This is a great post. Thank you to share your personal experience. Do you think they were first generation Palestinians? Or multi-generation (parents or earlier immigrated)? I know that Michigan state (Detroit, etc.) has one of the largest Arab communities in the United States.
I went to school with some first generation Palestinians just 5-ish years ago.
One of them had to miss an entire quarter because Israel just wouldn't allow him to leave. He has never been back to Palestine since then because another detainment or missed visa problem, etc. would derail his career.
> One of them had to miss an entire quarter because Israel just wouldn't allow him to leave
Terrible.
Even in the current ceasefire terms, there's an explicit provision to have Israel agree to let the injured leave for treatment to neighbouring countries and be allowed to come back to the Strip.
Despite arguments to contrary, I can see why some claim it is an open-air prison.
Palestinians go back not because the Israeli+Egyptian+Hamas siege has turned the Strip in to Switzerland, but because they are steadfast in their resistance to ethnic cleansing & cultural erasure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumud
Kind of similar to how the Polish Jews setup schools, orphanages, religious institutions that in the Warsaw Ghetto as a form of resistance.
Because sex is pleasurable and people have a drive to overcome adversity and lead the most fulfilling lives they can. Israel depriving the Gazan population of those opportunities is also a form of collective punishment and torture.
These did not come at a time when Palestinians had unrestricted access to Israel, though. These happened while Israel was militarily occupying Gaza and the West Bank (yes, international institutions recognize Gaza has been occupied via blockade and control of resources, even though the IDF had "withdrawn").
> only if you're straight. if you're gay, the Palestinians will throw you off a building.
What building? Two thirds of them have been bombed by Israel.
> can you tell me what happens when Palestinians have unfettered access to Israel?
Palestinians lived in what is now called "Israel" for thousands of years. It seems that went just fine. It's only recently that an ethnostate has been established on their land and many of the original inhabitants ethnically cleansed or straight up murdered that hostility has risen sharply. Perhaps the ethnostate can be abolished and peace can return in the region.
> Can you tell me what happens when Palestinians have unfettered access to Israel?
What would happen is that human rights would have been upheld, apartheid would have been dismantled, refugees would have been given access to their former homes, as is their right.
I think I know what you are trying to insinuate here. And that insinuation is quite racist.
A large part of what is now Israel was the home to many Palestinians before they were forcibly removed from there. Forcible relocation of civilian population is a crime against humanity, and those that were displaced, as well as their descendants, have the right to return to their former homes, whether that home is in Israel or Palestine. Denying that right is also a crime against humanity. What happens to the ethno-demographic prospects of the state doing the crime should not be a consideration.
I might be wrong about this but the question “Can you tell me what happens when Palestinians have unfettered access to Israel?“ smells like you have some assumptions about Palestinians that makes it dangerous for non-Palestinians to live around. If you actually believe that, that would be a very racist assumption.
Your second statement is mixing hypothetical reality with an actual reality. Only Israel is pursuing ethno-demographic policies. You may believe Hamas wants to pursue similar but reverse policies, and you may even be right about that, but the fact is they aren’t. Only Israel is. If Hamas gains full control over an independent state of Palestine, and sets up an apartheid system where Palestinians maintains a systemic oppression against non-Palestinian Jews, then we can dismiss their prospects. But until then, we should only dismiss the prospects of those that actually are committing the crimes, which is the state of Israel.
> If Hamas gains full control over an independent state of Palestine, and sets up an apartheid system where Palestinians maintains a systemic oppression against non-Palestinian Jews, then we can dismiss their prospects. But until then, we should only dismiss the prospects of those that actually are committing the crimes, which is the state of Israel
I think after Oct 7, we can safely agree that this experiment has already happened and we know the answer.
> only if you're straight. if you're gay, the Palestinians will throw you off a building.
This is such a gross statement.
First of all, Palestinians are not all religious fundamentalists. Hamas is not Daesh. There is no sharia law in Palestine. Your statement is textbook islamophobia.
Second, are you really invoking gay rights in the context of a genocide? I'm sorry can you please send me the news article you must have read stating Israel is using LGBTQ-avoiding bombs? Because to argue that the LGBT community would have it worse under Palestinian statehood than the current genocide is truely mind-boggling.
Would you make the same claim about gay Jews in Germany? In the concentration camps?
21% of Israel's population is Arab - they have lived side by side with the Jews there for centuries. Why on earth would the Jews displace some of the Arabs and give full citizenship to the others if they just wanted the land?
I hate your pseudo-intellectualism - "uncook your priors" indeed. You've roasted your priors and burnt your likelihood.
Mandatory Palestine was way more than 21% Arab. And Jews did live side by side & were culturally assimilated, but those that migrated to Palestine/South Syria (after 1890s) didn't & had ambitions of an exclusive state for themselves.
> Why on earth would the Jews displace some of the Arabs and give full citizenship to the others
No, those that were allowed to remain ("the good Arabs") post 48 were under military rule for 2 decades.
Those that now remain occupied after 67 are under hybrid IDF+PA rule.
> hate your pseudo-intellectualism
Intellectualism? You give me too much credit. Hate the "New Historians" who are all Israeli & speaking their truth.
the Arabs who live in Israel today enjoy the same rights as the Jews.
the ones in the post 67 are under hybrid rule precisely because the Oct 7 attacks are the sort of things that happen when the people of Gaza and the West Bank are given freedom.
> Arabs who live in Israel today enjoy the same rights
Uncook:
There is no shortage of examples illustrating the widespread view in Israel that Palestinians' political participation should be monitored, controlled and curtailed, and that their right to vote and run for office should be drained of any meaning.
The Military Rule imposed on Palestinian citizens until 1966 treated this entire population as enemies, severely restricting their political activity. Mapai (later the Labor Party), which governed the state and most of its institutions in Israel's early years, refused to take on Palestinian candidates until the early 1980s and set up satellite parties for Palestinian citizens, dictating who would run in them and how they would vote.
Efforts to delegitimize Palestinian political participation continue to the present day, clearly showing that some of the Israel's leaders and the public at large see such participation as undesirable.
The message to Palestinians and their candidates is clear: Do not seek full equality and recognition of collective national rights. Demanding equality on matters such as land, immigration and national emblems is perceived as repudiating Israel’s constitutional principles, as it undermines the country's definition as a Jewish state.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid recently spelled out this principle, saying: "Twenty percent of the population are Arabs. We can and should give them civil equality... On the other hand, we will not give them national equality, because this is the only state the Jews have."
Palestinian citizens who choose to participate in the electoral process have no choice but to enter the political playing field with their hands tied. The parties representing them are barred from challenging the fundamental principles of the regime that is dispossessing and oppressing them. They cannot seek to abolish the laws and systems that harm them, which are considered defining features of the Jewish state. They cannot fight for a core democratic tenet: full equality for all those living under the same regime. This limits political participation exclusively for Palestinian citizens. No matter what they do or how they vote – constitutionally, their vote is worthless.
I addressed your claim that 48-Arabs have "equal rights" when the former Israeli Prime Minister himself doesn't think so and says so openly.
And rich of you to mention "the military rule ... 1966" when you knew nothing about it 2h ago (as evident from your previous reply). Judging from your other replies, you probably don't know a lot, but see yourself fit to engage in Hasbara-like fashion.
You broke the site guidelines repeatedly and extremely badly in this thread. We've asked you before not to do that. We have to ban accounts that post like this, and I'm sorry to say that what you did in this thread is well over the line at which we'd normally ban someone, especially given the past warning.
I'm not going to ban you right now because the other account was also breaking the rules pretty badly. If you keep doing this, though, we're going to have to ban you.
Commenters here need to follow the rules regardless of how other commenters are behaving or how wrong they are, even on a topic as divisive as this one. Especially on a topic as divisive as this one. Note this from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html:
"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
You also broke the site guidelines repeatedly in this thread. That's seriously not ok, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are, and regardless of how badly they might be breaking the rules.
It doesn't look like we've warned you about this before, but it does look like you've been breaking the rules when arguing about divisive topics in other contexts. That's not ok, and we eventually have to ban accounts that do this, so if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stay within the rules in the future, we'd appreciate it.
Doesn't matter. Comrade Dang probably already throttled you. Also you can get shadow-banned so your up- and down-votes as well as flagging and vouching do nothing. Only "good" users and their opinions are allowed!
My college friend didn't attack anyone, but you are taking the sins of people who share his ethnicity and attaching them to him, and in the same breath bemoaning that we do that to the Jewish people (even though we never did that)
Based on that, he must have obtained a special permit to leave Palestine and fly to the US for higher education, but this had to be approved by Israel or he could not leave Palestine or transit through Ben Gurion Airport (remember the Palestinian's international airport was bombed into rubble a decade ago or so). One year they denied him for some Kafkaesque reason, I presume. By the time he sorted it out he had to arrange with the school to take a leave and start again the next quarter
So... Why not blame Egypt? You can answer if you know, but the question is really meant as a shrug towards bias and a plea for education in geography.
Egypt has an airport just west of Gaza. They have a visa exclusive program for Palestinians. And that's not new.
So based on the story, if you presume Israel was Kafkaesque then you must also presume that Egypt was at least as Kafkaesque if he was unable to leave from there.
Or worse... he was unwilling.
And yet, the story is about Israel for some reason. I'd ask why, but I presume to know the answer. Again, this is a shrug towards bias.
He didn't get his visa through Egypt. He got it through Israel, and when it was randomly denied, he probably couldn't apply for an Egyptian one in time to make it.
You've made a good faith guess, I think. But again, Egypt has a visa exclusive program for Palestinians. Visa exclusive means that Palestinians do not need a visa to enter and travel through Egypt. So, at least based on the story so far, the only visa he needed was an American one, having nothing to do with Israel except that he probably was afraid to enter Egypt.
This is all speculative in terms of how it relates to your friend. All this to make the point that bias and generalizing about things, and a desire to blame people one has been taught to hate, can be detrimental to one's success.
> All this to make the point that bias and generalizing about things, and a desire to blame people one has been taught to hate, can be detrimental to one's success.
I agree, you should see the way people are doing this under my very comment about my friend.
In the end, I am sure he knew more than most people about the options truly available to him. He was never biased or hating of anyone. Those who know him today would know
