Monday
12Jan2009
A Gaza Sitrep
Monday, January 12, 2009 at 07:03PM THE United Nations' Human Rights Council has voted to condemn Israel's actions in Gaza against Hamas terrorists. This follows a weekend when dozens of rockets were fired into Israel, destroying a home and hitting a school playground.
The UNHRC resolution urges an end to the rocket attacks but mentions neither Hamas nor violations against Israeli civilians. Truly, you could not make it up.
In other news, the Israeli Air Force has Hamas terrorists in its sights, launches missiles to make the world a little bit better ... and guides the missiles away when the terrorists take refuge among civilians -
in Israel
Israel 
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Reader Comments (48)
THE United Nations' Human Rights Council
Snort! The same people that tried to outlaw criticism of Islam in response to concerns raised over stoning women to death in the Middle East. They got all sniffy and tried to make voicing such concerns some kind of religious hate speech. They really can F.O.
I have long been a supporter of Israel, but their disgusting actions of the last few weeks have disaponted me greatly.
The targeting of schools, civilians and ambulances is NEVER acceptable, even if there are Hamas fighters among them.
The way the Isreaelis have treated Gaxa over the last number of years has been horrifying, and Palestinians have not. yet, been compensated for being kicked off their land.
This should be the final straw. Israel have brought shame onto its heritage and people.
Any bad words for Hamas and their actions?
Who says that they have "targeted" civilians, ambulances, etc other than the usual suspects?
Guba -
You sound like a passionate supporter of Israel. What anguish your conversion must have been.
The targeting of schools, civilians and ambulances is NEVER acceptable, even if there are Hamas fighters among them.
Seem that IAF pilots agree.
It goes without saying that Hamas's actions are wrong. Do you think that Israel and Hamas are comparable organisations?
These rockets killed no-one in Israel until the invasion of Gaza. They should have dealt with this in a different way, using intelligence, and their vastly superior technology.
Pete, i cheerlead for nobody. I will say when i believe Israel/Hamas are right and wrong. You appear to take to politics like louts take to soccer teams, picking a side and cheerleading for it incessantly. Pete, i have news for you. Politics is more complicated than that; maybe too complicated for you
Even Orwell could not have imagined the UN Human Rights Council. And if he had, it would have been dismissed as too ridiculous.
Stirring words, Guba. Very well said!
Guba -
It goes without saying that Hamas's actions are wrong.
Is that why it goes unsaid among so many?
These rockets killed no-one in Israel until the invasion of Gaza.
Untrue. Israeli civilians have been killed in the past. That Hamas didn't often have cause to celebrate Jewish deaths from their thousands of rockets is down to Israeli early warning systems, many bunkers and luck.
I will say when i believe Israel/Hamas are right and wrong.
Is that why you criticise Israel under a video showing aborted IAF attacks due to the presence of civilians?
Come on Guba, up your game sunshine.
"These rockets killed no-one in Israel until the invasion of Gaza."
Well, yes they did. And the reason they didn't is due to their inefficiency and the israelis use of extensive bomb shelters to avoid taking casualties. When you've spent a few months making a dash to a shelter on a daily basis you can pontificate about targeting civilians.
'Is that why it goes unsaid among so many?'
Probably.
Pete, let me explain. Hamas are wrong to fire rockets into Israel, as they are wrong to send suicide bombers into Israel.
Israel is also wrong for treating the Palestinians as they do. Gaza is simply too small to accomadate all these people. Israel should not have been blocking Gaza's borders and stealing its water.
When the Israeli state was created, these palestinians were removed from their homes. It is and was Israels responsibility to ensure that the Palestinians were recompensed for this. They have not, therfore, it is not surprising that a few rockets are being shot at Israel.
The proper response would be as follows: Offering the palestinians what they deserve, compensation, investment, and maybe more land. Some palestinians may continue to fire rockets, but Israel should continue in helping the palestinian people, offer forgiveness and understanding.
Hardline Palestinians would get really angry and may even send in suicide bombers knowing that the grievances that propagated their power are subsiding. Israel should not relent. Eventually, with a proper and equal palestinian Government in place, combined, both states would be able to deal with the problem completely.
