Posted on 10/11/2006 6:46:16 PM PDT by Sabramerican
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says Palestinians deserve to live better than they do and be "free of the humiliation of occupation" in a state of their own.
"I promise you my personal commitment to that goal," Rice said at a dinner marking the third anniversary of the American Task Force on Palestine.
"There could be no greater legacy for America," Rice told the group, which describes itself as nonpartisan and supportive of a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel.
"The Palestinian people deserve a better life ... free of the humiliation of occupation," she said
(Excerpt) Read more at haaretz.com ...
But I'm sure Hillary would never come out and say she's anti-Israel. But why would she push for Israel's interests in the Senate if she knows that she really doesn't have to? Yet, publicly pro-Israel Jews like Alan Dershowitz donate and fundraise for Hillary. If I know that Hillary will sell Israel out, or allow Israel just to twist in the wind unaided, surely a smart guy like Dershowitz already has it figured out.
I keep pointing out the fundamental concern--where is the ideological pro-Israel leadership going to come from? There needs to be more than just the willingness to express goodwill when the cameras are on. There needs to be a passion--
"Clearly that land was something that could only be termed "occupied territory", even by the Israelis. "
Wrong
http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp470.htm
You are describing the Arab view of Israel. The point I am making is, by advocating such a view on their behalf, we are setting ourselves up for such a reckoning years from now, perhaps with a weak, Carter-like internationalist in the White House.
No, unless Israel was claiming all that land, which it never has, the border can be in dispute and you can rightfully call them "disputed territories". That which is not in dispute was occupied.
"I promise you my personal commitment to that goal," Rice said at a dinner marking the third anniversary of the American Task Force on Palestine.
"There could be no greater legacy for America," Rice told the group, which describes itself as nonpartisan and supportive of a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel.
"The Palestinian people deserve a better life ... free of the humiliation of occupation," she said
Every time America speaks against the ownership of God's land by G-d's people, we have been punished, as we have in the past! We in America should expect a punishment from the L-rd G-d on the order of Katrina.
All is in dispute since Israel did not take it from any recognized sovereign power.
Anything not in dispute, but occupied- such as when Israel occupied Lebanon after the 1982 war- was returned with an Israeli withdrawal.
I'm thinking we have a colossal failure to communicate. Israel belongs to Israel and primarily the Jews who are still the majority of the population. Any lands which they control but have not annexed can rightfully be called occupied territory.
I believe Israel would like to have a defined eastern border, and it won't look like the 1967 line. The problem is that they can't find anyone to negotiate with who wants them to even exist at all.
As a result of the Six Day War, Israel gained all of Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, Sinai, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank (historically known as Judea and Samaria). Palestinian Arabs often insist on using the term "occupied territories" to describe these areas, usually connected to the assertion that they fall under the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention. Yet, Palestinian spokesmen also speak about Israeli military action in Area A as an invasion, an infringement on Palestinian sovereignty. The use of both forms of terminology is a contradiction. If Israel "invaded Palestinian territories" in the present, then they cannot be regarded as "occupied"; however, if the territories are defined as "occupied," Israel cannot be "invading" them.
Israeli legal experts traditionally resisted efforts to define the West Bank and Gaza Strip as "occupied" or falling under the main international treaties dealing with military occupation. Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Meir Shamgar wrote in the 1970s that there is no de jure applicability of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention regarding occupied territories to the case of the West Bank and Gaza Strip since the Convention:
In fact, prior to 1967, Jordan had occupied the West Bank and Egypt had occupied the Gaza Strip; their presence in those territories was the result of their illegal invasion in 1948. Jordan's 1950 annexation of the West Bank was recognized only by Great Britain and Pakistan and rejected by the vast majority of the international community, including the Arab states.
International jurists generally draw a distinction between situations of "aggressive conquest" and territorial disputes that arise after a war of self-defense. Former US State Department Legal Advisor Stephen Schwebel, who later headed the International Court of Justice in the Hague, wrote in 1970 regarding Israel's case:
Israel only entered the West Bank in 1967 after repeated Jordanian artillery fire and ground movements across the previous armistice lines; additionally, Iraqi forces crossed Jordanian territory and were poised to enter the West Bank. Under such circumstances, even the United Nations rejected Soviet efforts to have Israel branded as the aggressor in the Six-Day War.
Regardless of how many times the Palestinian Arabs claim otherwise, Israel cannot be characterized as a "foreign occupier" with respect to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Fundamental sources of international legality decide the question in Israel's favor. The last international legal allocation of territory that includes what is today the West Bank and Gaza Strip occurred with the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine which recognized Jewish national rights in the whole of the Mandated territory, including the sector east of the Jordan River, almost 80% of the original Mandated territory, that was given to Palestinian Arabs and Emir Abdullah to create the country of Trans-Jordan (later renamed Jordan). Moreover, the rights under the Mandate were preserved under the United Nations as well, according to Article 80 of the UN Charter, after the termination of the League of Nations in 1946.
It is important to observe that, from the time these territories were conquered by Jordan, Syria and Egypt in 1948 to the time they were gained by Israel in 1967, the territories were not refered to as "occupied" by the international community. Furthermore, the people living in those territories before 1967 were not called "Palestinians" as they are today; they were called Jordanians and Egyptians. (In fact, before Israel was founded Jews and Arabs alike who lived in the region were called Palestinians. The newspaper was the "Palestine Bulletin" and later the "Palestine Post" before becoming today's "Jerusalem Post", the Jewish-founded electric company was "Palestine Electric" and so on.) There was no call for "liberation" or "national rights" for the Arabs living there and no Palestinian nation was discussed.
No UN resolution requires Israel to withdraw unilaterally from the territories, nor do they forbid Israelis from going there to live. In particular, the often-misquoted UN Security Council Resolution 242 (and related Resolution 338) make no such demand or requirement. The demand that Israel stop creating "illegal settlements" is similarly baseless.
Under the Oslo Accords, the "peace process" started in 1991 at the Madrid Conference, Israel agreed to withdraw from the disputed territories and Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA) was given control over land chosen so that more than ninety-nine percent of the Palestinian population lived under the jurisdiction of the PA. But the committment to Israel's security that was the backbone of the Oslo agreements was never honored by the PA and Israel was forced to periodically re-enter the ceded territory to quell terrorism. In 2000, Yasser Arafat rejected sweeping concessions by Israel at Camp David -- promoted by US Pres. Clinton in an attempt to reach a final peace agreement -- and the Palestinian Arabs turned again to violence with the Al Aqsa Intifada. That is, after the PA was governing nearly all Palestinian Arabs and a generous peace offer with international backing was on the table, the only response Israel got was increased violence. This is the sole reason Isreal continues to have a military presence in the disputed territories.
I've already read all that before. If you're hung up on whether it's "occupied territory" as defined in the Geneva Convention, I'll concede the point, because it's not important.
I think the average person believes that if you're exerting force and establishing control over land that you don't claim, that land is "occupied territory" in the ordinary sense of the word.
Hence my comment which started this debate: Annex it or get out.
Facts, law and history don't matter to Rice.
She plays the piano, you know.
“The Geneva Convention prohibits the construction of Jewish settlements in occupied territories.”
FACT
The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the forcible transfer of people of one state to the territory of another state that it has occupied as a result of a war. The intention was to insure that local populations who came under occupation would not be forced to move. This is in no way relevant to the settlement issue. Jews are not being forced to go to the West Bank and Gaza Strip; on the contrary, they are voluntarily moving back to places where they, or their ancestors, once lived before being expelled by others. In addition, those territories never legally belonged to either Jordan or Egypt, and certainly not to the Palestinians, who were never the sovereign authority in any part of Palestine. "The Jewish right of settlement in the area is equivalent in every way to the right of the local population to live there," according to Professor Eugene Rostow, former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs.4
As a matter of policy, moreover, Israel does not requisition private land for the establishment of settlements. Housing construction is allowed on private land only after determining that no private rights will be violated. The settlements also do not displace Arabs living in the territories. The media sometimes gives the impression that for every Jew who moves to the West Bank, several hundred Palestinians are forced to leave. The truth is that the vast majority of settlements have been built in uninhabited areas and even the handful established in or near Arab towns did not force any Palestinians to leave.
“Settlements in various parts of the so-called occupied area... [were] the result of a war which they [the Israelis] won.”
— U.S. Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld
4a
(Mitchell G. Bard, "Myths & Facts Online: Settlements")
I would bet on it... most 'unfortunate' choice of words.
Israel does claim the land.
However they are willing to discuss dividing it in exchange for peace. (As they are repeatedly proven only to get kicked in the head again and again.)
They said that immediately after the war in 1967.
The Arabs responded with the famous Khartoum three "no's" of September 1, 1967.
When the whackjobs in the palestinian authority speak about the occupation or the occupied territory, they're not talking about the West Bank, rather Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. Retreat to the 1967/1949 line, that doesn't end the occupation. That's just a wacky as Aztlan claiming the southwest as occupied territory. The difference is that the palestinians have developed a critical mass of supporters who nominally support their agenda, including our Secretary of State.
BTW La Raza has been promoting the concept of a defacto reconquista by establishing themselves and their supporters as a voting majority, not through violence. That's not a far fetched idea at all.
Can you show me a source where the Israeli government is currently claiming the entire West Bank and Gaza as sovereign territory? Why have they not annexed it as they did part of the Golan Heights?
Israel claims it. The Hamas terrorist government refuses to accept it or to recognize Israel. There's no need to annex it, because it's part of Israel. Arguments against Israel are ridiculous and do deserve ridicule.
They can certainly attempt to mobilize a voting majority in their fantasy new country, but we've already had a pretty good precedent set on what happens when there's a declaration of secession.
There will never be an Aztlan.
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