and/or complicit with the israeli regime, to their enormous moral credit) the christians and muslims have been fighting over that bit of land for more than a millenium: it is, after all, the holy land of the first and second biggest religions in the world.

this thing about countries having a right to exist has always struck me as weird. did germany have a right to exist 34? did irak in 03? doesn't palestine? does the islamic state in syria and the levant have a right? does somaliland? does the socialist republic of donbass? does transnistria? do all possible countries have a right to exist? all actual ones? only the ones with US recognition? only the ones populated by relatively influential and wealthy ethnic minorities? only the ones with nukes? what makes a country a moral subject endowed with rights anyway? what about if granting the right of existence to a country entails the denying of the same right to a different country? what about if a country is an ethnostate engaged for almost a century in atrocities against the people it conquered?

[Travis B.]

this thing about countries having a right to exist has always struck me as weird. did germany have a right to exist 34? did irak in 03? doesn't palestine? does the islamic state in syria and the levant have a right? does somaliland? does the socialist republic of donbass? does transnistria? do all possible countries have a right to exist? all actual ones? only the ones with US recognition? only the ones populated by relatively influential and wealthy ethnic minorities? only the ones with nukes? what makes a country a moral subject endowed with rights anyway? what about if granting the right of existence to a country entails the denying of the same right to a different country? what about if a country is an ethnostate engaged for almost a century in atrocities against the people it conquered?

To put it in a different way, all people have a right to live where they were born and have equal rights with others who live there. So Israeli Jews born in Israel have a right to live there, as do European-Americans born in the United States, as do Palestinians born in Palestine and Arab Israelis born in Israel. To extend this further, all people have a right to self-defense and a right to self-determination, whether as individuals or as groups, extending up to nations and peoples. This is not a matter of official recognition by other states; e.g. this applies just as much to Palestinians as to Israeli Jews, despite the fact that Palestinians have no officially recognized sovereign state.

[Torco]

I feel as if all people have a right to live where they want, broadly speaking: people with guns may stop us at airports and streets but I don't think that changes what's right, simply what's viable. (i.e. whatever the rights of a person qua such are, they're not dictated by policies of states). But no, I don't think that's what states' right to exist means here: imagine a situation where israel ceases to be as a country, succeeded by the Republic of the Holy Land: the RHL has totally different laws, is not an ethnostate, all the checkpoints and legal ethnic barriers are gone, everyone in the territory in question has immediately the same legal rights, including voting blabla. crucially, zero people have to move house or apartment: and yet, in this scenario, Israel doesn't exist, even if the right you mention has been infringed upon for no one.

[Travis B.]

I feel as if all people have a right to live where they want, broadly speaking: people with guns may stop us at airports and streets but I don't think that changes what's right, simply what's viable. (i.e. whatever the rights of a person qua such are, they're not dictated by policies of states). But no, I don't think that's what states' right to exist means here: imagine a situation where israel ceases to be as a country, succeeded by the Republic of the Holy Land: the RHL has totally different laws, is not an ethnostate, all the checkpoints and legal ethnic barriers are gone, everyone in the territory in question has immediately the same legal rights, including voting blabla. crucially, zero people have to move house or apartment: and yet, in this scenario, Israel doesn't exist, even if the right you mention has been infringed upon for no one.

In this way a "right to exist" exists not for states but for peoples. Israel does not really have a "right to exist" but both Israeli Jews and Palestinians do. Furthermore, both have a right to self-defense and a right to self-determination but have no right to deny another the same. Consequently, a democratic, multiethnic Republic of the Holy Land does not infringe on any rights of those who would have formerly lived in Israel or Palestine.

[Torco]

I don't think that's a very common usage of the term, tbh. israel has a right to exist kind of means that it should not not exist. like i know these kinds of phrases are not literal always, but still. no I think people mean what they say here, that israel both should and should not not exist, or something like that.

