I'm a Jewish Israeli, AMA

[israelilefty]

Jewish Israeli here. I grew up in a different country but have lived and worked most of my adult life here, living a fairly normal everyday life in northern Israel. When I'm not working, I enjoy cooking and hiking, I'm religiously observant (but also feminist), I'm on the left of the political spectrum, and have everyday contact with people from quite a range of different perspectives - Israeli society is incredibly diverse.

I guess I see us portrayed in a kind of monolithic way in the English-language media, so I'm taking a deep breath and posting here...

Feel free to AMA, just remember you're asking a real person, not a government or military spokesman :) I'll try to answer from my personal standpoint. as long as it's asked in good faith.

www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/09/26/israelis-have-grown-more-skeptical-of-a-two-state-solution/

I know it's slightly out of date but it's interesting.

Good question. I think that a big issue here is the difference between the ideal and what people believe is practically possible. Most Israeli politicians, at least from the centre right to the left, and the Arab parties, would agree about the two-state solution theoretically being the only way to end the conflict. But most Israelis would be skeptical about whether this can actually be achieved under the current circumstances. The biggest issue is a lack of trust that a peaceful coexistence between two states could be achieved, because of the professed aims of many Palestinian factions and much of the Arab world to destroy Israel and "liberate" the whole land. Even well before 7.10 Israelis pointed to developments in neighbouring countries with extremist militant organizations taking over (eg ISIS in Syria and Hezbollah in south Lebanon), and of course to Gaza, from which Israel withdrew in 2005, then in 2006 Hamas was elected and has invested everything it can in attacking Israel. I think these concerns warrant taking seriously, because if a Hamas-like entity took over the West Bank with the capabilities they have in Gaza, things would look very different. Right now they only have the ability to hammer smaller towns and villages with their shorter-range missiles, and it's possible to evacuate the area immediately around the Gaza Strip as is the case now, as it's fairly sparsely populated. Israel couldn't deal with a situation where similar rockets and mortars could rain down on the civilian population in the Tel Aviv area.

In simpler language, right now a two state solution requires compromises that neither side is ready to make. In the meantime Israel has been pursuing normalisation with the more moderate Arab states, hoping to break the wall of Arab support for the Palestinians.

To get back to your economic questions: I don't think high tech is about to leave the country. There was some threat of that with the "judicial overhaul" but now that legislation has been shelved, almost certainly permanently. Sadly enough, defence is also a major Israeli export, meaning that the status quo isn't always bad for the economy.

Having said all the above, nobody knows what post-7.10 will look like. Israel has lost a major war (the best outcome at this point is damage limitation) and it's possible that the stalemate will have shifted enough to begin the process towards a two state solution. I don't hold out much hope for this, and it depends on foreign intervention both from the US and the Arab world.

I forgot to write in the previous response: for most Jewish Israelis the issue of a two state solution has not seemed urgent in the last 2 decades or so, because Netanyahu's policy of "managing the conflict" gave the illusion that economic prosperity and an acceptable level of security could be achieved while putting the question of resolving the conflict with the Palestinians on the back burner. This obviously has been blown out of the water on 7.10, which proved that Netanyahu's technique of playing Palestinian factions off against each other and assuming that economic "carrots" (eg work permits for Gazans to work in Israel) would blunt Hamas's military aspirations, have totally failed.

Some of this is hard reading. Your life sounds very strange to a non-Israeli. Not the cooking and convenience food, but that in contrast to safe rooms and conflict.

Am I right in thinking that if you include all the non-Jews (sorry I don’t know if there’s a better way of describing that section of the population) in Israel and Gaza/West Bank that the Jewish population is the minority? Was the non-Jewish population once spread across the whole country? If that’s the case how did some of them end up in Gaza/West Bank and some mixed in with the Israeli population?
For those Jews moving to Israel from elsewhere, is being allowed in based on genetics or religion? What I mean is, do you have to be practicing or could you be lapsed or even another religion?

Today there are around 7 million Palestinians in the whole area (Gaza, West Bank and Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel) and just over 7 million Jewish Israelis. So similar numbers. Note that in a two state solution 2 million of those Palestinians, who are Israeli citizens, would remain (by rights, and according to polls also by choice) in Israel.

