You say that like the lesson is to avoid unnecessary war, which we'd all agree with, but the takeaway they're going with in Palestine is "never concede, no matter how much bloodshed". If the wars of the 20th Century took place longer ago than that, there'd be no independent Gaza or West Bank, they'd have been annexed territories into Israel, and a whole lot of extra killing might have been avoided.
Yes, and they would have made them proper citizens. All of the other border redrawing led to a proper annexation. No other country wanted to have a huge, eternally unhappy minority. They would have pushed assimilation and integration.
As for the "never concede " thing : look at all the independency movements that died down (Basque, Soth Tirol, Northern Ireland...) They rethoric during the hight of conflict was no less severe. But they all lost public support after concessions. Because the public won't follow extremists into bloodshed if the alternatives look better.
I think many of those people still trying to have Israel removed from existence might have something to do with that.
Not really. You brought the argument that other peoples eventually accepted conquest and moved on. But that generelly only happened after they became proper citizens of whatever and their daily life had become good enough that starting a rebellion/independence movement seemed to much a risk for too little gain.
So citizenship first, acceptance and identification as part of Israel later. That is the only way conquest might result in peace.
But instead we have never ending suppression, living standards lower than everywhere else in the vicinity, eternal legal limbo making it impossible to plan and move forward.
There are only two ways to end the conflict :
- The one state solution with full citizenship and full participation for all Palestinians
- The two state solutions with Palestine statehood.
As Israel torpedoes both and has done so for decades, i do primarily fault Israel for the ongoing conflict. Not the Palestinians. Hamas would just end when there is nothing really worth fighting for anymore.
