Ramblings about the past and future days
Yesterday I had my Biology Units 1, 2 and 3 A-level exams. Mercifully, they were morning papers, unlike the W2 paper I had back in May which was an afternoon paper and had dragged on till 17:30
( Read more... )
but see, it is theirs. according to international rules of warfare there's a clear distinction between land "occupied" during a war of aggression and land taken as a result of a defensive war. Former State Department Legal Advisor Stephen Schwebel, who later headed the International Court of Justice in the Hague, wrote in 1970 regarding Israel's case: "Where the prior holder of territory had seized that territory unlawfully, the state which subsequently takes that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense has, against that prior holder, better title."
moreover:
Some parts of the West Bank would have been part of Israel as defined by the UN Partition Plan, but were overrun in 1948. There were Jewish communities such as Kfar Etzion, not to mention the Old City of Jerusalem, which fell in the fighting of 1948. Jews were either killed or expelled from these areas conquered by invading Arab armies. The League of Nations Mandate explicitly recognized the right of Jewish settlement in all territory allocated to the Jewish national home in the context of the British Mandate. The British Mandate covered the area that is currently Israel, all the disputed territories (and even what is now Jordan). These rights under the British Mandate were preserved by the United Nations, under Article 49 of the UN Charter.
Also: When Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967, officials took measures to improve the conditions that Palestinians had lived under during Jordan's 19-year occupation of the West Bank, and Egypt's occupation of Gaza. Universities were opened, Israeli agricultural innovations were shared, modern conveniences were introduced, and health care was significantly upgraded. More than 100,000 Palestinians were employed in Israel, and were paid the same wages as Israeli workers, which stimulated economic growth. Also, the infant mortality rate dropped.
Despite the collapse of the PA economy from the last five years of war, Palestinian Arabs are still better off than many of their neighbors. The most recent Human Development Report from the United Nations ranked the PA 102nd in terms of life expectancy, educational attainment and adjusted real income out of the 177 countries and territories in the world, placing it in the "medium human development" category along with most of the other Middle Eastern states (only the Gulf sheikdoms are ranked "high"). The PA was ranked just 12 places below Jordan and one behind Iran; it was rated ahead of Syria (#105), Algeria (#108), Egypt (#120), and Morocco (#125).
It is said that the Palestinian movement was born from Israel's occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. Yet the Palestine Liberation Organization was already in its third year of operations when the war began. Years of terrorist attacks by the PLO and the PFLP, like that on the Ma'alot high school in 1974, have less to do with "occupation" than their simple desire to destroy Israel.
Also: To read some recent accounts, a more sagacious Israel could have followed up its historic victory with peace overtures. In fact, the Israeli cabinet agreed on June 19, 1967, to offer the Sinai to Egypt and the Golan to Syria in exchange for peace deals. In Khartoum that September, the Arab League declared "no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it." So tell me, what were the "thugs" in the Israeli government supposed to do?
Now, i'm not trying to dismiss Palestinian suffering in the least, or pretend the occupation is a good thing for them (except in terms of PR, of course.) These are just some facts to consider.
Od yavo shalom aleinu, inshallah.
Reply
Reply
What the "thugs" in the Knesset could have done was not to have converted Gaza and the West Bank into such hellholes. Tell me, if the Israeli government would have invested half its current defense budget in building UP the territories instead of destroying Palestinians homes and farms, do you think there would have been an intifadha? What if Israel would have spent money on educating Palestinian children, quietly slipping a chapter against anti-Semitism in their moral science textbooks, would have been so many suicide bombings, and so many victims of said bombings? It certainly wasn't the duty of Israel as the occupying power to do whatever I suggested above, but it could have. What's done is done, though. But there's still time for repairs.
There was an article in Haaretz today about the peace deal set up by a Mossad agent who spent his sweat and blood in doing this task and it almost became a reality, but was rejected.
I read through all the facts that you mentioned above and I reiterate that I support the right of Israel to retaliate. But you know what? It hurts me, it embarrasses me when the media points fingers at Israel accusing her of savagely attacking Palestinians etc., that's why I oppose its violent tactics so much, even more than I oppose the violent tactics of the Palestinian terrorists, because I don't feel a connection with the Palestinian terrorists, but I feel I have one with Israel.
Betach yavo shalom 'aleinu.. and thanks for the wishes, I need the luck! :)
Reply
i wasn't aware that building 12 universities and investing in running water made the territories such hellholes. i think maybe it's the corruption and embezzling of humanitarian aid money by Fatah (and especially Arafat) that puts the Palestinians in such a plight. the palestinians have their own UN refugee aid system- out of all the refugees in the world- and they're the only ones still mired in shit. is this israel's fault? or is it their corrupt leaders and the (at best ineffectual, at worst deliberately hindering) UN?
also, pre-intifada, israeli borders were wide open to workers.
and the ONLY reason any farms were destroyed were because of the terrorists who hide in orchards and fields. (and it's horrible, i agree, but if uprooting an olive grove can save lives, it's what needs to be done.)
as for this:
instead of destroying Palestinians homes and farms, do you think there would have been an intifadha
it's a chicken or the egg situation. you're blaming the intifada (at least partially) on israeli actions, where i blame the intifada on a bunch of fundamentalists who stir up anti-zionist and anti-semitic sentiment. just remember that the terrorism espoused by the intifada predates both the occupation, the settlements, and the checkpoints. while israel is certainly not blameless, i don't believe any of its actions, whether combined or taken separately, are any sort of reasoning or justification for the second, religiously motivated intifada. (the first, which was a lot less radical and a lot less based in islamist roots, is up for debate.)
What if Israel would have spent money on educating Palestinian children, quietly slipping a chapter against anti-Semitism in their moral science textbooks, would have been so many suicide bombings, and so many victims of said bombings?
that would perhaps have spurred extremely different results, though not necessarily. isn't education under the dominion of the PA? i doubt they would have approved of an Israeli curriculum...
anyway, danu, i understand and appreciate your remarkable commitment to honest reporting and analyzing the situation. your connection to israel is amazing and inspires a lot of hope. i hope you don't interpret this discussion as any sort of personal attack on your opinions, just friendly debate.
Reply
Anyways, I think you'd agree with me that despite the electricity and water that Israel graciously provides to the territories and despite the universities built there out of a desire to promote education, the Palestinian refugee camps are in a much worse condition than the settlement of, say, Ma'aleh Adumim. It's not Israel's fault that they're worse off, at least not completely.. I agree with you that it's Palestinian corruption [quietly passed off as 'a result of the Zionist occupation'] that's making life harder for regular Palestinians. Maybe that's why the majority of the Palestinians voted for Hamas in their elections instead of Fatah, because Hamas, despite being a terrorist group, is not so corrupt. Out of the frying pan into the fire :( I'm glad that Israel is considering returning the taxes collected on behalf of the PA to the Palestinians.
I don't agree that Israel had nothing to do with the second intifadha. Seeing Sharon, whom many Palestinians see as 'the Butcher of Sabra and Shatila', on the Temple Mount was enough to trigger a violent reaction. Maybe they'd planned the uprising for months, but I believe it was Sharon's visit to the Mount that set it off.
What's done is done though, poor Sharon's lying in a coma, Arafat's dead, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin's dead, Abdul Aziz Rantissi is dead. How many more Israeli and Palestinians must give up their wretched lives before this stupid conflict comes to an end?
With one leg in the wedged firmly into the past and one leg wedged into what we want as our future, we're pissing on the present. The time for peace is now and the place is here.
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment