Opher Ganel
2 min readDec 27, 2023

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I have no problem whatsoever with accepting that historical claims to land should be ignored. However, you don't then get to cherry-pick your preferred time period.

If claims starting millennia ago (with, by the way, continuous Jewish presence throughout history since then) cannot be accepted, then there's no moral justification for accepting claims from centuries ago.

Either you accept the precedent of history, in which case you have to accept the Jewish claim as predating that of anyone else who still exists, or you throw out any historical claim and look at the current situation on the ground.

That last is why I said that there is no practical and ethical way to remove either the 7.2 million Jews or the 7.6 million Palestinians from the area comprising Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.

The only ethical way forward, IMO, is to work toward a two-state solution, subject to the Palestinians accepting their portion of the area as fulfilling their demand for a homeland. If they say yes, but we still plan to attack Israel (militarily and/or judicially) until we get all the land, then there's no basis for a lasting peace.

Another possible approach, which I suspect would not be to the liking of the Palestinians, is for Jordan to reclaim the West Bank and Egypt to reclaim the Gaza Strip (that's who was sovereign over the two territories pre-1967).

Then, it would be up to Jordan and Egypt to provide citizenship rights to the Palestinians, and ensure there would be no armed groups trying to attack Israel from either area.

The reason I suspect the Palestinians would decline such a plan is that they want their own sovereign state, which is understandable, and so long as there are sufficient guarantees that they won't attack Israel, this should be acceptable to the majority of Israelis (not counting the right-wing nutcases currently in power in Jerusalem).

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Opher Ganel
Opher Ganel

Written by Opher Ganel

Consultant | systems engineer | physicist | writer | avid reader | amateur photographer. I write about personal finance from an often contrarian point of view.

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