Isreali Government Documents show that settlements are built on private Palestinian Land

[magomago]

I'm surprised I didn't see this appear here so I figured to make mention of it. I suggest you all read the report - despite its length they write on about 1/3rd of each page and the last 8 pages or so are simply charts and graphs so its not that much to read.

The (well, not so) surprising thing about it is that the government own documents write that of the settlements that are built - approximately 40% of it is on PRIVATE PALESTINIAN LAND.

Before we start arguing about what belongs to who though, I suggest you read the thing in order to get an idea of HOW Israel declares the land; it uses a weird system dating to the Ottomans of "private land" and "state land" and curios rules to reclaim it....and how it was used to separate many Palestinians from their land.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6168752.stm

130 settlements were constructed either entirely or partially on private Palestinian land
19,800 acres of the land used by the settlements, nearly 40% of the total, is private Palestinian land
86.4% of Maale Adumim is built on privately-owned land

Wouldn't the return of this land be an important point to any peace deal? It is sometimes frustrating how you hear the term "drive the Jews to the sea" used very often here...when in reality the situation is the exact opposite.

SLIGHT tangent:

If only we could get a deal hammered on 1967 lines - doing this would give Israel complete normalization with almost all arab governments (remember- this plan was floated by the Saudis not to long ago who produce a lot of Anti Semitic hate) which is what we all believe Israel ultimately wants, and I would hesitate to say that most of its citizens DO want.
But at the same time so as long as the Palestinians are considered "terrorists" and the destruction of their lives is possible; roadblocks that little bring movement to a stand still, giving a women 6 months to complete a PhD (only get to go 4 days a week as well) at an Israeli University when they take typically 4-6 years, ensuring all their economy grinds to a halt, low flying jets over Gaza several times a day just to annoy the population... as well as the many other tactics that Israel uses does not help.
In fact, all of this will ENSURE that you have plenty of "terrorists" and hatred for generations to come...so when Israel takes more and more land they can justify it for a) buffer b) well the Palestinians are not developing it so we might as well and c) land terrorists were using.

Note I'm NOT advocating the destruction of Israel, and while I personally have a massive problem with the displacement of Palestinians....to me peace is a bigger deal, but not one where the Palestinians do not have the right to their own nation and self determination.

Building settlements on Palestinian land only increases hatred and friction as there is NO reason to be doing this...Israel has many security issues which don't pertain directly to military defense such as the need for fresh water; and as things become more and more crunched if they cannot make piece with those around them it will ultimately lead to Israel's own destruction


edit:

here is a link to the document

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/21_11_06_west_bank.pdf

oof course that would be useful for any real discussion, no?

 

[JEDIYoda]

your quoting the BBC,,,,,,thats a laugh!!
They are more slanted against Israel than alot of Arab news organizations!!

 

[Czar]

Originally posted by: JEDIYoda
your quoting the BBC,,,,,,thats a laugh!!
They are more slanted against Israel than alot of Arab news organizations!!

boy you sure got nothing to argue

 

[eits]

Originally posted by: JEDIYoda
your quoting the BBC,,,,,,thats a laugh!!
They are more slanted against Israel than alot of Arab news organizations!!

you're not usually this dumb, are you?

 

[Aimster]

Originally posted by: JEDIYoda
your quoting the BBC,,,,,,thats a laugh!!
They are more slanted against Israel than alot of Arab news organizations!!

The BBC is not stating an opinion you know...

 

[Lemon law]

I agree that much of the Arab and Palistinian hatred of Israel is entirely justified. With the land theft basically justified by a doctrine of Israeli might makes right---and you and whose army can say this theft is in fact wrong. And when the Palistinians use terrorist tactics---their only resort---Israel cries foul.

But the fact is the US press is super one sided biased towards Israel. And these land thefts are now so woven into the state of Israel---that reversing them now would be practically impossible. Nor will Israeli or the Palistinian side ever mutually agree---which is why I see binding international arbitration being the only way to solve the impass. Neither side will like the outcome---but as Israel over time proves unable to maintain military hegmony---its logical that the US ceases to be so pro-Israeli.---and just that step may force Israel to the bargaining table---as Israel will be forced to then get real and confront its ugly past and present.---and acknowledge the right to return.