Until then, any Israeli action against Hamas should be well-tought out and planned so as not to inflame tensions with palestinians, the best way of doing this is by not killing them. Hamas cannot be defeated by war, only, by making them irelevant.
Pete, you talk with slogans and buzzwords (reminescent of football chants on the terrace), you immediately look for people to take sides, are you pro-Israel or a pro-terrorist? Are you conservative or a communist? Etc.
Pete, politics is a serious business. These things may affect you personally as much as Man Utd beating Chelsea does, but they are not the same. Politics requires rational thinking, self-criticism and the skill of objective analysis.
There is more to it than slagging off the lefties, muzzies or Obama. Question your beliefs, read differing opinions and think about issues using your greatest gift, your rationality. You may find this politics malarky very interesting indeed.
'When you've spent a few months making a dash to a shelter on a daily basis you can pontificate about targeting civilians.'
Well, no you cannot. Even if you have to run for a bomb shelter every day, that does not give me the right to shot at ambulances or civilian occupied schools/homes.
Get it? Think about it.
its taken 2 weeks and accusations of war crimes for the Israelis to present 'evidence' they 'take care' to not harm civilians. And some eejits will swallow it up.
This is the same United Nations' Human Rights Council which held Libya, North Korea and Saudi Arabia as shining examples of it's membership roll!
Did the UNHRC say that these countries had unbleamished human rights records?
Just because these countries are members does not mean that the UN believes they have perfect human rights records. The UN leaves the USA join afterall!
By having them as members, it may encourage them to improve their treatment of their citizens.
So, what is the problem with the UNHRC?
Guba -
That's better.
Now it's undeniable that Israeli forces committed atrocities and forced out some locals (not 'Palestinians') before and during 1948. But it's a much more complicated picture than that. It's so complicated it's intractable. Many simply fled, some to clear the field intending to return when the approaching Arab armies defeated the Jews.
Any position not recognising this documented history simply isn't serious.
Now you think that Israel ought to compensate them. Well its not the daftest opinion I've heard, and I'd wish the best of British to anyone given that job.
But the continuation of hostilities doesn't really turn on that. It doesn't even rest on what goes on in the minds of the psychopaths at the head of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah.
I know you'll be familiar with a map of the Middle East, but do look at it again. Even people who are familiar with it need reminding of just how tiny and embattled Israel is. It is surrounded by vastly larger and more numerous Arab states who could have long ago rescued the Palestinian from their plight.
Not only have these nations not done so they have followed policies incomparably more wicked to the Palestinians than anything Israel has done.
Jordan in September 1970 killed thousands of them. Syria in 1982 killed possibly even more, with estimates up to 30,000. Libya killed and expelled many. In 1991, in the aftermath of the Gulf War, Kuwait expelled hundreds of thousands on the basis that some Palestinians collaborated with Iraqi forces.
Yet why is special condemnation reserved only for Israel when it defends itself against clear aggression?
Further, these same nations have consciously chosen to maintain, stoke and use the misery of the Palestinian people when they could very easily alleviate it. They simply choose not to.
Yes, Israel has done many stupid and some wicked things and Palestinians have suffered. However no-one can be honest about how the Palestinians have been treated by all nations in the region (and have acted themselves) and conclude that the exceptional and unique criticism reserved only for Israel is not demented.
The solution to the hostility does not lie in Israel or Gaza or the West Bank. It lies in the capitals of those Arab nations who have always treated and continue to treat the Palestinians with contempt.
Guba:
"Pete, i have news for you. Politics is more complicated than that; maybe too complicated for you"
I tried to make the same point the other day. I used the analogy of children (which I believe is valid).
As a kid I saw the world in terms of the man in black and the guy in the white hat. I grew up. I do so wish my fellow adults would try to do the same.
There again, as we both know, the issue is political, and so many must follow the "party" line no matter what.
Sad.
Pete.
Maybe the Israelis committed atrocities in the 1940's, i don't know. It may be complicated, but the Israelis now live where the palestinians once did. If not, where did they come from? Did one and a half palestinians always live in the Gaza strip?
Compensation is an obvious neccesity. If you were kicked off your land, would recieving payment equal to its worth make be, at least, just if not an absolution of the act?