[zompist]

I don't think these differences are essential or hardwired, tho: the brits are perfectly able to conquer a territory and incorporate the inhabitants into the lower class of a new regime, ask the scots, irish and hongkongese, but things went how they went.

an interesting piece of evidence for this distinction is that in the US most people are not descended from native americans, whereas in south america almost everyone is: said more plainly, we're all mestizos, y'all are not, and that's not an accident: far as I can see, this is because the brits conquered the land and engaged in ethnic replacement instead of ethnic subjugation.

That's broadly true, but it's more complicated than that. Look at the Caribbean: the Spaniards came in, worked the natives to death, replaced them with slaves. In Mexico and Peru, they took over the largest civilizations in the Americas, and couldn't shove the people into reservations; so the natives remained, exactly they remained under Brit rule in Africa and India. Finally, in a temperate underpopulated region— Argentina— the Spanish Indian policy looks exactly like British North American policy.

[zompist]

imagine a situation where israel ceases to be as a country, succeeded by the Republic of the Holy Land: the RHL has totally different laws, is not an ethnostate, all the checkpoints and legal ethnic barriers are gone, everyone in the territory in question has immediately the same legal rights, including voting blabla. crucially, zero people have to move house or apartment: and yet, in this scenario, Israel doesn't exist, even if the right you mention has been infringed upon for no one.

In this way a "right to exist" exists not for states but for peoples. Israel does not really have a "right to exist" but both Israeli Jews and Palestinians do. Furthermore, both have a right to self-defense and a right to self-determination but have no right to deny another the same. Consequently, a democratic, multiethnic Republic of the Holy Land does not infringe on any rights of those who would have formerly lived in Israel or Palestine.

19th century-style nationalism has a lot of sins to answer for, and there's no just way it can be applied in Israel/Palestine.

On the other hand, going entirely the other way into pure individualism leads to problems too... and sometimes nasty wars. Ignoring the rights of communities means that majorities can simply win an election, then oppress minorities. A good example is Sri Lanka, where the majority Sinhalese Buddhists repressed the Tamil Hindus, leading to a protracted civil war. Voting doesn't protect minority rights if the majority is determined to stomp on the minority.

Both Israelis and Palestinians, based on direct personal and historical experience, fear living in nations where their community is not in charge, and where the dominant group makes their lives miserable— if they're allowed to live at all.

There's a lot of tricky bits in a single state; one is that it really has to be simultaneously a Jewish state, an Islamic state, and a Christian state (there are Christian Palestinians). That sounds weird, but think of it this way: it's not sufficient to say individuals can be Jewish or Muslim, can speak Hebrew or Arabic. Business and government also have to speak Hebrew and Arabic back to them. Both the Sabbath and Friday have to be respected. Food in the cafeteria has to be both halal and kosher. And there is probably plenty more. Plus, you know, both communities have to feel that the state isn't going to turn on them.

I expect all that could be worked out. (E.g., my understanding is that it's not hard to harmonize the food requirements.) But the point is that
Westerners expect a "secular state" will solve all problems, and it doesn't. You can't sweep the community issues under the rug, and if you try, the state will be dominated by the majority anyway. (See Lebanon for an example of a state that has tried to address the issue for decades and hasn't quite figured it out.)

[Torco]

That's broadly true, but it's more complicated than that. Look at the Caribbean: the Spaniards came in, worked the natives to death, replaced them with slaves. In Mexico and Peru, they took over the largest civilizations in the Americas, and couldn't shove the people into reservations; so the natives remained, exactly they remained under Brit rule in Africa and India. Finally, in a temperate underpopulated region— Argentina— the Spanish Indian policy looks exactly like British North American policy.

fair, I think notably the caribean is full of exceptions, but it's an otherwise broad pattern one can point to. argentina is white as a rule, but not neearly as white as the argentinians would like us to believe (though yeah, by all mapuche accounts i've had access to, the argentinians have been a lot more horrible to their native peoples). they're probably least mestizo country in latin america, but they're a lot more mestizo than canada. that alone could be just latitude, something about the northern hemisphere maybe? but but the two big catholic enclaves in north america, both under french rule for a while, each have a distinct mestizo identity associated with them. it think it fits a lot.
_

I think it not being an ethnostate is totally necessary for a one state solution in a multiethnic territory: the yugoslavians tried and failed, but look at the bolivians, they're pulling it off! and nominally, us chileans too: there's really not half as much violence in the mapuche conflict as the news make it out.

maybe it's my sociologist mind, since i've been doing polling for a while now, but I think solutions are better thought of in terms of just... percentage people who do X, right? there's a lot of ethnic hatred in the population on the ground, so the question is, how to make them chill the fuck out. of course, the current regime *and* hamas (which, let's face it, have been funded by the israeli government suspiciously often) are both just making things worse in terms of *percentage people who want to murder the fuck out of the other group*, which is ultimately the relevant metric. if it was 50, now it's 70.

[Travis B.]

19th century-style nationalism has a lot of sins to answer for, and there's no just way it can be applied in Israel/Palestine.

On the other hand, going entirely the other way into pure individualism leads to problems too... and sometimes nasty wars. Ignoring the rights of communities means that majorities can simply win an election, then oppress minorities. A good example is Sri Lanka, where the majority Sinhalese Buddhists repressed the Tamil Hindus, leading to a protracted civil war. Voting doesn't protect minority rights if the majority is determined to stomp on the minority.

Both Israelis and Palestinians, based on direct personal and historical experience, fear living in nations where their community is not in charge, and where the dominant group makes their lives miserable— if they're allowed to live at all.

There's a lot of tricky bits in a single state; one is that it really has to be simultaneously a Jewish state, an Islamic state, and a Christian state (there are Christian Palestinians). That sounds weird, but think of it this way: it's not sufficient to say individuals can be Jewish or Muslim, can speak Hebrew or Arabic. Business and government also have to speak Hebrew and Arabic back to them. Both the Sabbath and Friday have to be respected. Food in the cafeteria has to be both halal and kosher. And there is probably plenty more. Plus, you know, both communities have to feel that the state isn't going to turn on them.

I expect all that could be worked out. (E.g., my understanding is that it's not hard to harmonize the food requirements.) But the point is that
Westerners expect a "secular state" will solve all problems, and it doesn't. You can't sweep the community issues under the rug, and if you try, the state will be dominated by the majority anyway. (See Lebanon for an example of a state that has tried to address the issue for decades and hasn't quite figured it out.)

Probably the solution to this sort of problem is to write communal rights, e.g. protection of language and religious rights, into the Republic of the Holy Land's constitution, and make it so they simply cannot be voted away (e.g. make it so that these parts of the constitution require a more-than-supermajority, e.g. three fourths', vote to change them, or even make it illegal to attempt to change them at all).

[bradrn]

I believe that Israel has a right to exist in the way that America has a right to exist. Sure, both are the products of settler colonialism, but a large proportion of both Israelis and Americans were born in those countries, and it is unfair to tell them that they have no right to live in the countries in which they were born.

I do not believe that Israeli Jews have a right to take any more land from the Palestinians, and Israeli Jews cannot justly keep land that they themselves have taken from the Palestinians, because Palestinians have a right to the land on which they live, whether as part of a united national homeland for both Palestinians and Jews or as a separate country existing alongside Israel. If anything, if Israeli Jews want to have a Jewish state the settlers are leading them to essentially commit so-called "national suicide" by making the only viable just outcome be the one-state solution.

I agree with all of this.

One thing I’ve been reflecting on recently is… if Israel was being established today, in the way it was established ~70 years ago, would I support that? And, honestly, I’m not sure I would. I probably wouldn’t support the establishment of Australia or the US if they happened today, either. But now that they’re all here, getting rid of them would be even worse.