Yes, the non-Jewish population was spread across the whole country. But there was massive displacement among Palestinians during the war in 1948 (various reasons including threats and expulsion by Jewish forces, voluntary moving to safety, and being encouraged to move temporarily by Arab forces for the duration of the war but not being able to return). Some Palestinians were displaced from 1948 Israel to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Some were displaced/exiled to surrounding Arab countries. Others were displaced within what is now Israel (eg Nazareth absorbed internally displaced people from many surrounding villages). Those who stayed inside Israel became Israeli citizens but those who fled from what is now Israel and had not returned by a certain point were not allowed to return, and became Palestinian refugees living alongside the populations of the West Bank and Gaza, and in surrounding Arab countries. This is the root of the Palestinian refugee question. Many Palestinians argue that descendants of refugees they have the right to return to their original locations. Most Israelis argue that they should be allowed to return only to the future Palestinian state, and that surrounding Arab states should absorb the Palestinian refugees who live there (even generations later they are still considered refugees and don't have citizenship of those countries). Some people also point out that Israel absorbed all the large Jewish communities who were essentially kicked out of the Arab world, so there was effectively a large population exchange.

The 'right of return' for Jews to Israel is open to anyone with at least 1 Jewish grandparent who does not actively practice another religion, or who converted to Judaism.

Thanks everyone for all the great questions and for the willingness to listen respectfully on difficult topics. I'm more than willing to keep answering as long as you have questions but Shabbat (the Jewish sabbath) is about to begin here in Israel and I don't use computers on Shabbat, so I'll be offline until Saturday evening. I'll continue to answer then if there are questions.

Shabbat shalom שבת שלום (have a peaceful Shabbat)

Shabbat Shalom!

שבת שלום @israelilefty

This is really informative. Thank you.

In terms of a 2 state solution what do you think the distribution of the land should be considered?

As an example based on your figures for population 5 million Arab people need to be catered for if 9 million are currently Israeli citizens if I am reading that right. In your opinion would you as an Isreali be willing to forgo 5/14 of the land and distribute cities in a fair manner and absorb the 2/14 of already Israeli Arab citizens? Would that scale of parting with land be completely anathema to ordinary Israeli citizens? It seems from what you have said you want quite a few of the people to redistribute themselves to other Arab countries? Is this an actual aspiration of some Israeli people. Who should go? How would you pick who stays and goes?

With the even population would a one state solution like Northern Ireland ever be considered by ordinary Israelis I know it is muted?

שבת שלום 💗💗💗
Wishing you and your loved ones a healthy, peaceful and happy 2024.

This has been such an informative thread OP. You write in a very clear and measured way. I think you should consider pitching something to a UK newspaper.

Shabbat shalom. As a non practising British Jew this thread has been fascinating to read.

I guess the nature of news and politics is that we tend to hear from Netanyahu and other govt ministers, or extremists, or from grieving relatives of victims, and the voices of the average Israeli don’t get a look in.

From this thread it feels like there is still hope for a two state solution - one day.

@Lalalanding there ares not 9 million palestians but 7 million of these 2 million are already Israeli citizens living in Irsael the other 5 million are in the West bank ( just under 3 million) and Gaza Strip ( just over 2 million) approx 670,000 Jewish Israeli settlers live in West bank terriotries

Hi @Cottagecheeseisnotcheese the 9 million was Israelis including 2 million Arab Israelis. Sorry I read that back and it wasn’t clear.

The geographic area of Israel is approx 8600 sq miles, the West bank and gaza strip together are about 2320sq miles, the negev desert largely uninhabitable is 4700 sq miles about 60% of the total land mass in Israel but only 13% of population ( a bit like Scotland having 32% of land mass of UK but only 8% of the population but even more sparse than that)
if you ignore Negev desert the total land mass is just under 4000 sq miles so the land in West Bank and Gaza strip is about 50% of the remaining
The Negev population has about 70% jewish and about 30% arab most of whom are bedouin
historically the Jordan valley ( west bank) was most fertile Agricultural area together with the Galilee region and valleys

Just to clear up a misunderstanding - I wasn't suggesting that any Israeli or Palestinian who currently in Israel or the West Bank/Gaza should leave, and I think that all Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel should remain in Israel unless they choose otherwise. The opposite: I think that the two-state solution should primarily take into account the needs and wellbeing of all those who are already here. In my previous post was just saying that I think that the descendants of Palestinian refugees from 1948 who have lived in surrounding Arab countries as stateless refugees since 1948 (eg Lebanon and Syria) should be offered citizenship of those countries, since by now virtually all of them have lived all of their lives in those countries. I'm not aware of any Jewish Israelis who want to return to live in Arab countries and I don't think that would be realistic, but where there are reasonable foreign relations (eg Morocco and Tunisia) many Israeli Jews with heritage from those countries return for "roots" trips or religious festivals. It would be amazing if those with Syrian, Iraqi or Yemenite heritage (for example) could visit those countries. But all that is up to those countries, not Israel.