The palestinians have been treated by everyone in the middle east less than favourably. I do not doubt that they would have suffered much more if they were an annoyance to an arab state.
This is the situation: Millions of people who once lived in what is now Israel no longer live there. They no longer live there because others own their land and stop them from retaking it. They now live in less than ideal conditions. Put yourself in their situation for a mo. You would be pissed off at your arab neighbours who offer no help, you would be annoyed with your Government that is full of corruption, but who would you hate most and ultimately blame the most? Israel. Afterall, from your point of view, they stole your land.
That, therefore, is the key cause of this conflict. Hamas, rockets and this present conflict are symptoms of this uncomfortable fact. Conservatives and Israelis alike fail to see this. They ignore it, because it is just too complicated to deal with. It is easier to shout abuse and fire bullets.
If Israel is to ever be free from attack, it must attempt to placate the palestinians. That will not be easy. If you were kicked out of your home, you would hardly settle for anything but the return of your property. This is Israel's challange. Shooting at ambulances will not help in its realisation.
Irish Barry,
I agree. Communists and the modern variant of Conservatives, or as i prefer, Palinites, tend to take this black and white perspective.
Great comments here (Guba, where've you been all my life?)
>>However no-one can be honest about how the Palestinians have been treated by all nations in the region (and have acted themselves) and conclude that the exceptional and unique criticism reserved only for Israel is not demented.<<
There are several reasons for that. One is that Israel is a democrcy: the sins of its government and army become sins of its people in a way that is not so immediate in dictatorships like the Arab states.
Another is that Israel is a child of the West, and it's leaders have to be held to our, higher, standards of justice, more than some ex-camel-trader and now tyrant in an Italian suit does.
The West created Israel, not least due to the sufferings European states had inflicted on European Jews. And that's what the Jews were: Polish, German, Russian citizens, many fully affiliated and patriotic nationals of their unwilling hosts. They had as much in common with the people - even the Jews - of Palestine as I have with Catholics in New Caledonia. Their plight also had nothing to do with the Palestinians, yet it was the Palestinians who had to pay the price for the chosen remedy.
And are still paying for it today, while being branded here and elsewhere as insufferable bigots, fanatics, deserving only death or expulsion from their remaining lands.
Guba is exactly right on this. Israel took most of their land and now has the moral duty to look for a just settlement. But that's exactly what it doesn't want.
The neighbouring Arab states have long since given up any hope, or probably any wish, to destroy Israel. They would jump at the chance of a two-state solution with the West Bank going to Palestine.
It's been Israel's turn to move for a long time. But it won't, for reasons of self-interest, as long as the US gives it complete backing.
This problem will have to be solved by the West. If the US doesn't start looking for justice soon, the war there will continue, and some time soon it could get much dirtier on both sides.
The conflict is needed by several of the Arab states, it distracts from their own problems.
Guba -
Not quite.
There were many Jews in the Mandate for a long time before 1948. Many who arrived bought their land freely and openly.
Yes, I'm afraid the moral position of someone who cleared out to assist the Arab armies in their 1948 war of annihilation is somewhat inferior to whoever simply fled war.
I'm afraid that the UN sponsored Israel in 1948 and the Arabs launched that war of annihilation. They lost their war of aggression and, like all losers, they lost land.
To punish Israel now for the Arabs' own defeat in 1948 simply inverts reality and justice.
Mahons: So what? what does this have to do with the Israeli/palestinian conundrum?
Do you see how palestinians believe that their land was stolen from them? What would you do if you were kicked out of your home and sent to live in Gaza? Would you be indifferent/angry? May you even consider firing rockets at your conquerors?
Many Jews did buy land and many Arabs left willingly. The vast majority of Arabs did not leave willingly. What about them?
'They lost their war of aggression and, like all losers, they lost land.'
Pete, when Germany took over France in the 1940's, did Germany have a right to keep France due to your'losers' principle? Were the French Resistance members wrong?
If Israel took the palestinians' land, mainly through force, then surely, by your logic, the palestinians can attempt to take it back through force?
Why are you bringing the Arab invasions of Israel into this? Are you saying that if the Arabs did not invade Israel, the Jews would have left and returned the land to their previous owners?
This is about the Israeli's and the people who used to own land in Israel, no-one else.
