Settlers undermining legitimacy of Israel's existence

[stranger81]

The representatives of the settler organizations have recently declared their intention to establish 11 new settlements in the territories, including some, according to media reports, on privately-owned Palestinian land. The operation is being depicted as having been inspired by the 11 tower and stockade communities in the northern Negev that were established just before Yom Kippur in 1946. This is not the first time the settlers have compared their efforts to the settlement activities that provided the foundation for the establishment of the state. There is no basis for such a comparison, which is nothing more than an act of forgery and fraud.

* * * * * * * *

The current settlement campaign, on the other hand, like the unnecessary construction in East Jerusalem, is not designed to ensure the existence of the state of the Jews, but rather to deprive the Arabs of their state in the West Bank and their capital in Arab Jerusalem. That is precisely the difference between the just Zionism of self-defense and aggressive Zionism, which is totally dismissive of the Arabs and their human rights.

According to the settlers, the Jews have the right "to settle everywhere," and the Jews of course also have needs created by "natural growth." In their opinion, do the Arabs also have the right to settle everywhere, or is any construction by Arabs illegal for one reason or another? And don't the Arabs have "natural growth"?

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1103989.html

[Loudmxr]

1. I agree. Call me an old school Zionist in the tradition of Altneuland.

Altneuland - "Tel Aviv" in Hebrew, is Theodor Herzl's novel of the Zionist utopia he wished to create in the land of Israel. In Altneuland, Herzl describes a modern, social-democratic pluralistic Jewish state in which Arabs and Jews have equal rights, and racist jingoistic sentiments are unpopular.

The Palestinians are Semites that is why the other Arabs don't like them either.:smoke:

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Imagine if Christian militias started building colonies in Canada and

claiming U.S. sovereignty. And you couldn't stop them.

[henank]

3. No comparison.

The Jews have a millenia-long connection to Israel which Christians do not have to Canada.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

4. Pernicious nonsense.

There have been a small number of Jews in Israel for a long time, but most Jews have no ancestral connection with Israel for centuries if not millenia. The Jewish colonisation of Palestine was *not* a return.

Modern Israel is a 19th and 20th century colonial project, *not* the recreation of Biblical Israel - sharing a name and a predominant ethnicity does not make one state the heir to the other. The fact that most Jews try to deny this, and hence justify the unjustifiable, is one of the primary sources of the Middle East conflict.

The native people of Palestine (including Israel) are nearly all Palestinians (although the converse is not true). Virtually all Jews are modern immigrants with no meaningful ancestral connection to Israel in the past two millenia.



"Oh, that's what you meant. You are mistaken. I have no connection with Palestine. I have never been there. It does not interest me. My ancestors left it eighteen hundred years ago. What should I seek there? I think that only anti-Semites can call Palestine our fatherland." - Dr. Friedrich Loewenberg, the hero of Theodor Herzl's "Altneuland".

[henank]

6. You have no idea of Jewish history

-but most Jews have no ancestral connection with Israel for centuries
The fact that they were not physically there does not mean that it was not their country.

Modern Israel is a 19th and 20th century colonial project, *not* the recreation of Biblical Israel
No one claims it is a recreation of Biblical Israel. It is the creation of a Jewish homeland. If it is not a homeland for the Jews, whose homeland is it? And if it is the homeland of the Jews, why are Jews not allowed to live there?

the native people of Palestine (including Israel) are nearly all Palestinians
Nonsense. The Palestinians didn't discover Israel until the Jews moved there.

Read Mark Twain's description of Israel or Palestine as it was then called, and find me the native Palestinians.

desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds-a silent mournful expanse....A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action....We never saw a human being on the whole route....There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of the worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.”

In fact, until 1948, the only people who were called Palestinians were Jews living in Israel, which until Independence was called Palestine. I personally know people with Palestinian ID cards and passports from the 40s. And they are Jews.