Back to your actual question. As others have mentioned in the meantime, dividing land by square km per population doesn't work as natural resources are not evenly spread, and Israel has a lot of basically uninhabitable desert in the south. Also a goal should be to uproot as few people as possible, which is why all proposals for a 2-state solution start from the "green line" (the 1948 armistice lines, i.e. the current division into the State of Israel and West Bank/Gaza), with certain land swaps so the biggest settlement blocs near the Green Line stay in Israel. There is no lack of expert proposals about borders etc from the Oslo Accords, the Geneva Initiative etc - there is a lack of political will and mandate on both sides to implement a 2-state solution, and the question of Jerusalem is complicated. But personally I would be happy with any solution that is agreed on by the 2 sides.

I don't think a one state solution is a viable option (especially not after 7 Oct which destroyed trust even further). It sounds good on paper but isn't workable for a number of reasons: first, this is primarily a national conflict in which both sides want to realise our national aspirations and govern ourselves. A one-state solution would go against what most Israelis and Palestinians want, and to be honest, aside from a few utopian socialists, most of the people who discuss a one state solution implicitly mean they want one state which is THEIR state, not some kind of binational arrangement.

I also think that realistically a one-state solution would be an incredibly weak state. Both populations carry different histories and deep national traumas, are highly suspicious of one another, are culturally different, there is a big socioeconomic gap, and we speak different languages. Past experience shows that states with a 50:50(ish) mix of different national identities are likely to be unstable, and the global trend is generally towards minority national groups to call for independence.

So for this reason I think the 2-state solution, however difficult it might be to achieve, is the only practical option, and it's the only option which gives Israelis and Palestinians the real ability to determine our own futures and to live securely within our own borders. I would hope that gradually there would be cooperation and alliances eg in trade both between the 2 states and in the wider region.

thanks, ha, if someone awards me a few extra hours in every day and does all the cooking and cleaning for me I might have time to moonlight as a journalist ;) But seriously, I'm glad it's been helpful for some people. There's too much mudslinging and not enough conversation out there.

Thanks for replying I think there is a lot for me to learn from what you wrote. I appreciate it a lot.

@israelilefty hello hope you had a lovely shabbat, I have a few questions please if its OK to ask

1. I saw a video yesterday where a horn sounds when Shabbat starts. Does it also sound when it ends? And can it be heard in the whole of Israel?

1. You mentioned who you think will most likely take over from Netanyahu but could I ask who you would prefer rather than who is most likely? I see the opposition is Yair Lapid but it doesn't seem like he has as much support

1. Lastly in one of your answers you mentioned Israel has lost a major war. I was curious as to why you thought that when the war is still on going and it doesn't seem like they are losing

Thank you!