Note, though, that I do not think that the one-state solution is incompatible with a right for Israel to exist just like how Native Americans being American citizens (for a long time they were not American citizens, just so you know) is not incompatible with a right for the United States to exist, and does not deny other Americans their various religions, languages, and cultures. Adopting the one-state solution does not mean driving Israeli Jews into the sea, or denying them their religion, language, or culture. It does not even mean forbidding further Jews from making the aliyah -- it just means that Palestinians have all the rights of Israeli Jews, including also having a right to return just like Jews do. (And even for those who complain about a "demographic bomb" potentially denying Israel its "Jewish character", actually Palestinian birth rates are falling.)

This, on the other hand, I don’t agree with (even leaving aside the argument that a single state would not be ‘Israel’ as is commonly understood). In theory… yes, it would be all nice and lovely if everyone could get along together without borders. In practice, it would turn into a bloodbath. The sad fact is that there’s just too much accumulated hate on both sides for people to get along easily — both Palestinian hatred of Jews, and Jewish hatred of Palestinians. Extremists exist, and are politically powerful on both sides.

As for ‘Jewish character’, it doesn’t even need a ‘demographic bomb’. The simple fact is that, in a single-state solution, there would be more Arabs than Jews (or at the very least, an equal number of each). As mentioned by Torco earlier, one of the biggest reasons Israel is important to me is that it provides an environment where Jews are guaranteed to be safe… could a one-state solution give us that same guarantee? I doubt it.

zompist puts this well:

Both Israelis and Palestinians, based on direct personal and historical experience, fear living in nations where their community is not in charge, and where the dominant group makes their lives miserable— if they're allowed to live at all.

There's a lot of tricky bits in a single state; one is that it really has to be simultaneously a Jewish state, an Islamic state, and a Christian state (there are Christian Palestinians). That sounds weird, but think of it this way: it's not sufficient to say individuals can be Jewish or Muslim, can speak Hebrew or Arabic. Business and government also have to speak Hebrew and Arabic back to them. Both the Sabbath and Friday have to be respected. Food in the cafeteria has to be both halal and kosher. And there is probably plenty more. Plus, you know, both communities have to feel that the state isn't going to turn on them.

Some of this stuff is a little incidental (it’s easy for kosher food to be halal), but it gives a sense of the problems you run into here.

On another note, though, I think that the conflation of "Israel" with "Jews" is very unfortunate and has fed into a lot of modern-day anti-Semitism (i.e. accusing Jews in countries outside Israel of "dual loyalties" just like how in days past Catholics were often accused of "dual loyalties", i.e. loyalty to the Pope in addition to loyalty to the countries in which they lived).

I went to a Jewish day school. I’ve certainly seen it accused of ‘teaching dual loyalties’. For that matter, just a few months ago, a jumping-castle company refused a booking from my school because they ‘don’t want [their] blood money’, an act of discrimination which made Australia-wide news.

there's a lot of ethnic hatred in the population on the ground, so the question is, how to make them chill the fuck out.

I saw this article, which I thought had some excellent suggestions. The suggestion which stuck out for me was to reform education by setting up an impartial body, but it has many others.

hamas (which, let's face it, have been funded by the israeli government suspiciously often)

Keep in mind ‘the Israeli government’ which has funded it has been pretty much only Likud. This policy, like quite a lot of the other failures, can be traced back directly to Netanyahu. From his perspective, there’s nothing ‘suspicious’ about it: he wanted Hamas to be in power so that he could seem to be a strongman.

[Travis B.]

Note, though, that I do not think that the one-state solution is incompatible with a right for Israel to exist just like how Native Americans being American citizens (for a long time they were not American citizens, just so you know) is not incompatible with a right for the United States to exist, and does not deny other Americans their various religions, languages, and cultures. Adopting the one-state solution does not mean driving Israeli Jews into the sea, or denying them their religion, language, or culture. It does not even mean forbidding further Jews from making the aliyah -- it just means that Palestinians have all the rights of Israeli Jews, including also having a right to return just like Jews do. (And even for those who complain about a "demographic bomb" potentially denying Israel its "Jewish character", actually Palestinian birth rates are falling.)

This, on the other hand, I don’t agree with (even leaving aside the argument that a single state would not be ‘Israel’ as is commonly understood). In theory… yes, it would be all nice and lovely if everyone could get along together without borders. In practice, it would turn into a bloodbath. The sad fact is that there’s just too much accumulated hate on both sides for people to get along easily — both Palestinian hatred of Jews, and Jewish hatred of Palestinians. Extremists exist, and are politically powerful on both sides.

One thing to remember is that the history of America vis-à-vis the Native Americans certainly was not peaceful at all ~ all things considered (don't call me on this) it was probably bloodier than the history of Israel for a longer period of time. There were frequent Indian Wars from the start of colonization up until the early 20th century. Yet those are over, and Native Americans are now American citizens and have equal rights (at least in theory ─ note that there are areas where this has been doubtful such as the taking of children from Native American families in the not-so-distant past and to a degree even the present, even though today children taken from Native American homes are at least supposed to be placed in Native American homes) with other Americans (aside from rights reserved to Native Americans). If America can make peace with the Native Americans, why can't Israel make peace with the Palestinians?

As for ‘Jewish character’, it doesn’t even need a ‘demographic bomb’. The simple fact is that, in a single-state solution, there would be more Arabs than Jews (or at the very least, an equal number of each). As mentioned by Torco earlier, one of the biggest reasons Israel is important to me is that it provides an environment where Jews are guaranteed to be safe… could a one-state solution give us that same guarantee? I doubt it.

Are Jews safe right now? The events of 7 October 2023 make me think otherwise. While the one-state solution will most certainly dilute the "Jewish character" of Israel, the other potential route to long-term peace with the Palestinians, the two-state solution, seems more and more distant with every day, as the only way it can truly be achieved is through evicting all the settlers from the West Bank, but their permanence has effectively become a fait accompli and Israel simply does not have the political will to do so. Also, a partial two-state solution, with settlers in the West Bank and limited Palestinian sovereignty, leaves the West Bank and Gaza as bantustans which cannot lead to long-term peace and will only result in further insecurity. And without either a one-state solution or a full two-state solution, the present-day "one-state reality" simply cannot lead to peace.

[Raphael]

(Mostly staying out of this for now, but this caught my attention)

As for Le Pen and Meloni... I do believe there's a certain continuity. Most noticeably in seeing Arabs and Muslims as some sort of barbarian enemy.
Though of course, there is also a strong anti-semitic element in the far-right too. It's all a mess of contradiction, but contradiction is in the nature of fascism.

To be more specific, I think the current wave of pseudo-fascism is the logical immediate consequence of late-90s conservativism.

I think there have been some serious changes in Western right-wing attitudes towards international politics over the last 20 years. Didn't you yourself once mention that neoconservatism is a spent force these days? Or am I misremembering that? Anyway, I can well imagine a Bush-era right-winger for whom a good part of their position was distrust of Russia looking at today's right-wing and asking "what happened?" Though personally, I wouldn't have much patience for that question, and tell them that not much happened; their camp was always like that. In any case, our hypothetical Bush-era right-winger is a lot more likely to have gotten on board with the new party line by now.

[Ares Land]

(Mostly staying out of this for now, but this caught my attention)
I think there have been some serious changes in Western right-wing attitudes towards international politics over the last 20 years. Didn't you yourself once mention that neoconservatism is a spent force these days? Or am I misremembering that? Anyway, I can well imagine a Bush-era right-winger for whom a good part of their position was distrust of Russia looking at today's right-wing and asking "what happened?" Though personally, I wouldn't have much patience for that question, and tell them that not much happened; their camp was always like that. In any case, our hypothetical Bush-era right-winger is a lot more likely to have gotten on board with the new party line by now.

