Something too many Israelis (and Americans) fail to realize...

[cab67]

Getting population statistics for Israel and the Occupied Territories is tricky, because it's not always clear who's being counted. Does the Jewish population listed for Israel include the West Bank settlements? That's one example.

But based on the best statistics I can find, there are currently about 6.6 million Jewish citizens in Israel. That includes the West Bank. They're not going anywhere.

There are about 1.8 million Arabs in the borders of Israel recognized by the UN (i.e. excluding the West Bank and Gaza), the majority of whom are Muslim Palestinians. They're not going anywhere.

That means that the Israeli government has jurisdiction over a population that is about 75% Jewish. This allows Israel to maintain its identity as a Jewish state.

There are a lot of people, in Israel and elsewhere (most especially the US), who want to see Israel annex the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel already claims to have annexed the Golan Heights; the Trump Administration made the mistake of recognizing this, something I hope Biden can correct.

In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, there are about 4.5 million Palestinian Arabs. They, too, aren't going anywhere.

If Israel annexes these territories, its Jewish population would drop to around 50 percent of the total.

It would then have a decision to make - to be a democracy, or to be a Jewish state. If only half of the population is Jewish, it can't be both.

At this point, I think both sides carry much of the blame for the current violence. It hurts me to say this, too - I've been to Israel a couple of times and have valued friends and colleagues there. Moreover, my wife and her family are Jewish, and some of her elder relatives survived the Holocaust - so they have strong opinions I cannot and will not challenge, no matter how I feel about the politics of the moment.

The Palestinian Authority has to take control of it militant factions. Otherwise, Israel will have to defend itself. I also think the Israelis should get rid of the right-wing nationalists who won't compromise on anything - otherwise, grievances on the part of Palestinians will remain to fester, giving extremism fertile ground to flourish.

[peppertree]

1. Good points. I've heard "the West Bank doesn't have anyone there anyhow" from numerous Repugs

Population data shows Israel proper has 9.3 million people - all religions included.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=IL (extrapolated to 2021)

The West Bank and Gaza, 4.9 million.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=PS&most_recent_value_desc=true (extrapolated to 2021)

[no_hypocrisy]

2. IMO, the Palestinians are without leaders.

Hamas doesn't represent the Palestinians, nor does it have the best interests of the Palestinians. Hamas is in it for Hamas, in a self-serving way. It is a third party, if not an interloper, to these wars.

[cab67]

4. maybe so, but...

...the Palestinian people have elected members of Hamas to leadership positions. In that sense, they quite literally represent the Palestinians.

Republicans are in it for themselves, too. They nevertheless bamboozle millions of people into voting for them.

Nor does it change the basic mathematics. There are a whole lot of people living in that region, and they're going to kill each other until people on both sides agree to compromise.

[brush]

6. Well said. Netayahu seems to have nine lives. Seems to me...

he and his party are as much obstructionists to progress there as republicans are here

[Wounded Bear]

8. Both are fighting demographics, as was explained above...

Israel is trying to populate the West Bank with as many citizens as they can, but with out a genocide, they won't outnumber the Palestinians there. Thus, their dilemma, largely of their own making. While they can claim to be democratic now, as the OP describes, they can't remain so and absorb that many non-Jewish citizens and remain a Jewish democracy.

[brush]

9. So the dilemna remains. Is the two-state solution completely out of reach?

Or even the best way to go?

[cab67]

11. It's the only way to go.

Whether it will be within reach during my lifetime is another question.

[tonedevil]

23. Do you think Israel has leaders?

Do you think any of them have any measure of humanity?

[underpants]

3. Thanks.

Good read.

[dalton99a]

5. Kick

[FakeNoose]

7. "Israeli" is a nationality, not a religion

Just because someone was born in Israel to a Jewish family, they don't necessarily practice the religion and they don't necessarily consider themselves Jewish. Just as we have many Americans who were born Catholic - or some other faith - and are no longer practicing it.

It's incorrect to say that if someone is Israeli (and not Muslim) then they must be Jewish.

Another fun fact: Christians (practicing and otherwise) also live in Israel.

[cab67]

10. I know these things.

Like I said, I’ve been there. And I’m pretty sure I never said only Jewish and Muslim people live there. I’ve been to the Armenian Quarter of Old Jerusalem often enough to know that.

Judaism is different from most other religions. It’s as much a cultural identity as a belief system, and many Jewish people who aren’t observant - my wife, for example - would take exception to the notion that they aren’t Jewish.

Israel was founded explicitly as a Jewish state.

Another fun fact - the percentages I indicated are for the Israeli population as a whole, not just for Jewish and Muslim residents. Other demographic units - mostly Christians of one variety or another, along with Druze - comprise about 3.5 % of the Israeli population.

[Elessar Zappa]

12. There's many Jewish atheists.

Religion is only a small part of the Jewish identity. It’s more like an ethnic group.

[Klaralven]

19. There's a pretty clear definition of "Jew" in The Law of Return

4B. For the purposes of this Law, "Jew" means a person who was born of a Jewish mother or has become converted to Judaism and who is not a member of another religion."

https://www.knesset.gov.il/laws/special/eng/return.htm

[cab67]

21. Only Orthodox conversions are recognized.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. I thought that was pretty universally recognised in Israel

It's why Israel has never tried to convert all of the West Bank and Gaza into another part of Israel. They know they'd have to give the vote to all Palestinians in that case, and that'd mean a Jewish minority. So they gerrymander it - give parts to Jewish settlers, and have high concentrations of Palestinians where they can't claim rights as Israeli citizens

[joetheman]

14. Your in-laws are Holocaust survivors. Bless them. But are they so strong-willed against Arabs?

It is almost as though the world blames the Arabs or Palestinians for the Holocaust. I have cousins in Israel, they don't understand it either. They also tell me that many young Israelis want this warring to end. I can't get hold of the real deal. It has always puzzled me about the hate, the lack of compassion on both sides but heavy on one side.

[cab67]

18. I've never discussed the subject with the Holocaust survivors in her family.

[DanieRains]

15. Both Sides To Blame - No

When one side is 100 times more powerful.

Apartheid sucks.

[Gaugamela]

16. If the Palestinians by some inexplicable circumstance suddenly acquired a capable army, with

fighter jets and mechanized units and an armed flotilla, etc., would they not be justified in taking back all the land and homes and resources and infrastructure that the Israelis have seized from them over last 7 or 8 decades? The only reason it seems like “both sides are to blame” is that Israel has all the props of a modern nation state, whereas Palestine looks like a refugee camp. When the Palestinians try to defend their interests the US calls them terrorists. Biden said that Israel has a right to defend itself. When do the Palestinians have a right to defend themselves? I personally think the Palestinians would be better off waging a non-violent resistance, but I’m not them, I don’t live in their circumstances, and they didn’t ask for my advice. I don’t see how Hamas has any less legitimacy than the IDF.

[Duppers]

22. Reasonable, wise words.

Thank you.

[Withywindle]

24. Yes

The IDF has way more firepower and manpower and funding than any Palestinian group, and the violence they're inflicting on Palestinians and journalists right now IS terrorism. State terrorism.

[Martin Eden]

17. The Israeli government has to stop evicting Palestinians from their homes

Evictions in Jerusalem and heavy handed measures at the al Aqsa holy site during Ramadan sparked the latest violence.

Hamas is dead wrong with its rocket attacks. The oppressed accomplish nothing but worse hardships for their people with these strikes, eliciting tenfold retaliation and casualties.

Peace has long been predicated on the "two state solution" but facts on the ground advanced by Israel for decades make that impossible. This goes beyond the fact that Gaza and the West Bank are not contiguous. Jewish settlements pepper the West Bank with roads controlled by Israel slicing and dicing the territory into something that cannot possibly be a sovereign Palestinian state.

With unconditional support from the US, the long term strategy is for a Greater Israel encompassing all of the Promised Land.

But what of the demographics? Absent some kind of forced removal, Arabs are likely to become the majority population. This would mean the end of the Jewish state in a free democracy, but does anyone think that will be allowed to happen?

We're looking at apartheid, or something worse.

[scipan]

20. What is the reason why Israel needs so much more land?

They keep increasing the "settlements" and moving Palestinians off their land. You point out there aren't enough Jews to outnumber the Palestinians. Do they need that land to feed themselves?

What is actually the point of annexing Palestine until they reach the Jordan border?