1. Sirens marking the beginning of Shabbat are not a national thing, they only sound in certain religious Jewish neighbourhoods and they don't use the national siren system (we do have a national network of sirens that can be heard all over the country, they are used for rocket/air raid warnings, and also for memorial sirens on Memorial Day and Holocaust Memorial Day). Shabbat sirens don't sound during the war in case they would be mistaken for an air raid siren, but actually in my neighbourhood they always play about 15 mins of Shabbat songs before shabbat comes in, then stop when Shabbat comes in, which I really like.
2. It's hard to say who I prefer. None of the individual politicians that I particularly like have any chance of being prime minister. Even though I vote left of him (and left of Lapid), I think Benny Ganz would probably be a solid choice as a broadly acceptable figure in the country at this moment in time as we recover from the tumultuous last year – remember that over the few months preceding Oct 7 the country practically fell apart over Netanyahu's judicial overhaul. For me more important than the identity of the PM is their choice to make a coalition with parties to their left. Also, there can be surprises. Naftali Bennett was the prime minister of the short-lived previous prime minister. I really disliked him as a politician and I don't agree with his politics but I think he did a surprisingly good job as prime minister and brought together a broad coalition.
3. My personal view is that we lost this war the minute Hamas attacked on 7.10 and revealed a colossal failure at every level: in intelligence, in military planning, and in the state's ability to protect its citizens and deal with what was going on (The response of Israeli civil society to the crisis has been amazing but it's insane that it took weeks for the state to catch up - in the first days major tasks like compiling a list of hostages were being done by civilian volunteers sitting in a borrowed space with laptops). We are still in a position where Hamas still holds 130-odd Israeli hostages, many of them civilians, it's clear that Israel will have to pay a very high price to get them back, and despite the massive destruction of infrastructure in Gaza, Hamas still has a tunnel network and is still able to fire significant barrages of rockets on central Israel, and it's very unlikely that Israel can actually achieve the goal of eradicating Hamas's military capability. Meanwhile tens of thousands of people are long term displaced from their homes and hundreds of thousands are not working because of reserve duty, which has a massive effect on the national mood, the economy etc - and that's without mentioning the massive toll in lives and physiological and psychological wellbeing. NB this may be a lose-lose war because despite Hamas increasing in popularity in some circles, I hope that by now they are not in a position where they can retain power in Gaza.

As a non Israeli the idea that the Arab half of the population of an area are kept segregated and not allowed to work without visas or travel in and out of their area seems very strange. The fact that this is done based on ethnic origin and religion is very hard to support on any level. How do people generally feel about those laws/rules? Are they popular or do some people wish for a more egalitarian country where all people are treated equally?

First of all, I agree that the current situation is unsustainable, and until 7.10 I was out in the massive pro-democracy protests in Israel wearing a T-shirt that read 'There can be no democracy with occupation'. Like most of the Israeli left I think that the end of the occupation and the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel is vital for the security and prosperity of both Palestinians and Israelis.

However, from your question I think you misunderstand about the current situation. Within the state of Israel there is no ethnic segregation. Palestinian Arabs (about 2 million people, who make up 21% of Israel's citizens), hold Israeli passports, vote, serve as members of parliament and senior members of the judiciary. All religions are entitled to freedom of worship, days off on their religious holidays etc. Could there be greater equality? Yes of course, and many of us on the Israeli left are doing what we can to make that happen (and the current far right government is not helping). Look up organizations like Standing Together, the New Israel Fund, the Abraham Fund, Hand In Hand schools, just to name a few off the top of my head.

The issue you are talking about is the situation of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. This is not segregation within a state based on ethic origin/religion, it's military occupation as the outcome of the continuing failure to implement the two state solution, and to understand it and solve it it's important to know the background.

Until the end of WWI historic Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire. After the Ottoman Empire collapsed, historic Palestine was administered by the British as the British Mandate for Palestine. There was increased Jewish immigration in this period due both to Jewish national aspirations (which were supported by the British) and to Jews fleeing from the Nazis, and there were tension between Jews and Arabs. In 1947 the UN resolved to end the British mandate and create 2 states in historic Palestine, one Jewish and one Arab. The Jewish leadership accepted and declared the State of Israel. The Arab side did not accept and the Arab countries waged war intending to eliminate the state of Israel. This didn't happen, rather Israel won the war with some terretorial gains, and the Palestinians suffered the Nakba (catastrophe) where large numbers were expelled by Israeli forces/left voluntarily/were encouraged to leave by the Arab forces and many others were internally displaced.

At the end of the 1948 war, the West Bank was under Jordanian control and the Gaza Strip was ruled by Egypt. This was the case until 1967. In the Six-Day War in 1967, when Israel once again fought the Arab armies. You can read about that separately but the upshot was that Israel ended up occupying the Gaza Strip and West Bank. This is still the situation now. There have been numerous attempts to establish a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank via peace processes (Oslo Accords, Camp David, etc etc) but those were not successful with each side blaming the other for their failure. In 2005 Israel withdrew unilaterally from the Gaza Strip but Israel and Egypt still control the borders of Gaza. The West Bank is still under military occupation.