 

[imported_dna]

Originally posted by: magomago
Wouldn't the return of this land be an important point to any peace deal? It is sometimes frustrating how you hear the term "drive the Jews to the sea" used very often here...when in reality the situation is the exact opposite.

Before this thread becomes an Israel-bashing orgy, it would be nice if some facts were kept in mind:

• Jordan joined the war in 1967, even though Israel urged it to stay neutral. If it did not attack Israel, then they would still have had control of the West Bank; do you think they would've allowed a Palestinian state?
• Following the war, the Arab countries rejected resolution 242 -- the idea of land for peace.
• Also, they had their own conference in Khartoum, from which they came out with the famous three NOs:
  1. NO peace with Israel
  2. NO recognition of Israel
  3. NO negotiations with Israel

It appears that some people have the illusion that it was Israel's duty to keep the West Bank and Gaza in a pristine state -- perhaps for dacades -- until the Arabs decided that they are tired with wars, and are ready for peace.

The following article has a pretty interesting paragraph:

No less remarkable were advances in the Palestinians? standard of living. By 1986, 92.8 percent of the population in the West Bank and Gaza had electricity around the clock, as compared to 20.5 percent in 1967; 85 percent had running water in dwellings, as compared to 16 percent in 1967; 83.5 percent had electric or gas ranges for cooking, as compared to 4 percent in 1967; and so on.

If this was indeed the case, then one has to seriously wonder what did the Jordaninan and Egyptian occupation of the West Bank and Gaza do for the people living there.

 

[Darthvoy]

Originally posted by: dna

Originally posted by: magomago
Wouldn't the return of this land be an important point to any peace deal? It is sometimes frustrating how you hear the term "drive the Jews to the sea" used very often here...when in reality the situation is the exact opposite.

Before this thread becomes an Israel-bashing orgy, it would be nice if some facts were kept in mind:

• Jordan joined the war in 1967, even though Israel urged it to stay neutral. If it did not attack Israel, then they would still have had control of the West Bank; do you think they would've allowed a Palestinian state?
• Following the war, the Arab countries rejected resolution 242 -- the idea of land for peace.
• Also, they had their own conference in Khartoum, from which they came out with the famous three NOs:
  1. NO peace with Israel
  2. NO recognition of Israel
  3. NO negotiations with Israel

It appears that some people have the illusion that it was Israel's duty to keep the West Bank and Gaza in a pristine state -- perhaps for dacades -- until the Arabs decided that they are tired with wars, and are ready for peace.

The following article has a pretty interesting paragraph:

No less remarkable were advances in the Palestinians? standard of living. By 1986, 92.8 percent of the population in the West Bank and Gaza had electricity around the clock, as compared to 20.5 percent in 1967; 85 percent had running water in dwellings, as compared to 16 percent in 1967; 83.5 percent had electric or gas ranges for cooking, as compared to 4 percent in 1967; and so on.

If this was indeed the case, then one has to seriously wonder what did the Jordaninan and Egyptian occupation of the West Bank and Gaza do for the people living there.

ahh dna the token Israel apologist.

 

[imported_dna]

Originally posted by: Darthvoy
ahh dna the token Israel apologist.

I guess that's the most one can expect from the likes of you -- especially when presented with historical facts.

 

[smack Down]

Originally posted by: dna

Originally posted by: Darthvoy
ahh dna the token Israel apologist.

I guess that's the most one can expect from the likes of you -- especially when presented with historical facts.

Maybe I'm not the only one who doesn't see what running what has to do with israel stealing land?

 

[Narmer]

Originally posted by: dna

Originally posted by: magomago
Wouldn't the return of this land be an important point to any peace deal? It is sometimes frustrating how you hear the term "drive the Jews to the sea" used very often here...when in reality the situation is the exact opposite.

