When the Palestinians Say "End of Occupation", What Do They Mean? - Photo Essay

frontpagemag.com ^ | Motti Morell

[Tailgunner Joe]

When the Palestinians Say "End of Occupation", What Do They Mean?

The Western world thinks they mean "End of occupation in the West Bank and Gaza"

But what the Palestinians actually mean is "End of Israel".

They don't even try to hide it.

See for yourself:

This is the map of "Liberated Palestine" on the official website of the Palestinian National Authority, Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs:

http://www.mopa.gov.ps/

It is the map of the entire State of Israel.

This is the map of "Liberated Palestine" featured on the official emblem of the Palestinian National Authority’s Ministry of Industry:

http://www.industry.gov.ps

It is the map of the entire State of Israel.

This is the map of "Liberated Palestine" on Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) official emblem:

It is the map of the entire State of Israel.

This is the map of "Liberated Palestine" on Yasser Arafat’s uniform.

It is the map of the entire State of Israel.

This is the map of "Liberated Palestine" in the official Palestinian Authority’s education system schoolbooks.

Page 64 of the Palestinian Authority’s official 5th grade school book: "there’s no Israel"

It is the map of the entire State of Israel.

This is the map of "Liberated Palestine" as a statuette displayed at the Principal’s room in a school in the Palestinian town of Tulkarm.

A dagger is thrust in the "heart" of the land. Blood trickles from the wound and irrigates the plant of the Palestinian State.

It is the map of the entire State of Israel.

This is the map of "Liberated Palestine" from an art lesson in a Palestinian school.

The Jews destroyed by fire, the Israeli flag burning

It is the map of the entire State of Israel.

Question: Now, when you hear the Palestinians say "End of Occupation" do they mean "A Palestinian State alongside Israel", or "In place of Israel?"

Answer: "Poll: Majority of Palestinians See Israel's Elimination as Goal"

poll conducted by the Palestinian Jerusalem Media and Communication Center (JMCC). (Reuters, June 11, 2002)

What would YOU do in Israel’s place? <

If you have an answer, please mail it to: for-peace@graffiti.net

[FourtySeven]

The fact that none of the players in the Middle East agree on what the map looks like is a symptom of how far apart they are and how difficult it will be to settle peace. Much blood has already been shed, and I fear much more will still be shed, redrawing those little ink lines on the map. I sincerely hope that Israel's lines never disappear.

BINGO! Couldn't agree more. Interesting read, your posts and everyone's reaction to them. For some reason, to someone who's a die hard supporter of Israel, any criticism of it (Israel) is taken so personally.

I wonder if all these people who called you "ameteur", "troll" and were chiding you into bets would have such a vehement reaction to a criticism of a map of Antartica?

I wonder.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Maps Don't Lie

[Looking for Diogenes]

Tell me, Joe, is this map, which you posted along with the article, an accurate map of Israel?

[FourtySeven]

Wow, with people like you in Israel it's so hard to understand why there's so much hate for Israelis. < /sarcasm >

Or is all the hate in your heart only confined to the relative anonymity (and therefore safety) of the internet?

Either way, I pity you and any one else who calls for the total destruction of all Muslims everywhere. To say something like that, and then wonder why there isn't any peace in Israel is quite frankly stupid.

And for the record, I've said time and time again on all these "pity Israel" party threads that I do NOT support the Palestinians either.

[Tailgunner Joe]

That is the Israel envisioned by naive liberals. It is not the vision of Israelis, nor of the Arabs. As usual, the liberals are living in their own little world, believing the transparent lies of terrorists and mass murderers.

[Looking for Diogenes]

That is the Israel envisioned by naive liberals.

Which presumably includes David Horowitz and the gang at Front Page who chose tha map.

I suppose you believe the map from the CIA Factbook, identical except it includes the Golan as occupied territories, is also the product of naive liberals.

Maps don't lie.

As usual, the liberals are living in their own little world, believing the transparent lies of terrorists and mass murderers.

Gee. Maybe maps do lie.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Which presumably includes David Horowitz and the gang at Front Page who chose tha map.

They chose it as an illustration of the naive liberal's misperception of the vision of Arabist terrorists.

I suppose you believe the map from the CIA Factbook, identical except it includes the Golan as occupied territories, is also the product of naive liberals.

No. It includes the Golan Heights.

The fact is, your maps don't refute my original post at all. Pro-Israeli's make no secret of the fact that we do not support Palestinian statehood.

The fact that you cannot deny is that the Arabs don't want a state in the West Bank and Gaza. They want ALL 'their' land back. All of it. That means eradicating the state of Israel and driving the Jews into the sea. That's why they should not be given autonomy.

[Looking for Diogenes]

The fact is, your maps don't refute my original post at all.

I wasn't trying to refute your original post. The maps that Horowitz selected from Palestinian sites were not made up by him. My original point was that all the maps, Horowitz's and Arafat's, exclude the Golan.

Pro-Israeli's make no secret of the fact that we do not support Palestinian statehood. The fact that you cannot deny is that the Arabs don't want a state in the West Bank and Gaza.

So the extremists on both sides don't recognizes the other's right to exist and publishes maps illustrating that.

In point of fact, PM Sharon has stated that he wants to offer the Palestinians a state.

In a statement issued Sunday evening, Sharon said that Israel wants to give the Palestinians "what no one else has heretofore given them -- the possibility of establishing a state."
Jerusalem Post 9/24/01

Perhaps you don't consider him to be a pro-Israeli.

And, since you mention it, I can deny that all Arabs don't want a state in the West Bank and Gaza. At least, many of them now publish maps showing the PNA in those areas with Israel clearly labeled in the surrounding area. See, for example, the Jordanian map I posted. There are similar maps published by Palestinian websites that I have found. And there are maps from non-official Israeli sources which correctly depict the Gaza and West Banks as unincorporated within Israel. Virtually no two maps of the area published by different groups are the same. Everybody in the Middle East plays with maps.

[Looking for Diogenes]

I made a mistake in attributing the source of the quote from Sharon, which I ended up linking from the Chinese People's Daily (yikes!). Nonetheless, the statement was widely reported. Just to set the record straight, here it is from a more reputable source:

Israel, said Mr Sharon, would "do everything to achieve a true and open peace" and "wants to give the Palestinians what no one else has heretofore given them - the possibility of establishing a state".
The Irish Times

[Looking for Diogenes]

Here is the map I was looking at when I wrote "Jerusalem Post" in the wrong place. Note it shows the Golan as annexed (which it is) and labels the West Bank and Gaza simply as 'The territories.'

Jersualem Post

[Tailgunner Joe]

Sure. Even Bush wants them to have a state. All they have to do is stop the terror.

We all know that is never going to happen.

This is a war. The only solution is victory.

[Neophyte]

If you can find an offical Israeli map which shows the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and Golan Heights as occupied areas, than you're a better web researcher than I am.

I happily grant you the laurels of the best web researcher I know, since it became clear that it's not the maps we have problem with but the status of the territories in question.

Of course there is no - and cannot be - Israeli map naming the Gaza Strip and West Bank "occupied Palestinian territories".

Because they're not. They're not Palestinian, because there is no such state entity, never was, and it looks like will never be.

And they're not occupied, because in no valid international document they're designated like that. These territories are at best "disputed", if the Oslo Accords signed by the Israelis and Palies are something to go by.

As to the Golan, somebody had already pointed here that it's annexed - like Eastern Prussia, for instance. I.e. as a result of a defensive war. Have you ever seen a Soviet, a Russian, or, for that matter, an official German map which shows Eatern Prussia as occupied territory?

[Neophyte]

I pity you and any one else who calls for the total destruction of all Muslims everywhere. To say something like that, and then wonder why there isn't any peace in Israel is quite frankly stupid.

To call for total destruction of Muslims is really stupid. But Israel never called for that, and so you are quite frankly self-reaviling as a Jew-hater when connecting the lack of peace in Israel with this brainless idea.

[Looking for Diogenes]

They [the territories] are not Palestinian, because there is no such state entity, never was, and it looks like will never be.

Correct. A fuller quotation of Sharon's above cited is:

The State of Israel wants to give the Palestinians what no one else has heretofore given them: the possibility of establishing a state. Neither the Turks, the English, the Egyptians nor the Jordanians gave them such a possibility.

To the best of my recollection, the region has been an independent nation-state only twice following Alexander the Great’s conquest in 332 BCE. Those were the Maccabean Empire, which was ended by Pompey in 63 BCE after a 104 year history, and the Christian European Kingdom of Jerusalem, which lasted for 192 years. The UN mandate of 1947 envisioned two nations, one Jewish, the other Arab, but the Arab nations, by their greed and intolerance, made that impossible. And again, history has repeated itself in the breakdown of the final negotiations of January 2001.

Nonetheless, there are well-defined de facto borders within Israel that follow the Green Line, even if Israel is not willing to draw them on a map. The areas within those borders are administered as occupied territories under military rule. Prime Minister Sharon may choose to call them 'disputed' rather than 'occupied,' but that is only a semantic difference.

As to the Golan, somebody had already pointed here that it's annexed - like Eastern Prussia, for instance. I.e. as a result of a defensive war.

As far as I know, Israel has declared four annexations, East Jerusalem in 1967, the Golan in 1981, the greater Jerusalem metropolitan area, circa 1997, and the Lebanese border village of Aroun in 2001.

Have you ever seen a Soviet, a Russian, or, for that matter, an official German map which shows Eatern Prussia as occupied territory?

I'd be surprised if there weren't some neo Nazi wesite that had a map of Greater Germany. But you wouldn't find one anywhere else in the world. Those border shifts were ratified by treaties, making them internationally recognized. That's why it isn't an apt comparison.

During the Cold War many American atlases showed Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia as nations separate from the USSR, because the US did not recognize their forced merger with the Soviet Union.

Another Cold War example is the status of Berlin. Despite agreements to the contrary, the German Democratic Republic made their capital Berlin, a disputed and divided city. For a while American atlases had an annotation that the US State Department did not recognize the change.

A closer and better example is Cyprus. Turkish Cypriot maps show the Turkish Nation of Cyprus covering half of the island. Greek Cypriot maps show Cyprus with the armistice line cutting across and the words "Area under Turkish Military Occupation." The Greek side doesn't recognize the nation, but at least it recognizes the fact that there's a military border running down the middle of the island.

[Looking for Diogenes]

Since you bring up East Prussia, here is an interesting map, published in Germany probably from between 1945 and 1947. Notice the two borders shown for Poland, the old border and the new one.

[Neophyte]

The Greek side doesn't recognize the nation...

The important thing is, that North Cyprus Turkish Republic isn't recognised by no one side with the exception of Turkey, whose occupation of the part of the island created this same "Republic".

As to the "occupied territories" in some parts of the Land of Israel, I repeat: it has nothing to do with Sharon's willingness or unwillingness to call them that. Neither the Oslo Accords, nor relevant UN resolutions use this term.

Not that I give a rat's arse for UN resolutions...

[Looking for Diogenes]

The important thing is, that North Cyprus Turkish Republic isn't recognised by no one side with the exception of Turkey, whose occupation of the part of the island created this same "Republic".

Exactly. Likewise, how many other countries recognize the annexation of the Golan? Any?

As to the "occupied territories" in some parts of the Land of Israel, I repeat: it has nothing to do with Sharon's willingness or unwillingness to call them that. Neither the Oslo Accords, nor relevant UN resolutions use this term.

The Oslo Accords and the 1978 Camp David Accords both refer to the Gaza and West Bank. Neither area is named or delineated on the official Israeli maps. UN Resolution 242 refers to 'territories occupied'. Resolution 605 directly calls them 'occupied territories' in the context of the Fourth Geneva Convention:

Considering that the current policies and practices of Israel, the occupying Power, in the occupied territories are bound to have grave consequences for the endeavours to achieve comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East,
Resolution 605 (1987)

Regardless of what term is used, the territories are administered as occupied territories by Israel and are considered occupied territories by the Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory.

[Neophyte]

Likewise, how many other countries recognize the annexation of the Golan?

There is nothing likewise here. You better ask - and give yourself the only possible answer - how many countries recognise Israel... and annexation (of the Golan) is an unilateral act of a sovereign nation. Quite different from the Cyprus situation.

[Looking for Diogenes]

how many countries recognise Israel

Here is a list of countries with embassies or consulates in Israel. There are doubtless other countries that recognize Israel but do not have a diplomatic presence. To my knowledge, none of them recognize the annexation of the Golan into Israel.

Argentina, Australia, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, India, Ireland, Italy, Ivory Coast, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Moldavia, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uruguay, USA, Uzbekistan, Vatican, Venezuela, Yugoslavia.

and annexation (of the Golan) is an unilateral act of a sovereign nation.

Just because the above list of nations recognize Israel as a sovereign nation does not mean they agree with Israel's definition of its borders. Unilateral annexation has very little standing in international law. In 1950 Jordan annexed the West Bank, but no one recognized that either (except perhaps its Arab allies).

Quite different from the Cyprus situation.

How so? My point in bringing up Cyprus is that even if a nation (Cyprus) does not recognize a situation as valid (the declaration of Turkish Cypriot nationhood), it can still at least accurately depict the presence of a de facto border (the Green Line). Israel has a Green Line too.