[Sezu]

10. Indeed

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/132671

"US Pres. Obama’s demand that Israel not settle Jews in the Biblical areas of Judea and Samaria ignores thoroughly-documented Jewish roots in the Land of Israel, and in Judea/Samaria in particular.

Yoram Ettinger, a former liaison for Congressional affairs in Israel's Washington embassy, lists in the latest of his periodic position papers some of the evidence showing that Judea and Samaria has Jewish, not Arab, roots.

Area Always Known as "Judea and Samaria"
Ettinger negates Obama's claim – enunciated during his June 4, 2009 speech at Cairo University – that "the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in" the Holocaust. For one thing, Ettinger notes, many world-renowned travelers, historians and archeologists of earlier centuries refer to "Judea and Samaria," while the term "West Bank" was coined only 60 years ago. Jordan gave the region this name when it occupied it after Israel’s War of Independence. No nation on earth other than Britain and Pakistan recognized Jordan’s claim to Judea and Samaria.

Among the travelers, historians and archeologists who referred to Judea and Samaria are H. B. Tristram (The Land of Israel, 1865); Mark Twain (Innocents Abroad, 1867); R.A. MacAlister and Masterman ("Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly"); A.P. Stanley (Sinai and Palestine, 1887); E. Robinson and E. Smith (Biblical Researches in Palestine, 1841); C.W. Van de Velde (Peise durch Syrien und Paletsinea, 1861); and Felix Bovet (Voyage en Taire Sainte, 1864). Even the Encyclopedia Britannica, as well as official British and Ottoman records until 1950, used the term Judea and Samaria, and not the West Bank.

Land Was Named "Palestine" in Order to Erase Jewish Presence
Ettinger goes even further back, and says that the name "Palestine" was given to the Holy Land for the sole purpose of erasing the previous name of the country – Judea – from human memory. The Romans, whose plan this was, similarly sought to extinguish Jewish presence in Jerusalem by renaming it Aelia Capitolina.

Arabs Came in the Last 150 Years
When speaking of “Palestinian national rights,” it must be similarly kept in mind, Ettinger notes, that most Arabs residing today in Israel – anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean - have their origin in a massive 19th-20th century migration from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and other Moslem countries.

Town Names Betray Their True History
Finally, Ettinger says that almost all Arab localities in Judea and Samaria have retained Biblical Jewish names, thus reaffirming their Jewish roots. Examples include the following:

Anata is Biblical (and contemporary) Anatot, the dwelling of the Prophet Jeremiah.
Batir is Biblical (and contemporary) Beitar, the headquarters of Bar Kochba, the leader of the Great Rebellion against the Roman Empire, which was suppressed in 135CE.
Beit-Hur is the biblical (and contemporary) Beit Horon, site of Judah the Maccabee's victory over the Assyrians.
Beitin is biblical (and contemporary) Beit El, a site of the Holy Ark and Prophet Samuel's court.
Bethlehem is mentioned 44 times in the Bible and is the birth place of King David.
Beit Jalla is biblical (and contemporary) Gilo, in southern Jerusalem, where Sennacherib set his camp, while besieging Jerusalem.
El-Jib is biblical (and contemporary) Gibeon, Joshua's battleground known for his command to stop the sun and moon (Joshua 10:12).
Jaba' is the biblical (and contemporary) Geva, site of King Saul’s son Jonathan’s victory over the Philistines.
Jenin is the biblical (and contemporary) Ein Ganim, a Levite town within the tribe of Issachar.
Mukhmas is biblical (and contemporary) Mikhmash, residence of Jonathan the Maccabee and site of King Saul's fortress.
Seilun is biblical (and contemporary) Shilo, a site of Joshua's tabernacle and the Holy Ark and Samuel's youth.
Tequa is biblical (and contemporary) Tekoa, hometown of the Prophet Amos.
Arabs Never Wanted Palestinian State
In another of his posts, Ettinger has negated the US government position that a Palestinian state is the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict and that its formation would resolve the situation. He cites proofs from recent history showing that Arab antipathy to Israel not only predates Palestinian concerns, but often sidesteps such interests.

