Why Israel's position is immoral

[Bas]

The 1967 borders are the internationally recognized ones. And considering the extreme hostility of most neighbouring countries towards Israel, I surely don't blame them for expanding their territory from the 1948 borders to a defendable area.

[Comrade Tribune]

Are you sure the United Nations ever recognized the 67 borders? I may be wrong here, but proof, please!

And your other argument would cover Nazi Germany´s annexation of the Sudeten and the Danzig corridor, too: 'We just need those territories to better defend ourselves against our hostile neighbours.' I mean, every aggressor in history said that.

[Sirotnikov]

Re: Why Israel's position is immoral

Originally posted by GePap
So what are claims to land based on? Law. The borders of Israel were set in 1948, and the West bank and Gaza strip, and Golan, were not part of them. After Nurembarg, the world has made it clear that military might is not a valid way for a state to take land, since this invariabl dinies the inhabitants of that land their right of self-determination.

The arabs chose war and that's what they got.

Had they won, would we get the protection of "might not equals right?", we'd be massacared.

arabs however, were mostly deported or allowed to flee, and 150,000 stayed and today are 1,000,000.

Defenders of Israel say- we are a democracy- fine, whens the last time there were elections in the West bank and Gaza in which the inhabitants were asked whether they wanted to be aprt of Israel? Wait, such elections have never taken place since Israel has never allowed it. The fact that Israel must patrol these areas not with its civil authority, as it does within the Green line, but with the military, shows that Israels claim to that land is based solely on its military might, and not any moral or legal claim.

It's not a question of inhabitants but of territory.
Those who want the land don't care who lives there.

As for the actual Israeli position, the territory is needed to allow for better defnce in possible future scenarios of 48 or 73, when arab countries invade Israel from all sides.

Israel does acknowlege the people living there have their own right for self determination. But today the fight is not over borders or things - those get sorted out in peace talks.

The fight today is with Arafat - who think that terror is a vialbe mean of affecting Israel when he won't get his in negociations.

I ask defenders of Israel to defend the following policies:
1. Demolishing the houses of the FAMILIES of suspects

The families of suspects get lots of money from international and even Israel-based funds which are store-fronts for Hamas.

The terrorists often care about thier families more than about revenge, and think that if they go kill themselves they help their families by both having one mouth less to feed (and they hardly bring salary anyway) and having money brought in by Hamas.

This rather cruel strategy is devised to remove the incentive of "this will help my family" in hope that the terrorist will think twice before blowing up with 20 Israeli children.

Very moral or nice it isn't. But it's also a mean.

However, I must add that to my knowledge this procedure isn't very widespread.

2. Total blockades of towns, which prevent individuals from: going shopping, going to work, going to school, visiting relatives, recieving adequate medical care.

Those bockades serve one and single goal: prevention of movement.

Since it is very difficult to screen movement of innocent civilians from terrorists, as terrorists use better ways of concealing their indentity, Israel chooses to completely cut-off movement.

This policy is to prevent terrorists from inflitrating Israel. Not "punishment" as it is also applied to Israeli cities when there is info of terrorists being inside the green line.

Just over this weekend Hadera and it's surroundings have been under siege by police and military. It did manage to scare off the terrorist which according to intel. found cover in an Israeli arab village.

Agreed, movement was not blocked inside Israel but very thoroughly checked. And I can tell you that I myself am very much against this unequality.

3. Rationing water to Palestinians, sometime only once every few days, while settlements nearby have enough water to run washing mashines.

The PNA currently owes Israel around 60M shekels for Electricity and Water. Yet we continue to provide it with water. When Israelis don't pay the bills - they are cut off.

Ask Arafat why has he spent 15M $ (~75M shekels) to buy Arms instead of paying for water for his people.

4. Shooting live ammo at srone-throwing protestors

Not always it was live ammo - but rubber coated bullets.

Furthermore, more often than not it was no merely stone throwers.

A huge mob, targeting Israelis in general, with rocks and molotovs are quite dangerous, esp. in huge numbers. And without firepower - they can't really be stopped.