Neoconservatism doesn't exist anymore, but I think there's a lot of continuity between the Bush-era and Trump-era right wing. (Unless there's evidence for Bush voters flocking to Hillary back in 2017, and I'm pretty sure there isn't.)
US conservatives are pretty isolationist right now. That's liable to change as soon as the geopolitical situation because, let's face it, those people have no morals or values or opinion except for the bottom line.
Interestingly, and for unfathomable reasons, religious Israelis absolutely love Trump, at least from what I hear. I don't know what they see in the guy, but there we are.

In response to a lot of the posts:

There really aren't any parallels between Palestinians and Native Americans in the US. Palestinians are more numerous than Israelis, Arab Muslim culture is alive and well. Native Americans in the US were dying out, so was their culture and language. Not at all the same.
FWIW there's a long historical record of Jews and Muslims living side to side. Not that it was utopian, but a lot better than the regularly scheduled pogroms in Europe.
I'd like to dispute the claim that US really 'made peace' with Native Americans. From what I hear the situation of Native Americans is still pretty awful. (Not bashing the US. The situation of native peoples in French overseas territories, for instance, is every bit as bad.)

On the 'dual loyalty' thing: that's older than dirt and it has nothing to do with Israel. Jews have always been accused of uncertain loyalties, and that was true way before the State of Israel, and way before Zionism.

If we really want to make a parallel with colonialism, well, we really shouldn't, but whatever... I'd like to submit the case of North Africa under French rule. I think the parallels are stronger.
FWIW Jews in French Algeria were treated a lot better than Muslim were; they even got French citizenship early on. I'd like to point out that few people in France at the time thought of Jews as 'white', let alone 'French', or even liked the Jews -- that was a horribly antisemitic country. The Jewish community was simply a useful tool to hold on resource-rich territory.
That sort of 'middleman minority' is very common.

I do believe the leadership of rich Western countries -- the US, of course, but also others -- sometimes/often thinks of Israel as a 'middleman country', a useful foothold in a resource-rich troubled region.

With all that in mind, let's turn to the idea of a 'one state solution.'
A 'Republic of the Holy Land' would quickly turn into a puppet state. There'd be conflict over whose puppet it would be.. the natural situation would be a US puppet state but I don't think Russia would let that slide quietly. EU countries wouldn't be openly involved but would demand their share of the pie. Given that, it's clear that the Jewish minority would be used as a 'middleman minority'. All in all the situation on the ground would be even worse.

In any case, the one state solution was very dubious before, but after October, 2023 it's completely impossible.

[bradrn]

Interestingly, and for unfathomable reasons, religious Israelis absolutely love Trump, at least from what I hear. I don't know what they see in the guy, but there we are.

From what I hear too. The impression I get is that they like him because (a) the pro-Israel actions of his presidency, like moving the embassy to Jerusalem and establishing the Abraham Accords, and (b) his rhetoric against Muslims. They don’t yet seem to have twigged that the man is wildly unreliable and will happily turn on a dime if it helps him keep power.

There really aren't any parallels between Palestinians and Native Americans in the US. Palestinians are more numerous than Israelis, Arab Muslim culture is alive and well. Native Americans in the US were dying out, so was their culture and language. Not at all the same.

I was writing a post to make this point, but I think you made it better.

But really, you only have to look at the numbers: the US has something like 1% Native American population, whereas there are about as many Israelis as Palestinians. The cases are clearly different.

If we really want to make a parallel with colonialism, well, we really shouldn't, but whatever... I'd like to submit the case of North Africa under French rule. I think the parallels are stronger.
FWIW Jews in French Algeria were treated a lot better than Muslim were; they even got French citizenship early on. I'd like to point out that few people in France at the time thought of Jews as 'white', let alone 'French', or even liked the Jews -- that was a horribly antisemitic country. The Jewish community was simply a useful tool to hold on resource-rich territory.
That sort of 'middleman minority' is very common.

I don’t really know much about French Algeria; could you elaborate on why you think it’s a more suitable analogy? (Insofar as any analogy is suitable here.)