The majority of Israelis (at least until 10/7) don't support the settlements or don't care. If not majority than a huge amount of the public, me included.
And I disagree about the last sentence. Of course you must calculate the intentions of the other side, otherwise it’ll be one sided and either wont change anything, in the good case, or change it to the worst. See israel withdrawal from Gaza.. one sided act which intended to give the Palestinians “no excuses” for occupation and what actually happen was that they just changed a bit their rhetoric, give it a few years and you got back to point zero. That’s absurd. Israel in Gaza = occupation. Israel out of Gaza = occupation.
So you have to ask yourself what peace looks like for the other side. Once you realise that, then you’ll know that no matter what you do you’ll still be the occupier, the one who commit genocide and crimes.
In your world, if there are no illegal settlements, what do you think will
Happen next ?

Edit,
I’ll just give you my point of view about the answer to my question -
They’ll just find new areas to claim as their own (they claim all the land anyways) and those areas, give it few years of palestinian propaganda, will be the new “illigal settlements”.

This post was edited by WhiteSouned on Apr 25 2024 11:51am

The public sentiment seems unrelated to the actuality of the settlements, particularly for the Palestinian people. I can't placate other people who are under the weight of unethical foreign American policy by saying "Well, most of us don't support/think about it". It's still happening to them--and, I think there's something about the general apathy then that is still frustrating.

One of course takes into consideration the agency of the other, but true accountability for our own actions is not conditional on anyone outside of ourselves. The fact that some Palestinians earnestly believe in a "From the river to the sea" approach has nothing to do with whether Israel's settlements are unethical and illegal. If Israel stopped and reversed all illegal settlements, it wouldn't result in immediate peace, but again, this is irrelevant to whether the behavior itself is unethical or not.

I understand your point and somehow agree to it. For all I care we can withdrawal to specific line and say we are here and you are there and that’s it.
Nevertheless, I also understand that They’ll just find new areas to claim as their own (they claim all the land anyways) and those areas, give it few years of palestinian propaganda, will be the new “illigal settlements”

And should that happen, that will be on their side of the fence and is their responsibility, not Israel's.

By the way, I appreciate your openness, and am admittedly a bit surprised that you see where I'm coming from. My surprise is not with you specifically, but because it has been my experience that folks who are primarily supporters of Israel are so reticent or unwilling to acknowledge that the settlements are unethical or otherwise minimize them. I understand where that may be coming from, in that the situation is extremely complex and there are things that Hamas does that are unethical, and it's not that Israel addressing their illegal settlements is going to magically bring about peace.

It is, however, similar to the reality that in our own lives there are family, friends, partners, co-workers, etc. with whom we find ourselves experiencing conflict. Those people may be doing X, Y, and Z that is wrong, hurtful, frustrating or anything else, but that does not change that we are still responsible for how we show up to that relationship and the actions we take. If a behavior of ours is wrong, then it is wrong. It is not the sign of adulthood, or international statehood, to deny this imo.

This post was edited by Handcuffs on Apr 25 2024 12:16pm

Ask yourself if it is occupied land who did Israel occupied it from?

This post was edited by Many_Names on Apr 25 2024 12:22pm

I may still not be understanding, but I will do my best. My thought is this:

Is there an area of land on top of which people X lived that Israel then vacated them from by force? My answer is, yes, both in its inception (Nakba) and to this day via the illegal settlements. Am I mistaken about something here in this description?

This post was edited by Handcuffs on Apr 25 2024 12:25pm

Likewise, it’s refreshing to discuss someone without having to read “genocide, slaughter , abuse” in every second sentence.
As to your claim that it’ll be on them, personally I think that you will be here writing the same things about the new “illegal settlements”. In theory of course..
I’m an engineer. The first thing you do when you come across a problem is to be able to describe and explain the problem properly which I think we already discussed in this thread.. as to what to do now, I suggest to freeze the current situation (settlement wise I mean) until the Palestinians will be prepared to start peace talks with good faith.

My position on the settlements is rooted in the "freeze" you're referring to. There have been points in history where if we were to "freeze" the current boundaries of where Israelis and Palestinians have their homes setup, Israel has expanded beyond those boundaries over time and I think that it is unethical and illegal for them to do that. Even if we were to "freeze" right now, as you are reading this post, map out a current boundary together, the issue remains that Israel is going to continue to expand beyond the lines you and I see on our map unless they stop this settlement practice. I don't think it will magically bring about peace, but it does seem like a critical part of the puzzle.

Hamas/Palestinians will have to address their own unethical behavior and expectations. The reality is that Israel will not vacate the area unless conquered (no different than any other state, btw), so the "From the river to the sea" is untenable for the process of peace because it is only possible via violence and war.

This post was edited by Handcuffs on Apr 25 2024 12:34pm

What is the amount of time between people being displaced from a land and their irredentist claims to the land lapsing?
If a burglar breaks into my house while I'm out at the grocery store and declares himself a squatter, I clearly have the right to have him removed by force. If I claim to be a descendant of the ancient Khwarazmians who were turned into a pyramid of skulls at Nishapur, and claim some Mongolian's homestead in the modern day, they clearly have the right to have me removed by force.

The fact is that most all Palestinians alive today weren't around for the Nakba and were never displaced from their current enclaves, that the Israeli settlements and cities and infrastructure that were built in the past three quarters of a century were built mostly on previously empty and uncivilized land, and Israel hadn't significantly changed the borders of Israeli vs Palestinian occupied territories in the decades up until Oct 7th- the gradual expansion of settlements until they abutted similarly expanding Palestinian villages, but no big land grabs like the aftermath of the wars.

I understand your question as pertaining largely to the phenomenon of what is to happen after a population's location or border is changed by force, especially as subsequent generations build into the future. It is a reality of history that people have gone to war, used violence, or otherwise ethnically cleansed regions resulting in serious geopolitical changes as a result of human displacement. What happens next, broadly speaking, is that either the new borders stabilize along the new lines and life continues and things move towards acceptance and peace, the aggrieved instead continue to seek to take back their land by force (Hamas' goal), or the aggressor continues to take more and more land until a region is sufficiently conquered (Settlers).

Unfortunately, while some are striving for option 1 in some fashion, both 2 and 3 are simultaneously true and remain part of the tapestry that is the complex barrier to peace.

This post was edited by Handcuffs on Apr 25 2024 02:28pm