Furthermore, more often than not, the stone throwers are used as a living fence to guard gunmen who shoot at the soldiers. They are rarely shown on TV because they threaten TV crews. You'll hear stories of pal gunmen threatening international TV crews alot.

So you get a distorted picture because the photographer was threatened to only show Israeli shooting.

5. Indifinite holding of individuals with no legal review

I'm not sure about their current status.
They are in no way usual 'criminals'.
Many are indeed prosecuted and jailed. Most are simply held for several weeks and released.

This is possible due to a law of critical situation in times of war, dating from the Brittish Mandate which Israel uses.

Undemocratic - sure.

Still, I'd prefer terrorists be kept in prisons. And as to allegations of non-terrorists held there, putting aside the fact it's a real abuse of population, I see no reason for it, as it would be stupid waste of resources which could be spent against terrorists.

6. The entire settlement policy.

Truth be told - some of them have a claim of RoR. There were jewish towns in the territories prior to 48, all which were banished and razed by Arabic invaders.

So today, many of them are re-settlements.

My personal view is that it is used as trading cards for negociations, to trade for more border territories to allow Israel be safer.

Again, ojectively immoral, but Israel does not want to find itself in 1948 again, and wants defendable borders. Nothing else is earned. Those are not particularly good lands. But wider borders is what Israel needs to defend from possible attack from all sides.

And while it's all nice and great to say "why not achieve it in political means", we should prepare for the option they won't work - since in the ME - they probably won't.

Palestininas who commit terrorist acts are criminals and deserve to be punished (and I am no fan of Arafat), but the crimes of the Palestinians DO NOT erase the even bigger crimes of Israel since 1967. Everyone is responsible for their own actions, regardless the actions of others.

I agree with the last sentance.

I disagree that Israeli settlement comes close to terrorists targeting school children.

While Israel's offenses are more grandscale, they are less destructive and brutal than the terracts.

Infact, there has never been a period in Israeli history deviod of terracts, where Israel could say "hey, they stopped agression, our illegal occupation to protect ourselves is no longer needed".

As far as terrorists go - targeting, not hitting, but targeting - seeking out and aiming to harm innocent groups of people is my idea of an inhumane crime. I fully support the immediate and full elimination via torture of people who commit, command, plan or instigate such events.

And if it is proven beyond doubt that Ariel Sharon is such a person, (and the countrary was proven in Israeli Supreme Court, and if they - most left winged haven't found direct guilt - there probably is none), but if proven to me so, I fully support the best needle in his vein.

The settler, who identified himself as "Baruch" spelled out
"the Jewish perception toward the Arabs in the land of Israel."

"They have two options, not three, either to be annihilated by the Jews like the cannanites were exterminated by our forefathers, or flee our land for their lives!"

Asked if the Israeli state accepted his views, Baruch said
"I'm sure (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon has the same views, but as a Prime Minister he can't say so openly."

Great work!

Induction is great in political science.

Now find a jew who says he drinks goat's blood and will claim Ariel Sharon does that too and you're settled for life.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Sovereign
I don't intend to insult any Jewish or Arabian people in what I have to say. I think the whole Israel v.s. Palestine problem would be solved if Israel stays within its Green Border and give the occupied lands back to Palestine. That way, Israel will still have its statehood and Palestine will be an independent nation.

In a perfect world without terrorists and Arafat's and Saddam Hussein's - yes.

1. WW3 Holy War, with Christians vs Islam

This would happen in any case.
Probbly in the late 21st century.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
Goingoit, in repsonse to your response to 1: The houses you mention aren't unoccupied either.

claim the palestinians.

I'm not very sure.

I'd suggest to capture the pics of the homeless people, and check them when we reck some more houses. They probablyt have a regular actor's crew.

Even Israeli soldiers have admitted this.

Nope they haven't.

They said that even heat sensoring mechnisms were used to make sure the houses were empty.

When the bulldozers come, people flee the buildings left and right.

How come they don't get trampled or killed by our 'evil' soldiers then?

Israels claim that they are inhabitated stems from Israels insistance that they are built without legal permits.

Unrelated.

The houses used as turret stations are destroyed without regard to their legal permits.

And as to legal permits, if you are for what ever reason not allowed to build a home, you can't be surpised when people come and enforce it.

Not to mention Israeli enforcement of this is purely symbolic, as there are probably thrice as many houses being built each month as there are destroyed in a year.

Tiny details such as that if you are palestinian you will not get a permit are carefully overlooked.

You will not get a permit in Eastern Jerusalem unless you are an Israeli citizen.

And if you are, you still have to abide with the city hall's plans.

The problem is arabs build their homes themselves, being labour workers.

Jews on the other hand don't. They buy houses built by firms which get permits.

In Israel private houses are not common at all, esp. not to be built yourself.

You have to have a trusted construction company and most often people buy homes in projects of making new neighbourhoods.

And poor people simply buy the previous homes of the rich. Poor people don't have money to build houses.

There are palestinians who have waited for 30 years for a building permit...

And there are hundreds of thousands of Israelis without a building permit, because it's not the common way to get a house in Israel.

And the process keep repeating itself. A settler neighbourhood complains about how that 'illegal' palestinian settlement is too close for comfort. Israeli army comes in to demolish the closest couple of blocks. An israeli court rules that since no one is living on the newly demolished land it is up for grabs, and the settlement expands. After a year or so they again complain how the palestinians are too close, and demolisions follow.

I'm not sure about the Israeli court thing. I don't recall a court being in charge of land in Israel.

Did you ever wonder how the the fact that GePap mentioned, that palestine is one of the most heavily populated places on earth, can be combined with the carefully orchestrated replies Siro and Natan tells you, that the settlements are only built on uninhabited land?

1) Settlements in the 80s were indeed built on uninhabited land.
However due to the huge growth rate of the palestinian refugees, they close in on the Israeli settlements, which in turn feel threatened and have more kids or have their friends move in next door.

2) "carefully orchestrated"? Yeah, that's right. We all work according to rules by the higher council of ZOG, aka Elders of Zion.

Palestine is now one of the most heavily populated palces on earth.

700,000 palestinians became 5,000,000 today.
And they think they can all comeback and live in their 700,000 houses they left in Israel?

That the western world allows the settlements to exist, not to mention expand, is something we should all be ashamed of.

That the western world is not ashamed to judge people who erect homes, instead of terrorists who target innocent people going about their lives is appalling.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune
Are you sure the United Nations ever recognized the 67 borders? I may be wrong here, but proof, please!

I don't know really.

And don't care either.

The arabs refused to the 47 devision - let them face the consequences.

And your other argument would cover Nazi Germany´s annexation of the Sudeten and the Danzig corridor, too: 'We just need those territories to better defend ourselves against our hostile neighbours.' I mean, every aggressor in history said that.

Germany was under no real threat from it's neighbours.
Germany was not attacked, nor did it have hostile neighbours. France didn't like them, but they surrender on the first day of war anyway

Israel however, was attacked on the first day of it's existance, without any provocation and after a call for truce and peace talks by Ben Gurion in the declaration of independance.

I think Israel's case is somehow better supported, then Germany's.

Unless without my knowledge, Jews and Poles secretly declared war on Germans prior to 1939 and set out to exterminate the German state from the face of europe.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by orange
Zionism is, IMO, a racist idea, so I would prefer that the state be shared between Palestinians and Israelis democratically, but you seem to support Israeli settler expansion and their protection from the Israeli government while also supporting an Israel that exists only within its set boundries.

Zionism means acknowledging the connection between the jewish people and Israel and Jerusalem.

what you probably find racist is the idea of an ethnical state with minorities, countrary to a state of all it's citizens. this is wierd, since today many countries besides israel, like germany, russia and most arab countries are ethnical states.

not every country is fit to be canada or america.

people want a state to be defined by thier own culture and tradition and history. what's racist about that?