Before this thread becomes an Israel-bashing orgy, it would be nice if some facts were kept in mind:

• Jordan joined the war in 1967, even though Israel urged it to stay neutral. If it did not attack Israel, then they would still have had control of the West Bank; do you think they would've allowed a Palestinian state?
• Following the war, the Arab countries rejected resolution 242 -- the idea of land for peace.
• Also, they had their own conference in Khartoum, from which they came out with the famous three NOs:
  1. NO peace with Israel
  2. NO recognition of Israel
  3. NO negotiations with Israel

It appears that some people have the illusion that it was Israel's duty to keep the West Bank and Gaza in a pristine state -- perhaps for dacades -- until the Arabs decided that they are tired with wars, and are ready for peace.

The following article has a pretty interesting paragraph:

No less remarkable were advances in the Palestinians? standard of living. By 1986, 92.8 percent of the population in the West Bank and Gaza had electricity around the clock, as compared to 20.5 percent in 1967; 85 percent had running water in dwellings, as compared to 16 percent in 1967; 83.5 percent had electric or gas ranges for cooking, as compared to 4 percent in 1967; and so on.

If this was indeed the case, then one has to seriously wonder what did the Jordaninan and Egyptian occupation of the West Bank and Gaza do for the people living there.

link

Nations and narratives

An Israeli academic who argues that Israel should confess to a deliberate campaign to expel nearly 800,000 Palestinians in 1948 is courting controversy at home

SO IS it to be 1967 or 1948? For watchers of the Middle East this question is shorthand for two different ways to think about the origins of, and solutions to, the long conflict between Israel and the Arabs of Palestine. In the eyes of the 1967 crowd, Israel was entitled to the borders it had before its abrupt expansion in the six-day war of that year. To make peace, the trick is therefore to create circumstances in which Israel will give up most or all of that land and allow an independent Palestinian state to arise in the West Bank and Gaza. That, as generations of failed peacemakers have discovered, is quite a tall order.

For the 1948 crowd, however, this way of thinking about the conflict is a mistake. They argue that peace is impossible unless Israel admits to and atones for the crime they say it committed nearly 60 years ago, in its independence war of 1948. That crime, they say, was deliberately to expel most of the Arabs of Palestine, close to 800,000 people, in order to be sure of having a Jewish majority for the Jewish state. Unless Israel somehow makes amends for this earlier catastrophe, which the Arabs call the nakba, peace is an impossibility.

Ilan Pappe, a political scientist at the University of Haifa, is one of the purest Israeli exponents of the 1948 view. He knows how provocative it is to choose the phrase ?ethnic cleansing? for the title of his latest book. But ethnic cleansing, he insists, is precisely what occurred in the first Arab-Israeli war. It was, he says, a long-premeditated crime, implemented ruthlessly and then systematically denied. In 1948 the Zionists did not happen to wage a war that tragically but inevitably led to the expulsion of parts of the indigenous population. The ethnic cleansing of all of Palestine, he maintains, was the main goal all along.

Inside Israel, the historiography of 1948 has been in ferment for more than 20 years. Israel and its admirers once clung to a simple collective view about the circumstances of the state's birth. In a Solomonic judgment, the United Nations voted to divide the contested land into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted the plan, but the Arabs tried to strangle the Jewish state at birth. In the course of the war that followed, the Jews overcame vast odds, guaranteeing their survival and expanding the territory allotted to them under the original plan. In the course of the fighting, most of the Arab population fled.

The last bit of this over-simple narrative has by now been comprehensively debunked. In 1988 Benny Morris, an Israeli historian, published ?The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949?, challenging the view that most of the Arabs fled of their own accord, in panic or at the behest of the Arab states. In many towns and villages they were put to flight deliberately. Mr Morris said that there was no master plan to evict all the Arabs: many expulsions took place in the heat of battle and the fog of war. But he also argued that the idea of a population transfer had been carefully considered by David Ben-Gurion and the other Zionist leaders, and hovered behind their actions and deliberations.

Mr Morris and other ?new historians? in Israel unleashed fierce argument. Other scholars accused Mr Morris of traducing Ben-Gurion through selective quotation. In a new version of ?The Birth? in 2004, Mr Morris offered even more evidence of the extent to which the Zionist leadership hankered after a population transfer, and the alacrity with which they exploited the events of 1948 to bring one about. (Mr Morris also said, in an interview that stunned his supporters, that Israel was justified in uprooting the Palestinian ?fifth column? once the Arabs had attacked the infant state, and that the number executed or massacred?some 800, on his reckoning?was ?peanuts? compared with, say, the massacres in Bosnia in the 1990s.)

Mr Pappe, however, goes a good deal further than Mr Morris. He insists that there was indeed a master plan. On March 10th 1948, he asserts, 11 men met at the ?red house?, the Tel Aviv headquarters of Israel's pre-state army, the Haganah, to put the final touches to Plan Dalet, ?a plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine?. That evening, military orders were sent to units on the ground to prepare for the expulsion of the Palestinians. Mr Pappe calls this group of men the ?consultancy?, an ad hoc cabal of political and military leaders dominated by Ben-Gurion. And population transfer did not just ?hover? in the background of their thinking, he says. It was central from the start.

Still in a fog
You might suppose that after 60-odd years the story of 1948 would by now have been laid bare. Historians have access, on the Israeli side at least, to military archives, political minutes and personal diaries.

It is not, alas, so simple. The consultancy rarely kept minutes. Ben-Gurion was a prodigious diarist, but selective in what he recorded. Mr Pappe admits that he does not in fact know what Ben-Gurion said at the supposedly fateful ?red house? meeting on March 10th. As for Plan Dalet, this is no new discovery by Mr Pappe. The plan has been public for decades and does not read unambiguously like a master plan for wholesale ethnic cleansing. The aim was to crush the Palestinian militias before the Haganah had to face the invading Arab armies. It gave commanders discretion to occupy or destroy and expel hostile villages or potentially hostile villages; some destroyed swathes of villages and a few did not. And Mr Pappe's detractors will ask why he ignores the orders sent out by the chief of staff of the Haganah, Israel Galili, on March 24th, reminding commanders of the policy to protect the ?full rights, needs, and freedom of the Arabs in the Hebrew state without discrimination?.

Thanks to such inconsistencies, the history of 1948 will remain contentious. And like much of the ?new history?, this book has the defect of treating the Palestinians only as victims, not as actors in their own right. But how much really turns on this debate among historians? Mr Pappe says that Zionism needs to acknowledge and reverse its original sin. But whether or not the population transfer of 1948 was premeditated (as he says), or largely opportunistic (as Mr Morris says), history can hardly be rewound over half a century.

Some thoughtful Israeli politicians have indeed acknowledged their country's portion of the blame. In his 2005 memoir, ?Scars of War, Wounds of Peace?, Shlomo Ben-Ami, a former foreign minister (and historian) accepted that in 1948 an Arab community ?in a state of terror? was put to flight by a ?ruthless? Israeli army that perpetrated atrocities and massacres. This was done consciously to enlarge the borders of the new state. But whatever the moral case for letting back the refugees, Mr Ben-Ami says, after the war this was ?out of the question in a historical and political context?, not least because of the illegitimate demands of the Arab states, who never accepted partition and indeed grabbed for themselves much of what should have been the Palestinian state.

As Ehud Barak's foreign minister, Mr Ben-Ami was part of the team that tried at Camp David in 2000 to make peace on roughly the border of 1967. Mr Pappe is not surprised that this failed. For the Palestinians, he says, ?1948 is the heart of the matter and only addressing the wrongs perpetrated then can bring us closer to the end of the conflict.? But Mr Pappe wants Israel not just to apologise but also to let back all the Arab refugees, and so give up the idea of remaining a Jewish state with a Jewish majority. It is hard to imagine many Israelis agreeing to that, whatever they come to believe really happened in 1948.

 

[fskimospy]

I'm sorry, but dna is mostly right.

Look, Israel does plenty of evil things oppressing the Palestinians. Bulldozing houses, attacking homes with helicopters, etc. Their hands are certainly not without blood on them.

What everyone tends to forget however is that the Palestinians are largely to blame for their own plight. If you look at the 1947 UN partition of Palestine, there was an arab state planned that encompassed the west bank, the gaza strip, and some other land. The Israelis accepted this agreement, the Arabs rejected it. Israel was immediately attacked upon its creation, and a lot of the palestinian land that it has (minus the west bank) is from that war.

Furthermore the Palestinians were offered full citizenship by Jordan, and have repeatedly been offered their own state on fairly generous terms considering the relative balance of power. They have not only chosen to reject these, but large portions of the palestinians have specifically opposed making the situation in their refugee camps any better, for fear that if life got too good for the people living there they would lose their revolutionary spirit.

I'm not taking Israel's side here. For years they have been intransigent, they have brutally oppressed the palestinians, and they were the aggressors in the 1967 war. All I'm trying to say is that the palestinians share a HEAVY responsibility for their current situation.

 

[Narmer]

Originally posted by: eskimospy
I'm sorry, but dna is mostly right.

Look, Israel does plenty of evil things oppressing the Palestinians. Bulldozing houses, attacking homes with helicopters, etc. Their hands are certainly not without blood on them.

What everyone tends to forget however is that the Palestinians are largely to blame for their own plight. If you look at the 1947 UN partition of Palestine, there was an arab state planned that encompassed the west bank, the gaza strip, and some other land. The Israelis accepted this agreement, the Arabs rejected it. Israel was immediately attacked upon its creation, and a lot of the palestinian land that it has (minus the west bank) is from that war.

Furthermore the Palestinians were offered full citizenship by Jordan, and have repeatedly been offered their own state on fairly generous terms considering the relative balance of power. They have not only chosen to reject these, but large portions of the palestinians have specifically opposed making the situation in their refugee camps any better, for fear that if life got too good for the people living there they would lose their revolutionary spirit.

I'm not taking Israel's side here. For years they have been intransigent, they have brutally oppressed the palestinians, and they were the aggressors in the 1967 war. All I'm trying to say is that the palestinians share a HEAVY responsibility for their current situation.

They are NOT largely to blame. Their guardians (Egyptians and Jordanians) decided to fight Israel. The Palestinians were used by their Arab brothers the same way the Israelis are using them today, with no regard for their own interests.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Originally posted by: dna

Originally posted by: Darthvoy
ahh dna the token Israel apologist.

I guess that's the most one can expect from the likes of you -- especially when presented with historical facts.

:thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

[JEDIYoda]

Originally posted by: Narmer

Originally posted by: eskimospy
I'm sorry, but dna is mostly right.

Look, Israel does plenty of evil things oppressing the Palestinians. Bulldozing houses, attacking homes with helicopters, etc. Their hands are certainly not without blood on them.

What everyone tends to forget however is that the Palestinians are largely to blame for their own plight. If you look at the 1947 UN partition of Palestine, there was an arab state planned that encompassed the west bank, the gaza strip, and some other land. The Israelis accepted this agreement, the Arabs rejected it. Israel was immediately attacked upon its creation, and a lot of the palestinian land that it has (minus the west bank) is from that war.

Furthermore the Palestinians were offered full citizenship by Jordan, and have repeatedly been offered their own state on fairly generous terms considering the relative balance of power. They have not only chosen to reject these, but large portions of the palestinians have specifically opposed making the situation in their refugee camps any better, for fear that if life got too good for the people living there they would lose their revolutionary spirit.

I'm not taking Israel's side here. For years they have been intransigent, they have brutally oppressed the palestinians, and they were the aggressors in the 1967 war. All I'm trying to say is that the palestinians share a HEAVY responsibility for their current situation.

They are NOT largely to blame. Their guardians (Egyptians and Jordanians) decided to fight Israel. The Palestinians were used by their Arab brothers the same way the Israelis are using them today, with no regard for their own interests.

You have an opinion that is not supported at all by the facts!!

 

[imported_dna]

Originally posted by: eskimospy
I'm not taking Israel's side here. For years they have been intransigent, they have brutally oppressed the palestinians, and they were the aggressors in the 1967 war.

A few things:

• Calling Israel "intransigent" is quite a stretch, especially when the other side didn't accept its existence, or the idea of land for peace.
• People that are "brutally oppressed" usually don't get their houses hooked up with water and electricity.
• Israel may have landed the first major punch in the 1967 war, but you should know that offense is the best defense, especially when Egypt and Syria have been warmongering prior to the war, amassing troops, and ordering the UN troops to get out of the way.

 

[Narmer]

Originally posted by: JEDIYoda

Originally posted by: Narmer

Originally posted by: eskimospy
I'm sorry, but dna is mostly right.

Look, Israel does plenty of evil things oppressing the Palestinians. Bulldozing houses, attacking homes with helicopters, etc. Their hands are certainly not without blood on them.

What everyone tends to forget however is that the Palestinians are largely to blame for their own plight. If you look at the 1947 UN partition of Palestine, there was an arab state planned that encompassed the west bank, the gaza strip, and some other land. The Israelis accepted this agreement, the Arabs rejected it. Israel was immediately attacked upon its creation, and a lot of the palestinian land that it has (minus the west bank) is from that war.

Furthermore the Palestinians were offered full citizenship by Jordan, and have repeatedly been offered their own state on fairly generous terms considering the relative balance of power. They have not only chosen to reject these, but large portions of the palestinians have specifically opposed making the situation in their refugee camps any better, for fear that if life got too good for the people living there they would lose their revolutionary spirit.

I'm not taking Israel's side here. For years they have been intransigent, they have brutally oppressed the palestinians, and they were the aggressors in the 1967 war. All I'm trying to say is that the palestinians share a HEAVY responsibility for their current situation.

They are NOT largely to blame. Their guardians (Egyptians and Jordanians) decided to fight Israel. The Palestinians were used by their Arab brothers the same way the Israelis are using them today, with no regard for their own interests.

You have an opinion that is not supported at all by the facts!!

If I'm wrong, then prove it. Show me when between 1948 and today have the Palestinians governed without a powerful overlord?

 

[fskimospy]

Go look up the 1947 UN partition of Palestine. Check the distribution of land. Now look at the modern Palestinian demands for their own state. They are really, really similar.

In 1947 however, the Palestinians rejected the idea of a Jewish state there, because they thought they could destroy Israel and get it all. They were wrong. That is why they are largely to blame. This does not absolve Israel from their own crimes, but it is something important that people frequenly gloss over.

 

[fskimospy]

A few things:

• Calling Israel "intransigent" is quite a stretch, especially when the other side didn't accept its existence, or the idea of land for peace.
• People that are "brutally oppressed" usually don't get their houses hooked up with water and electricity.
• Israel may have landed the first major punch in the 1967 war, but you should know that offense is the best defense, especially when Egypt and Syria have been warmongering prior to the war, amassing troops, and ordering the UN troops to get out of the way.

People who are brutally oppressed usually do get shot for throwing stones, get their houses bulldozed, and are periodically hit by tanks, artillery fire, and cluster bombs.

Also, Israel only accepted land for peace with Egypt after weeks of arm twisting and threats from Jimmy Carter. (this isn't to say that Egypt was any better... but Israel certainly wasn't excited about the prospect). They also have in the past, and continue to build settlements on contested land for the express purpose of cementing their hold on it. This also shows a certain level of... uhmm... intransigence (sp?).

I'm not indicting Israel here, the Arab states are equally problematic... actually no. The Arab states are definitely worse. All you tend to see here however is the "Israel as the set upon martyr state" or "Israel as the hyper rogue terror threat to the world". It's neither, just a young country placed in a difficult position by stupid neighbors that has made some bad choices.

 

[imported_dna]

Originally posted by: Narmer
The aim was to crush the Palestinian militias before the Haganah had to face the invading Arab armies. It gave commanders discretion to occupy or destroy and expel hostile villages or potentially hostile villages; some destroyed swathes of villages and a few did not. And Mr Pappe's detractors will ask why he ignores the orders sent out by the chief of staff of the Haganah, Israel Galili, on March 24th, reminding commanders of the policy to protect the ?full rights, needs, and freedom of the Arabs in the Hebrew state without discrimination?.

A tactical necessity during a war -- it is easier to defend a contiguous area, than to one that looks like Swiss cheese, especially when the populace is hostile, and pretends to surrender.

Anyway, what you posted doesn't even address Arab calls for evacuation, and actual evactuation that came ahead of an expected "easy" victory by the Arab League.

Finally, I am compelled to mention the expulsion of 800,000 Jews from Muslim countries -- an act that was by no means a tactical necessity, nor was it performed in a combat zone.

 

[imported_dna]

Originally posted by: eskimospy
People who are brutally oppressed usually do get shot for throwing stones, get their houses bulldozed, and are periodically hit by tanks, artillery fire, and cluster bombs.

You are simplifying and mixing up different issues, i.e. Lebanon and current events.
Also, your use of the Tank vs. rock throwers image comes across as an emotional argument that has very little to do with facts.

They also have in the past, and continue to build settlements on contested land for the express purpose of cementing their hold on it. This also shows a certain level of... uhmm... intransigence (sp?).

Like I said in a previous post: were they supposed to keep the land in a pristine condition?
Also, no comment on the development that Israel did in the West Bank and Gaza? Why only the "negatives"?
I think I'll look do a bit of research to find out what were Jordan's and Egypt's contribution to the West Bank and Gaza during the 20 years they occupied the territories.

All you tend to see here however is the "Israel as the set upon martyr state" or "Israel as the hyper rogue terror threat to the world".

I don't think of Israel as a martyr, but when you compare it with the neighboring countries -- it is light-years ahead of them.

 

[fskimospy]

Why are you comparing Israel to the arab states around it in terms of responsibility for what's going on? That's not what I was talking about. Just because the arab states are turds too doesn't make what Israel is doing any better.

Also, there is a large palestinian contingent in southern Lebanon that persists to this day. While true cluster bombs have only been used in Lebanon thus far (and to Israel's credit, apparently in violation of orders by it's military command), it still holds that they were used vs. Palestinians.

In addition, I don't really care what they were supposed to do with the land that they won. They could move the entire population of Israel into the occupied territories if they want to. You merely mentioned that the arab states were not interested in land for peace, and so I was saying that if Israel were truly interested in trading it for peace at this point they would not be settling large numbers of their citizens in it, because that only complicates the process.

Are you really trying to argue that the tactics employed by the Israelis are not oppressive!?!? You could make an argument for their necessity (although I don't think I would agree there either), but the fact that their tactics are oppressive I would hope is not under debate.

Edited for clarity

 

[Narmer]

Originally posted by: dna

Originally posted by: Narmer
The aim was to crush the Palestinian militias before the Haganah had to face the invading Arab armies. It gave commanders discretion to occupy or destroy and expel hostile villages or potentially hostile villages; some destroyed swathes of villages and a few did not. And Mr Pappe's detractors will ask why he ignores the orders sent out by the chief of staff of the Haganah, Israel Galili, on March 24th, reminding commanders of the policy to protect the ?full rights, needs, and freedom of the Arabs in the Hebrew state without discrimination?.

A tactical necessity during a war -- it is easier to defend a contiguous area, than to one that looks like Swiss cheese, especially when the populace is hostile, and pretends to surrender.

Anyway, what you posted doesn't even address Arab calls for evacuation, and actual evactuation that came ahead of an expected "easy" victory by the Arab League.

Finally, I am compelled to mention the expulsion of 800,000 Jews from Muslim countries -- an act that was by no means a tactical necessity, nor was it performed in a combat zone.

I just put that book review in there to garner your response. Damn, you're like a venus flytrap or some other type of amusement. Your response is so predictable. I don't know if I should laugh at you or feel sorry for you.

 

[imported_dna]

Originally posted by: Narmer
I just put that book review in there to garner your response. Damn, you're like a venus flytrap or some other type of amusement. Your response is so predictable. I don't know if I should laugh at you or feel sorry for you.

Since it appears that you are incapable of replying to what I wrote, I suggest you do both, but not at the same time -- you might get a headache.

 

[beyoku]

I couldnt find exact figures but i wonder what % of those arabs are under 25 and have no control over what happened in the 40's or the 60's.
I think 50% or so of their population is under 15.