The Importance of Settlements

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Israel is losing its legitimacy and experiencing a brain drain at home, he says. In that reality, are settlements not the greatest manifestation of overreach? Are settlements the way forward? Do they contribute to Israeli security? Or do they threaten to push Israel over the edge? And is this our only future? Is it really a viable future to live by the sword in perpetuity? There are some speech bubbles coming out of some people's heads. The man's a defeatist.

Patriacide. Nationcide. Whatever you want to call it, that is what Israel is doing with its settlement policy: it is killing itself. If ever greater numbers of Jewish settlers are installed on land regarded by Palestinians as the basis for a state of their own, the possibility of a two-state solution grows ever more remote. Yet the single state alternative, involving annexation of the West Bank, would result in a country where Arabs vastly outnumber Jews and then you won’t have a one-state or a two-state solution: you’ll have a no-state solution. For those who love Israel and wish to preserve a democratic Jewish homeland, as much as for those who hate it, the settlements must stop. That’s what many left-wing Israelis and their friends say. But defenders of the settlements see things very differently. The two-state solution has long been a dead letter in their view: why stop building settlements in the name of a peace plan that is frankly unattainable? Whatever the eventual solution – it could even be a...

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices