Would there actually be Palestinians that would want to be Israeli citizens?

Are you from Earth or Mars? Palestinians make up 25% of all Israeli population. Do you know that?

You live in Jordan… can you describe in detail Palestinian identity and culture as opposed to Jordanian identity and culture or as opposed to Saudi Arabian identity and culture?

… are you serious? It’s like me asking you to identify the cultural differences between a French and an English. Just because they resemble one another with their skin colour, and in most cases even that is different, doesn’t mean they are the same. Palestinians I know can’t even understand anything when a Saudi Arabian speak. Just because they call their language “Arabic” and use the same script, doesn’t mean it’s the same language. It’s kind of like calling French, German, English etc the same language because they use the same script. Same applies to their culture and religion. Just because they are all Muslims, doesn’t mean they are culturally same.

Total ignorance and Euro-centric mentality is irritating.

You live in Jordan… can you describe in detail Palestinian identity and culture as opposed to Jordanian identity and culture or as opposed to Saudi Arabian identity and culture?

A fair and honest question.

We could discuss why Israel would not want the solutions you provided, however…

Would there actually be Palestinians that would want to be Israeli citizens?
If they would be considered “Israeli”, would this go against their Palestinian identity they are working so hard to achieve?
What about those who are commited to Islam? Would this go against the cause of Ummah Islam- being a member of a nation that is the only ME nation not part of the Ummah?

The whole idea of creating the Palestinian state side by side with Israel is relatively new and is perceived as a non-feasible dream by most Palestinians, the reasons behind that are obvious, whether you see it or not, the apartheid wall and the settlements’ expansion polices inside the West Bank. The average Palestinian inside a refugee camp, say in Lebanon or Syria, has no faith in the possibility of establishing this state, how about moving to it? Add the fact that the West Bank and Gaza Strip are suffering from the worst economical problems in the world, 80% of Gaza citizens live in poverty! the rates of unemployment and poverty in the West Bank aren’t much better either, immigration applications from all sects are abundant, and as known to everyone, Gaza has the highest human density on earth. After the second Intifada, the infrastructure of the West Bank and Gaza was harshly devastated and cannot serve the current citizens.

Besides, there are already refugees in the West Bank and Gaza and they’re in hundreds of thousands.
In other words, unless the future Palestinian state is to be literally flooded with piles of money, moving 4.4 million people to this state will mark another Nakba, one that will devastate and destroy the Palestinians 10 times more than the first Nakba did!

The most feasible and fair solution to the issue, from my personal perspective, is the following;
fair financial compensations to all the refugees and a permission to enter the state of Israel any time they want.
Complete rights of citizenships must be granted to those refugees wherever they reside in the mean time.
A minority of the refugees must be granted the right to return to their original homes inside Israel.
The Palestinian state must be established in the near future with the apartheid wall and the settlements in the West Bank to be eliminated immediately.

What’s behind my words? Also very simple; I’m telling the Israelis to wake up from their everlasting coma and realize that what they’re doing by cutting the road in front of any negotiation process that contains the word “refugees” in it will never get this region to the desired peace status. GET IT?

YOU can wake up today and look at this Nakba as an ancient story, a Goliath vs. David story that you look upon and smile, Palestinians don’t have this privilege of sleeping on it like you do! Don’t you get it? Millions of Palestinians are living under inhumane conditions, frustrated to points you will never understand, and guess what?! they’re not on Mars, they’re a few miles away from my very house!

I do agree with you that the refugee situation is intolerable and must be resolved, but it has to be done in a way that brings both healing and justice rather than more resentment and backlash.

Let me explain …

Nowhere in the world are the offspring of refugees also forced to be refugees. Everywhere — from Africa to Asia to South America — the children of refugees are given a chance at a free life as a citizen somewhere; to be integrated and provided with an identity and sense of belonging so they can study, work, and live as human beings. However, Palestinians have been given a special dispensation by the international community to be warehoused by the UN in Arab League countries indefinitely. Of all the peoples in the world, only Palestinians have generation after generation of stateless refugees, caged permanently without any chance for their kids to have a future. This illegal maneuver to deny Palestinian offspring the same human rights everyone else gets is cruel and meant only to suit power politics.

In a nutshell, international law has been changed specifically to create a double standard in which Palestinians are indefinitely institutionalized for generations to live in squalid camps and you think it’s Israel’s job to accomodate it? Please explain to me the justice there. To say yes means that both Israelis and Palestinians fall outside of international rules of equality. That’s not the way forward.

If we agree that there should be one standard for the world’s refugees regardless of their identities, then Palestinians born after 1948 need to be given birth certificates in the country where they were born and allowed total liberation. After a Palestinian state is established, there is nothing stopping refugee children from moving there, but, in the meantime, at least they should be allowed the chance to make a positive contribution to themselves and a society somewhere. Don’t you want a society of educated, working Palestinians moving to Palestine one day rather than those with a permanent refugee/handout mentality who will be much more easily controlled by their neighbors? Think about it. Besides, you don’t really think the entire world has no room for the children of Palestinian refugees except for in Palestine, do you?

And I’m not purposely trying to be incendiary, but one of the things that honestly has been difficult for me to understand — which is why I mention it in this forum — is why the idea of enabling Palestinians around the world to make a home in a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza does not meet their needs.

I recognize that many of these people once lived in villages on the other side of the green line or are the descendants of people who once lived on the Israeli side of the green line. And that they have a deep and understandable desire to return to the village where they were born or where their grandparents lived, etc.

But what’s the point? Isn’t the goal to have a homeland for the Palestinian people? Just as successive Israeli governments — whether you agree with the Jewish “right” to the towns that they’ve built, lived in for generations, and perceive as being ancestral or not — have agreed to give up land that is held dear in order to live side by side in peace.

On both sides of the conflict, there exists a very deep connection to the land — on both sides of the conflict. But if we’re going to live together in peace, don’t we each have to give up on some of the things we want in order to attain the thing we need?

Israelis primarily want to live in peace with our neighbors.
Palestinians, I would expect, primarily want to get their people out of the camps and build a nation-state.

If that’s the case, shouldn’t Israelis give up on the dream of living in much of biblical Israel and Palestinians give up on the dream of returning to the villages of their youth. And both Israeli and Palestinian leaders focus on improving the quality of life of their respective citizens?