[ihsw]

No I'm just extremely jaded by seeing uneducated masses get manipulated by awful people.

Being targeted by Israeli extremists for holding them to high standards and expectations is pretty unpleasant, and being targeted by Arab extremists for accepting the existence of the Israeli state is also unpleasant.

I sympathize with both Israeli and Palestinian people, I accept the existence of the Israeli state, and I recognize the need for Palestinians to have political representation. Call me what you want but please don't jump to conclusions or make any hasty decisions.

[reitanqild]

Thanks. Seems we agree on a lot. I very much appreciate your position about sympathising with both parts as well as the fact that you bring sources to the table.

I might also be a bit biased as around here (both locally and on hn it seems) there is or has been a quite strong anti-Israel bias although at least were I live that seems to have been changing over the last year.

[selimthegrim]

Look, I too accept Israel's legitimacy but it's hard to take for example people complaining about NPR as being biased against Israel when (as someone on HN put it) every Palestinian they seem to interview is always conceding they see the reason why Israel is doing <thing they're being interviewed about>. Does that sound like an interview of representative Palestinians to you? If it was, would the conflict be an issue?

[relics443]

Are you saying Palestinians don't have political representation? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_members_of_the_Kn...

[ihsw]

Many Palestinians don't feel they are being represented by those people.

You are absolutely correct that there is (IMO) a healthy amount of Arabs elected to the Knesset, but I think more needs to be done to integrate them into normal and day-to-day Israeli society. Unfortunately, integration into host societies is not popular among hard-liner fundamentalists.

Frankly I think something akin to the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement in Canada would be appropriate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunavut_Land_Claims_Agreement

[relics443]

"Many Palestinians don't feel they are being represented by those people."

Source? Assuming that is true, they have the ability to vote.

There are some companies that go out of their way to employ them (Rami Levy and SodaStream are some of the largest). Unfortunately, extremists use this as an attack vector against innocent men, women, and children, as they exploit their jobs to be able to murder and maim civilians (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Jerusalem_synagogue_attac...).

Israel provides electricity to the PA even though they haven't paid their bill in years, and will probably never pay it in full. We're talking debts of $500M+ (http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-pa-said-to-reach-deal-on...).

Palestinians have the potential for a very good life in Israel. Sure, there are extremists on both sides. However, Israel is not a country made up of extremists (in fact they are a tiny portion of the population). The key difference is that most Arabs support their extremists though they won't carry out acts of terror (centrists celebrate in the streets after terrorist attacks are carried out; most vocally support terrorism against Israel and the West even if they wouldn't do it themselves, and they would rather see Israel destroyed than have a two state solution implemented) [I know there are sources for this, but I can't seem to find them. I'll instead attribute this to my personal experience with this, and leave you to draw your own conclusions].

The way I see it, it's best summed up with a quote from Golda Meir (disputed, but accurate nonetheless):

“Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”

[selimthegrim]

Israel is the occupying power, it's mandated to provide electricity to Gaza for example. Do you think they should be cut off from the power station at Ashkelon? If there is plenty of support for illegal settlements how can you say that most Israelis don't support the extremists, because only a minority are violent?

[relics443]

They are not mandated to provide free electricity.

To your comments on illegal settlements. Yes, there is plenty of support for them. In fact, most of the supporters contend that they are not illegal.

There's a very big difference between supporting the settlements right to exist and supporting extremist violence coming from the settlements. Settler violence is very different than Arab violence. Please bear in mind that what follows is true most of the time, and I'll address a few of the exceptions. They key difference - and this holds for all cases of extremist violence - is that it is thoroughly condemned by the full spectrum of Israelis (except for other violent extremists, although depending on how heinous it was, some of the tamer elements would condemn it as well). It is something that is taken seriously by Israel, especially if it leads to a loss of life, because Israelis care about life. It can even lead to violent crackdowns against settlers (which very often turn into witch hunts that violate due process and humanitarian rights, but the Left is quiet about that - see the dubious detention of Meir Ettinger).

1. Settler violence is condemned by the Israeli public and government - from the Right to the Left 2. Settler violence is proven to have been staged by the Left or Arabs 3. Settler violence is reactionary / provoked (price tags and harrassment by leftist groups and/or Arab neighbors) 4. Settler violence is an anger outlet vs an outright desire to maim/kill and as such rarely leads to bodily harm / death 5. Reported Settler violence is often referring to an instance of an Israeli Settler injuring/killing an Arab as the Arab was infiltrating a settlement or attacking Israelis (reported by B'Tselem a far left HR organization who has since amended their page showing this - http://www.btselem.org/english/Statistics/Casualties_Data.as...) 6. Settler violence committed by a mentally unstable assailant (Abu Khdeir killing)

As I noted, there are exceptions to the above (Goldstein, etc...), but most follow the above points, and rarely end in injury or death for Arabs, as the violence tends to be rioting and property destruction.

OTOH:

1. Arab violence is rarely condemned by the Arab public and government - most rejoice, and the more serious the attack the more they rejoice 2. Arab violence is often committed in public or has direct evidence of its occurrence 3. Arab violence is often out of the blue (not in retaliation for a specific personal attack or provocation) 4. Arab violence is often expressed as a desire to murder innocent Israelis and Westerners and to bring about the destruction of Israel

#5 doesn't really have a corresponding bullet, because most Israeli's entering an Arab settlement do so by mistake. Doesn't stop the population from trying to lynch them (I've heard multiple first-hand accounts of this, including from relatives and schoolmates).

I'm sure there are mentally unstable Arab assailants, but I don't know percentages.

[selimthegrim]

1. No concrete institutional action is taken. See the lonely drum Yuval Diskin is beating in and out of office. Also, is there anything like Rabin's condemnation of the right-wingers as "Sensible Judaism rejects you?"

2. Citations, please, as to what the "smolanim" are up to.

3. I don't care if it's a "price tag", it's still a difference of degree, not of kind from Arab violence.

4. Doesn't matter. Are they babies? We hear all the time about how Israel is a more morally advanced, "European" country and yet shouldn't be held to higher standards?

5. Sure

6. OK, and what about that wedding party where they were chanting support for Abu Khdeir's killer?

Now to respond to your OTOH:

1. Violence against whom? Themselves as well? 2. Citation. Also, as opposed to in private in a settlement? 3. Again, citations. Also, if you're living under the control of occupation authorities and harassed at checkpoints that isn't a provocation (this doesn't apply if they attack civilians of course) 4. I think the state of Israel and the Jewish people are going to survive a bunch of people talking shit. 5. Ding ding ding ding ding. And you want to rule over these people? When those Catholics lynched the British Army soldiers at the funeral in Northern Ireland for driving in the wrong way down the street, does that mean Britain should have expelled all the Catholics from Belfast?

[selimthegrim]

And it's not "free electricity", you know as well as I do Israel collects taxes from the PA and Palestinians.

[ceejayoz]

That's like saying North Koreans have freedom of speech because some North Korean defectors live in the US. A Palestinian in Gaza is not the same thing as an Israeli Arab.