Trump and Israel

I'm guessing his Saudi friends had a talk with him.

 

He should have stayed the course on this one.

 

You seem to have shifted your opinion on this one. Didn't you once also believe that settlement building in West Bank was not good?

 

Correct, but the Left uses it to demonize Israel. They are more outraged about settlements being built than about terror attacks against Israelis by Palestinians. And if Trump thinks that they should stop, he should talk to Netanyahu about it, rather than flip-flopping in the media.

 

Which is why it justifies taking such a stance amiright?

Low intelligence posters smh...

 

Has that ever fully worked with Bibi?

 

OK. So is it fair to say that you agree with the position that settlement building is unhelpful to eventual peace, but you don't agree with the US publicly stating this because you believe it distracts from the terrorist attacks against Israelis which is a much bigger impediment to peace?

 

Nothing will actually lead to peace, so honestly, who cares if they keep building settlements? I mean peace isn't, and has never been the goal of the Palestinian people. If that ever truly changes, then we can start talking about what could lead to peace....till then, go nuts.

 

The flaw in this line of reasoning is that you assume all Palestinian people are against peace. Despite recent polls indicating that a majority (barely, but a majority still) are in favor of a 2-state solution.

It is a convenient position for Israelis or Palestinians to take who are uninterested in making the concessions necessary for a peace to be reached -- assume that the other side doesn't actually want peace. This, to me, is the true impediment to any peace being reached in that conflict.

 

No, I don't assume that, I assume that the majority of Palestinian people are against peace by any other means than re-taking what they falsely believe to be theirs. It's how they've voted, it's always been the position their governments have taken....at least when considered as a whole. There are more reasonable people in the West Bank than in Gaza....but even in the West Bank there is strong support for terrorism against Israel that would make up the majority, even if it's a MUCH smaller majority than it is in Gaza.

It's hard to take them seriously in peace talks when you know the majority of them don't really want it.....they want the Israelis completely gone by any means necessary. That's the major impediment to any peace being reached in that conflict. IMO you might eventually get peace if Gaza was removed from the equation either by wiping them out entirely or by re-locating the people (though no one would want to take them). The people of the West Bank, as I've said above, are much more reasonable....only just over half of the population supports terrorism against Israel. I feel like you can work with that and eventually get it down to 40% or so of that population that openly supports terrorism. You'll NEVER work with Gaza.

 

You make some fair points here.

However, how do you intend to get it down to a "workable" 40% while simultaneously legalizing Israeli settlements on privately owned Palestinian land in the West Bank, as Israel has recently been doing? You really think that has no effect on how Palestinians view Israel?

 

Oh that's two separate things, I said in my first comment that settlement building is absolutely harmful to the peace process, I just said that it doesn't matter during a climate where just about nothing would lead to peace and the Palestinian people as a whole don't really even want it.

If they managed to somehow get rid of Gaza and were only dealing with the West Bank, I think that the elimination of those settlements would go a long way towards peace, it's just that there's no incentive to do so in the current climate.

 

Damn. The Right has such an issue with illegal Mexicans coming to America and 'taking their jobs' and using up our resources. But it is ok for Israel to illegally steal Palestinian land and build their own settlements on them. The epitome of hypocrisy.

 

Does Israel really want this! it will be a step closer before their most trusted Right wing nuts allies line up to bring Armageddon to reality

 

"Palestine" isn't a real country, so it's completely different although I would still think it was morally wrong for anyone to roll in and just start setting up settlements. The United States and Mexico are both legitimate sovereign nations, it makes it different.

 

For educational purpose only :
America is a reference used by the natives of America and therefore applied to the aboriginals only , so the whole thing about illegal Mexican immegration to illegal settlement is insanely complex and fictional

 

Yes, but to add to that:

The settlement building may be "unhelpful", but the truth is that, as Bobbythegreat says, the majority of the Palestinian population is not interested in peace, unless it means that all Jews live as "Dhimmis" - that is with or without settlements. So while they may be unhelpful, not building them won't lead to peace either.

And a significant percentage of the Palestinian population is as interested in peace with the Jewish Israeli population as ISIS is in being in peace with any non-Muslim.

 

That may be true. But while refusing to build them won't directly lead to peace, it is (in my view) a minimal prerequisite for peace.

Peace will only happen if moderates on both sides make a push towards it. And I believe the US's role in all of this needs to be an appeal to those moderate forces to do just that. The problem is that Netanyahu is not a moderate by any measure, and Trump has decided the best policy is to appease him. His statements about the settlements not being helpful is toothless, and I think both he and Israel recognizes this.

 

I have changed my mind on Netanyahu. I like him.