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
Well, what stopped Arafat from accepting the deal was that it did not actually permit him to create a viable Palestinian state.

That's the palestinian revisionist version of it.

In any case, Barak offered to leave the actual issue open for discussions. he offered to start it roling by signing end of conflict and declaring a palestinian state.

In reality, there can be no seperate states here. just as israel needs the west bank, the west bank needs israel.

Finally, read todays NYT. No claims for all of Jerusalem.

Arafat is very good at making promises.
I trust his saying about no claims for all of jerusalem just as a trust his saying about Karin A, arresting terrorists (when infact part of those he claimed to have arrested were abroad).

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by orange
Well isn't that perverting one part of history to make a racist statement What a moron...I suppose he forgot about how Palestine wasn't a Jewish home for many MANY years until the British got involved

I do hope you don't take it seriously and judge anyone but this baruch fellow.

I wouldn't want to judge you according to the loonier in your country's men.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
I don't know really.

And don't care either.

Legal, Shmegal.

The arabs refused to the 47 devision - let them face the consequences.

At best, you could say both sides are equally lawless.

I think Israel's case is somehow better supported, then Germany's.

I wouldn´t be so sure about that. In the case of Israel, its very foundation was somewhat fishy. Helped along with a lot of terrorism, I´d say. But terrorism is okay, if the right people do it, I suppose.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by CapTVK
Good post Gepap, but one thing that seems to have slipped past in this discussion is that in relation to those 'international borders' Israel would keep full control of the border. Meaning they could close off and blockade the West Bank and other areas any time they wished to.

What a nice "take it or leave it"-deal...

Israel has a history of being attacked by Arabs wishing thier extermination and therefore it's fear it well based.

In any case, to the best of my knowledge, jordan doesn't want to have any border with the palestinian state. Abdullah knows Arafat's dangerous too.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune
Legal, Shmegal.

At best, you could say both sides are equally lawless.

Not at all.
The arabs rejected the 47 UN propsed border, so there's no reason we should feel abided by it.

I wouldn´t be so sure about that. In the case of Israel, its very foundation was somewhat fishy. Helped along with a lot of terrorism, I´d say. But terrorism is okay, if the right people do it, I suppose.

Terrorism - targetting innocent people
guerrilla - targetting military installations, officials and so on

to my understanding, Israeli resistance groups are only in the guerrilla category with which I have no problems.

Had hezballa not targeted civilians using bombs and rockets, I'd have considered it guerilla.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
The arabs rejected the 47 UN propsed border, so there's no reason we should feel abided by it.

The International Community didn´t 'propose' a border; it decreed it.

If both sides don´t abide by the decision, both sides are lawless.

guerrilla - targetting military installations, officials and so on

to my understanding, Israeli resistance groups are only in the guerrilla category with which I have no problems.

By your definition, the strike at the Pentagon was a guerilla attack, then?

[Berzerker]

Natan -

Berzerker, I think the discussion of Waco is straying from the topic at hand. But by basing your argument on your right to private property rather than to self-determination (i.e., saying that the current government should protect a specific right rather than say that you have a right to overthrow the government) you are acknowledging my position. If you'd like to start a thread about Waco, I think it would be a most interesting discussion, but here is not the place for it.

I didn't introduce Waco into this discussion.

What point am I acknowledging? The US was created by rebelling against an existing government. That was an effort to secure "self-determination" as well as a higher level of respect for private property. Self-determination depends on private property so the two are inseparable...

[Natan]

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune
The International Community didn´t 'propose' a border; it decreed it.

If both sides don´t abide by the decision, both sides are lawless.

I don't think an unenforced law cannot really be considered fair, and I don't think it's violators are "lawless."

By your definition, the strike at the Pentagon was a guerilla attack, then?

No, the Pentagon attack killed the dozens of innocent civillians on the plane and was designed to do that.

Berzerker:

Did I say you introduced Waco the discussion?

Self-determination depends on private property so the two are inseparable...

I'm not sure what you mean here.