Israel's war for its independence in 1948-9, for instance, was conducted by the Arab countries at the expense of Palestinian aspirations. Though Egypt conquered Gaza, and Jordan took Judea and Samaria, and Syria claimed the Golan, in none of these areas was a Palestinian government allowed.

When Egypt conquered the Gaza Strip, it proceeded to prohibit Palestinian national activities and expel Palestinian leadership. Not only did Jordan not grant Palestinian independence to Judea and Samaria, it actually annexed these areas to its own country. When Syria occupied and annexed the Hama area in the Golan Heights, the Arab League outlawed a provisional Palestinian government there.

In short, it can be concluded that Arab "rights" to a state in Judea and Samaria are historically weak and were long ignored by other Arab countries."

[stranger81]

12. so now we're back to "g*d gave Judea & Samaria to the Jews"?

Hey, I have a magic book at home that says god gave me the state of Arkansas. I expect everyone to be gone by daybreak.

[IndianaGreen]

14. This is the same fraking GAWD that didn't do shit during the Holocaust

What a moron!

[Sezu]

16. Perhaps you and Indiana could point out where GOD

is mentioned in that post.

[Violet_Crumble]

22. It was full of religious claptrap. Don't need to mention god to know it was about biblical crap n/t

[Sezu]

25. Could you be more specific? Or would that

be violating some claptrap law of YOURS?

[Violet_Crumble]

28. There's no need for a degree in rocket science to spot the biblical references...

Try reading before you copy and paste in future. It'll do you wonders :)

[varelse]

17. Citing the bible as history is a big leap of faith

:P

[ConsAreLiars]

18. Those who supported the racist regime of South Africa made the same claim,

that the land was empty when the settlers arrived, using equally crappy "evidence" or, for the more honest among them, just re-stating the same lie without claiming to have evidence.

The last several chapters of the Twain book are filled with his tales about encounters with people of all backgrounds and religions during his trip to Palestine. Mocking them all for their delusions.

The book is online several places if you (chuckle) might ever want to fact check your claims.

(edit very tiny typo)

[Violet_Crumble]

21. Yr talking some sort of Jewish supremacy and ultranationalism, not Jewish history...

C'mon, trotting out Mark Twain to try to negate the Palestinians claims to the West Bank? That's pathetic. That stuff was written as a travelogue way back in the dim darkies when Europeans saw anything that wasn't exactly what they had as being backwards and needing European cultivating. Twain was similarly disdainful of Greece. While he was a great novelist, taking his words about a place he visited as proving anything is exactly the same as taking what Charles Darwin wrote about Australia and Aboriginals as being pertinent to anything now. They were both people from a time where racism and a lack of understanding of other cultures was prevalent....

Also, that's not true at all about only Jews being called Palestinians. Everyone living there was known as a Palestinian, not just Jews....

[FarrenH]

5. Valid comparison

The "millenia-long connection" so frequently harped upon is in reality-constituted by a small Jewish population equivalent to some minority in Canada. Those communities don't magically transform masses of foreign-born Jews into natives with a long-standing claim.

And religious semi-mythology only that only partly corresponds with archeological findings about ancient states doesn't cut it. By that kind of specious reasoning, Norwegians would have the same kind of claim to parts of Canada.

[Sezu]

7. But of course by now, millions of Jews of all

colour have been born in Israel; it IS their birthplace and no amount of rhetoric about what WAS will change that. And what they want to do with and in their state is THEIR business.

BTW, you DON"T see Jews claiming parts of any other country do you? That makes your points equally specious.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

8. Even if that were true, what they do outside their state is not just "their business".

And right now, Israel controls a great deal of land outside its own borders.

No-one is suggesting that Israel be required to freeze construction in Israel, only outside it.

[Sezu]

9. You assume borders have been defined.

They haven't except in wishful thinking land.

[stranger81]

11. Just because Israel refuses to accept those borders

and constantly wants more and more land, doesn't mean the borders haven't been defined. It only means Israel feels privileged to ignore them.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

15. Yes, they have been defined; Israel just hopes to get that ignored.

Come to that, if Israel *didn't* have defined borders, it wouldn't be able to say "this is inside our borders so it's our business".

[Dick Dastardly]

26. No, they are not fully defined. The so called borders are merely armistice lines from 1948

If your saying armistice or cease fire lines are acceptable means to determine borders then why cant 56,67 or one of the other conflicts lines be acceptable also? I dont advocate that but just throw that out as comprable to what you are saying.
Final borders are subject to negotiation per such things as UNSC Res 242 and supported by many legal principles in international law. I dont advocate Israel keeping all of the WB and Gaza but some territorial adjustments subject to negotiation is within their rights


Here is some info for you. The links have much more


•Successive British Foreign Secretaries, Michael Stewart, in November 17, 1969, and George Brown, on January 19, 1970, both confirmed to Parliament that intentional omission of the words “all the” from the Resolution and implies that Israel is not required to retreat to the boundaries in effect before 1967, namely the Armistice lines determined in 1948 - and that territorial adjustments have to be made.

•Lord Caradon himself admitted to the same position:

“Withdrawal should take place to boundaries which are both secure and recognized….. It was not for us to lay down exactly where the border should be. I know the 1967 border very well. It is not a satisfactory border. It is where troops had to stop, just where they happened to be that night. That is not a permanent boundary.” (Lord Caradon Interview Kol Yisrael February 1973 <3>


Resolution 242 Does Not Designate The Territories as Arab or Palestinian

Resolution 242 makes no reference whatsoever to “Palestine” or to any “Palestinian” jurisdiction

http://www.sixdaywar.co.uk/6_day_war_aftermath_prof_UN_Resolution_242_pt6.htm



Stephen Schwebel, formerly a Judge at the International Court of Justice outlined in What Weight to Conquest


"As a general principle of international law,..it is correct to say that there shall be no weight to conquest, that the acquisition of territory by war is inadmissible. But that principle must be read ….together with other general principles,… that no legal right shall spring from a wrong, and the Charter principle that the Members of the United Nations shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State."

So read, the distinctions between

•aggressive conquest and defensive conquest,

•between the taking of territory legally held and the taking of territory illegally held,


In contrasting conquest arising from defensive action from that of conquest by aggression, Judge Schwebel points out the implications and conclusions to be drawn:

Those distinctions may be summarized as follows: (a) a State acting in lawful exercise of its right of self-defence may seize and occupy foreign territory as long as such seizure and occupation are necessary to its self ­defence; (b) as a condition of its withdrawal from such territory, that State may require the institution of security measures reasonably designed to ensure that that territory shall not again be used to mount a threat or use of force against it of such a nature as to justify exercise of self-defence; (c) where the prior holder of territory had seized that territory unlawfully, the State which subsequently takes that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defence has, against that prior holder, better title.


Defensive Conquest Gives Better Title than Conquest by Aggression

Inasmuch as Israeli action in 1967 was defensive and the 1948 aggressive Arab action was inadequate to legalize Egyptian and Jordanian taking of Palestinian territory, in Judge Schwebel’s opinion, Israel has better title in the territory of what was Palestine, including the whole of Jerusalem, than do Jordan and Egypt. It therefore follows that the application of the Rogers’ doctrine of “according no weight to conquest” requires to be modified.

“t follows that modifications of the 1949 armistice lines among those States within former Palestinian territory are lawful (if not necessarily desirable), whether those modifications are, in Secretary Rogers's words, "insubstantial alterations required for mutual security" or more substantial alterations - such as recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the whole of Jerusalem.”

