Just recently, I got banned from Lemmy.ml because they thought I was “trolling” using an LLM. Let me clarify to any Lemmy.ml mods reading this that I’m not using an LLM for my comments. I am a human being who actually has autism which is why I type like this.
Sometimes I post so much so fast that I get a “too many requests” error before I get to post the next comment - in these cases, that’s my cue to cool down for a bit, and then post my comments from my “queue” (I leave the comments unposted until I post them) after a certain period of time.
I just submitted a message like this on the Lemmy Matrix chat (through Cinny - pretty good software) as my ban appeal- I then got a reply saying “mods DON’T hang out here - just message them from the sidebar” which I will do after posting this.
They were banned for trolling, their past behavior is absolutely relevant.
I can spell it out for you:
Two states
One of those states is Israel
Israel is a settler-colonial state produced through dispossession and genocide
Accepting its legitimacy and permanence is Zionism
Advocating for it is Zionism
Your appeal to ‘realism’ just means accepting the colonial status quo. Given current power relations, a two-state solution would rapidly become apartheid by another name.
As insinuated, an objective of full parity among all current occupants of Palestine, settler and Palestinian, including freedom of movement for Palestinians throughout the entire territory, would seem to be sufficient to achieve a dismantlement of settler-colonialism in the region.
“One of those states is Israel” is not a meaningful argument, because it begs the question of which transformations may have been imposed on Israel and the territory.
That is not a two-state solution as normally understood.
That’s more like one state with equal rights. You are not addressing my point either, you are substituting something different as if it answers my critique. Kind of a bait and switch.
Additionally, ‘parity’ does not actually address decolonization, ie the stolen land and material inequalities baked into the infrastructure and economy. Still sounds like apartheid.
If Israel is so transformed that it no longer functions as a settler-colonial state then the proposal is no longer a standard two-state solution and calling it one is misleading.
The “two-state solution” is a vague proposal that encompasses a very broad range of concrete possibilities.
One might say it is a range of different proposals all described under a common phrase.
We should not pigeonhole the phrase into one particular, narrow representation insisted as the one “normally understood”.
Simply, I question the narrowness of your characterization.
Vagueness doesn’t make the term neutral. Political proposals are defined by how they function in practice, not by every hypothetical version someone cooks up.
Every actually existing two-state proposal affirms the legitimacy of Israel as a settler-colonial state and confines Palestinian self-determination within that framework. If the ‘transformations’ you’re imagining undo that, then you’re no longer talking about the same thing.
You are maintaining the label but redefining the proposal until it no longer resembles reality, while simultaneously appealing to ‘realism’ as a reason to dispense with discussion of ending the settler-colonial state.
Vagueness challenges the particular, narrow representation you insist is universally accepted.
There is no concrete catalog that affirms which representations are “actually existing”. There is rather open discourse with diverse contributions.
You are being overly narrow.
Proposals that matter in any ‘realistic’ sense (as you appealed to earlier) are not constituted by open-ended discourse, but by the concrete situations created through institutions, negotiations, and enforcement.
There’s plenty of examples of what these proposals look like in the historical record.
You are continuing to be narrow and obtuse, now seemingly deliberately.
I simply will repeat that “two-state solution” encompasses a broad and open range of concrete possibilities.
Repeating abstractions to avoid engaging material reality. I’ve made my point and you’ve made it clear that you’re more concerned with hypotheticals.