The election of Netanyahu isn’t indicative of an Israeli shift towards rejecting the two-state solution. It is the reaction of a tiny state to another round of violence and the return to reality that it is surrounded by rejectionist enemies that seek it’s destruction. Israel is still reeling from the withdrawal from Gaza and the subsequent takeover by Hamas and the resulting war. Netanyahu and the right-wingers are just playing to the fears of the costinuency. And while there are groups that are media savvy and try to shape the message out there, it is also in reaction to the anti-Semetic hate that the country has to deal with.

The occupation is a bad thing, I want it to end, and detest that Israelis are put in a position of occupier and that they do indeed make life for the Palestinians very difficult. But I still say that this is a much different situation than in Xinjiang. The Israelis don’t restrict access to the mosques, they don’t stop Palestinians from the doing the Haj, they don’t force people to eat during Ramadan, and they don’t stop Palestinians from teaching in Arabic. The Chinese try to say that they respect Uighur culture by celebrating, say, Uighur dance. But really they are trying to essentially co-opt these people and destroy their ethnic identity. The Uighurs haven’t attacked China and as a result had the Chinese occupy their areas to neutralize a threat, as is the case in the Palestinian territories. It is a classic colonialist situation and the only reason the world tolerates it is the rising global power of China and it’s economy.

Sample: “Persuadables won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Show empathy for BOTH sides!”

Israel may not ban Islam – but neither, technically, does China. Both governments have destroyed mosques, certainly. The Israeli government still treats Palestinians as second-class citizens, and makes life hard for them on a daily basis with the ubiquitous checkpoints, the paperwork required to move around, the constant reminder of who has the power. The settlements are a strategic move to exploit valuable resources, most importantly water – in the same way that Xinjiang holds massive hydrocarbon deposits that China will never give up.

The analogy holds.