The state of the law has been correctly summarized by Elihu Lauterpacht, as follows:

"erritorial change cannot properly take place as a result of the unlawful use of force. But to omit the word "unlawful" is to change the substantive content of the rule and to turn an important safeguard of legal principle into an aggressor's charter. For if force can never be used to effect lawful territory change, then, if territory has once changed hands as a result of the unlawful use of force, the illegitimacy of the position thus established is sterilized by the prohibition upon the use of force to restore the lawful sovereign. This cannot be regarded as reasonable or correct." (Elihu Lauterpacht, Jerusalem and the Holy Places, Anglo-Israel Association, Pamphlet No. 19 (1968), p. 52. cited in Schwebel)

more
http://www.sixdaywar.co.uk/6_day_war_aftermath_conquest_7.htm



Res 242 The Drafters Clarify Its Meaning


Lord Caradon (Hugh M. Foot) was the permanent representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations, 1964-1970, and chief drafter of Resolution 242.

• Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, pg. 13, qtd. in Egypt’s Struggle for Peace: Continuity and Change, 1967-1977, Yoram Meital, pg. 49:

Much play has been made of the fact that we didn’t say “the” territories or “all the” territories. But that was deliberate. I myself knew very well the 1967 boundaries and if we had put in the “the” or “all the” that could only have meant that we wished to see the 1967 boundaries perpetuated in the form of a permanent frontier. This I was certainly not prepared to recommend.

• Journal of Palestine Studies, “An Interview with Lord Caradon,” Spring - Summer 1976, pgs 144-45:

Q. The basis for any settlement will be United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, of which you were the architect. Would you say there is a contradiction between the part of the resolution that stresses the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and that which calls for Israeli withdrawal from “occupied territories,” but not from “the occupied territories”?

A. I defend the resolution as it stands. What it states, as you know, is first the general principle of inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war. That means that you can’t justify holding onto territory merely because you conquered it. We could have said: well, you go back to the 1967 line. But I know the 1967 line, and it’s a rotten line. You couldn’t have a worse line for a permanent international boundary. It’s where the troops happened to be on a certain night in 1948. It’s got no relation to the needs of the situation.

Had we said that you must go back to the 1967 line, which would have resulted if we had specified a retreat from all the occupied territories, we would have been wrong. In New York, what did we know about Tayyibe and Qalqilya? If we had attempted in New York to draw a new line, we would have been rather vague. So what we stated was the principle that you couldn’t hold territory because you conquered it, therefore there must be a withdrawal to – let’s read the words carefully – “secure and recognized boundaries.” The can only be secure if they are recognized. The boundaries have to be agreed; it’s only when you get agreement that you get security. I think that now people begin to realize what we had in mind – that security doesn’t come from arms, it doesn’t come from territory, it doesn’t come from geography, it doesn’t come from one side domination the other, it can only come from agreement and mutual respect and understanding.

Therefore, what we did, I think, was right; what the resolution said was right and I would stand by it. It needs to be added to now, of course. ... We didn’t attempt to deal with then, but merely to state the general principles of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war. We meant that the occupied territories could not be held merely because they were occupied, but we deliberately did not say that the old line, where the troops happened to be on that particular night many years ago, was an ideal demarcation line.

• MacNeil/Lehrer Report, March 30, 1978:

We didn't say there should be a withdrawal to the '67 line; we did not put the “the” in, we did not say “all the territories” deliberately. We all knew that the boundaries of '67 were not drawn as permanent frontiers, they were a cease-fire line of a couple of decades earlier... . We did not say that the '67 boundaries must be forever.

• Daily Star (Beirut), June 12, 1974. Qtd. in Myths and Facts, Leonard J. Davis, pg. 48:

It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of 4 June 1967 because those positions were undesirable and artificial. After all, they were just the places the soldiers of each side happened to be the day the fighting stopped in 1948. They were just armistice lines. That's why we didn't demand that the Israelis return to them and I think we were right not to ...