Why not turn it all into one democratic state? It sounds good on paper but see my answer two questions ago - it's not what the 2 peoples want, both want independence, and those calling for one state generally actually want one state which is THEIR state, not a utopian binational entity. The only viable stable solution to this national conflict is 2 states as originally envisioned by the UN, and this is still the official position of the PA , Israel and the international community (even if on the ground many politicians don't always act/talk that way). But the challenge is not in understanding what should happen, it's in actually implementing the solution, for which strong politicians who have the mandate to make compromises have to be found on both sides. Aside from compromises in territory and natural resources, the two state solution requires Palestinians (and the Arab world) to accept the existence of the State of Israel and to give up the goal of "freeing" historic Palestine from the river to the sea, and it requires Israelis to give up most of the West Bank settlements (some might remain with land swaps) and to trust that Israel can be secure next to an independent Palestinian state. For the last 20 years or so, both sides have not been willing to make these compromises.

On the latter point, unfortunately the experience with Gaza has made Israelis even more hesitant about security, as Israelis look at the situation in Gaza: Israel left Gaza in 2005, a year later Gazans elected Hamas, and since then Hamas has been waging every kind of battle to scupper the 2-state solution or normalisation between Israel and Arab states, most spectacularly on 7.10 which occurred just as Israel was moving to normalise relations with Saudi Arabia. In order to end the occupation Israel would need assurances that a similar situation wouldn't happen in the West Bank. That's where the international community would have a big role to play in the transition. My one hope coming out of the current war would be that all sides would understand that we need to move seriously towards a two state solution as both sides are losing hugely from the current impasse.

@TomeTome I wanted to add to my previous response: as I already stated, the situation of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza is terrible and I believe it's in the interests of everyone that the occupation should end and an independent Palestinian state should be established.

BUT: The reading of the current situation as an ethnic/religious apartheid to which the solution is one democratic state is not objective, it's a political strategy adopted by some Palestinians and leftists to convince people to overlook the history and complexity of the situation which I tried to state in my previous response, and in particular to paint the Palestinians as victims of a colonial/racist (choose your adjective) regime, absolving them of any responsibility in creating the current situation or responsibility in ending it, by drawing comparisons with South Africa and demanding democracy from the river to the sea.

The problem with this argument is that it conceals behind it a rejection of the legitimacy of the State of Israel (and not just a critique of Israeli policy), and also that it points to a problem while not proposing any kind of practicable solution. See my previous post on why one state is not realistic. When people call for this democratic one state, they are implicitly assuming a numerical Palestinian majority (including returned descendents of Palestinians and faster demographic growth), which will leave Jews as a minority in the state. I'm afraid I think that anyone who thinks this situation would enable the safety and prosperity of the 7.1 million Jewish Israelis is deluding themselves.

Neither is a unilateral withdrawal by Israel from the occupied territories realistic. Any Israeli will point out that Ariel Sharon tried this in 2005 with the unilateral Israeli disengagement from Gaza. Israel left Gaza and Hamas took over. Israel can't risk the same in the West Bank because a similar situation would leave practically all of Israel's population vulnerable to mortar and short-range rocket fire.

So the only realistic solution is a negotiated two state solution. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but when I hear when people demand (in a simplistic way) democracy from the river to the sea, I want to hear how this will be achieved and how our safety and prosperity as Israelis, alongside that of Palestinians, will be ensured.

Thank goodness for your patience and clarity, OP, I do hope your posts are read by the MN "experts" so loudly denouncing everything Israel is attempting to do in this impossibly difficult situation.

One elephant in the room, which I hesitate to mention and don't expect you to comment on, is that we tend to talk as though Hamas are the baddies in charge and everyone else in Gaza wishes they weren't. Yet ordinary civilians enthusiastically participated in the atrocities of 7 October and celebrated openly in the streets afterwards. You describe Israelis painfully betrayed by Gazans they'd helped who turned out to be Hamas spies, and I've seen other accounts of this. It's hard to see how Israel can ever trust in any kind of steps towards neighbourly peace with Gaza, knowing what was being plotted all this time. Who can you negotiate with? How can you trust anything agreed?

I wish I could invent a lovely Paradise island for Israel, thus solving it all with a wave of my magic wand. 🌟

Thank for your last two responses. They are on point and far clearer and more succinct than I could ever be.
I hope that posters are respectful in what you are telling them although I think If someone came on AMA I am an Arab Israeli and confirmed it posters will still argue to the contrary.

Have a peaceful day.