Eugene Rostow, a legal scholar and former dean of Yale Law School, was US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, 1966-1969. He helped draft Resolution 242.


• Jerusalem Post, “The truth about 242,” Nov. 5, 1990:

Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 ... rest on two principles, Israel may administer the territory until its Arab neighbors make peace; and when peace is made, Israel should withdraw to “secure and recognized borders,” which need not be the same as the Armistice Demarcation Lines of 1949. ...

The omission of the word “the” from the territorial clause of the Resolution was one of its most hotly-debated and fundamental features. The U.S., Great Britain, the Netherlands, and many other countries worked hard for five and a half months in 1967 to keep the word “the” and the idea it represents out of the resolution. Motions to require the withdrawal of Israel from “the” territories or “all the territories” occupied in the course of the Six Day War were put forward many times with great linguistic ingenuity. They were all defeated both in the General Assembly and in the Security Council. ...

Those who claim that Resolution 242 is ambiguous on the point are either ignorant of the history of its negotiation or simply taking a convenient tactical position.


The New York Times, “Don’t strong-arm Israel,” Feb. 19, 1991:

Security Council Resolution 242, approved after the 1967 war, stipulates not only that Israel and its neighboring states should make peace with each other but should establish “a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.” Until that condition is met, Israel is entitled to administer the territories it captured – the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip – and then withdraw from some but not necessarily all of the land to “secure and recognized boundaries free of threats or acts of force.”

• The Wall Street Journal, “Peace still depends on the two Palestines,” April 27, 1988:

... Resolution 242 establishes three principles about the territorial aspect of the peace-making process:

1) Israel can occupy and administer the territories it occupied during the Six-Day War until the Arabs make peace.
2) When peace agreements are reached, they should delineate “secure and recognized” boundaries to which Israel would withdraw.
3) Those boundaries could differ from the Armistice Demarcation Lines of 1949.


plenty more
http://www.sixdaywar.org/content/242drafters.asp

[IndianaGreen]

13. Historical bullshit!

Most Jews lived in the Diaspora, particularly in ancient times, simply because Israel's kings were cruel and vicious and the priesthood was parasitic and corrupt.

Egypt was a better place to live than in the Kingdoms of Judea or Israel.

BTW, many of today's Palestinians were Jews forced to convert centuries ago. Their claim to the land is stronger than that of those Eastern European squatters.

[Kurska]

19. In regard to claims to the land I have a specific question for you Indiana.

Who do you think has a stronger claim to the land? A descendant of Eastern European Jews Born In Israel, or a palestinian born in jordan who has never been to Israel?

[Violet_Crumble]

23. Isn't that a bit of a loaded question?

It'd be fairer if it was worded this way: 'Who do you think has a stronger claim to the land? A jew living in Eastern Europe who has never been to israel, or a Palestinian born in Jordan who has never been to israel?'

[Kurska]

24. I wanted to compare the specific cases, it being of course hard to call someone a sqauter on Arab

land when that person was born on that land and the arab in question wasn't.

The "Jew in Eastern Europe" anology is basicly pointless though, there are barely any jews left in Eastern Europe, if you don't include Russia the number is a little over 100,000, where there are millions of Arabs in Jordan born outside of Israel who wish to "return" to Israel.

If Israel hits the 100th birthday mark and almost every single Palestinian outside of Israel who wishes to "Return" was born on land that isn't modern Israel, I wonder if people will still be calling native Jews squatters.

[Violet_Crumble]

27. I just wanted to point out it's a loaded question, that's all...

I mean, I could construct specific cases that aren't particularly fair, or favour one answer over another, but I don't really see the point...

Also, I'm not particularly interested in going off on tangents and arguing over the population numbers in Eastern Europe when that clearly wasn't the point I was trying to make...

[Violet_Crumble]

20. The West Bank isn't part of Israel....

The poster you were replying to was referring to the settlements in the West Bank, which is obviously not part of Israel, though extremist lunatics try to make out otherwise...