>>Yes, I'm afraid the moral position of someone who cleared out to assist the Arab armies in their 1948 war of annihilation is somewhat inferior to whoever simply fled war.<<
Some were driven out, some simply fled war like refugees have always done, some probably fled to "assist the Arab armies".
You don't need to know much about warfare in general or that particular conflict to guess which of the above accounted for most of the displaced.
At any rate, the fact that Israel immediately made a law preventing them returning sort of gives the game away, doesn't it?
>>I'm afraid that the UN sponsored Israel in 1948 and the Arabs launched that war of annihilation. They lost their war of aggression and, like all losers, they lost land.<<
Pete, like Patty, you are getting your wars mixed up on this point (suprisingly in your case). The boundaries were redrawn after the '48 war (the 1950 boundaries, I think they are called. In which Israel got more territory than allocated it in the UN partition plan.
The land in dispute here - the occupied territories (West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza) were conquered by Israel in the 1967 war, in which Israel invaded its neighbours, not vice versa. The occupied territories are thus indeed booty from a "war of aggression", as you call it. Israel then started confiscating more Palestinian land there and creating settlements with a view to establishing a political claim to the place.
That's the cause of the conflict. As Guba says, Hamas is but one of its ugly symptoms.
>>The conflict is needed by several of the Arab states, it distracts from their own problems.<<
Then how come they are more willing to see a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders than you are?
Noel Cunningham -
The land in dispute here - the occupied territories (West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza) were conquered by Israel in the 1967 war, in which Israel invaded its neighbours, not vice versa.
Well we'll not go into the run up to 1967 war. Yes, Israel invaded their neighbours, but those neighbours would have invaded Israel at some point after anyway. If you want to discuss the period with someone, I'm afraid I can't be bothered.
Gaza - relinquished by Israel, not back to Egypt but to Palestinian control. Som much for 'returning' land. Either way, Israeli forces will again soon be out of there.
The West Bank - I told you, I'd give the settlers two years' notice to pack up. Israel's settling of the West Bank is wrong and the most stupid thing it has done. It has no business being in the West Bank and Israel needs as many Jews as it can get inside Israel.
If a Jew wants to settle in the West Bank because of what some holy book states, Israel should tell him he's on his own.
By the way, Israel seized the West Bank not from the 'Palestinians' (who never existed at the time) but from Transjordan, whose own annexation of the land was illegal. The only difference was that nobody made much of a fuss about Jordan's illegal 20 year occupation.
Strangely, East Jerusalem was on no Arab's map until Israel annexed it (illegally). You'll find no record of visits by Arab leaders, dignitories or pilgrims to the holy sites there. It was only when the Jews took it that was magicked into an affront to Palestinian and muslim pride.
This tale is vastly more complicated than the simple "Jews nicked their land" picture painted by those who, I suspect, oppose Israel's existence but pretend to argue in favour of a justice they couldn't hope to understand.
I suspect also that most of them have never heard of British Palestine, Transjordan, the Peel Commission or the San Remo accords. Discussing the matter with people who know nothing of them is pointless, to be honest.
'This tale is vastly more complicated than the simple "Jews nicked their land" picture'
Erm, not really. How is it? Especially since you make this comment:
'If a Jew wants to settle in the West Bank because of what some holy book states, Israel should tell him he's on his own.'
Why did the Jews go to Palestine, and not the Russian state in the east or Patagonia again?
The Palestinians were removed from their land against their will by people who believed that they had a right to it due to a 'holy book'. This is unfortunate, embarrassing, awkward, but ... alas ... true.
I am well aware of the creation of Trans-Jordan by the way and am sure that i know as much on this matter as you. I am also aware that Irgun and other Israeli groups were big fans of the IRA and Michael Collins.
I am not talking about the Palestinians in Jordan, only those who lived in what is now Israel; no-one else. That is the problem, not America, other Arab states, socialists, Tony Blair.
solution.
>>but those neighbours would have invaded Israel at some point after anyway. If you want to discuss the period with someone<<
Perhaps, but that's speculative, and in any case irrelevant. First, armies tend to gang up on borders when tensions rise; and gang up they did on both sides in this case (although Nasser had, curiously enough, sent off the cream of his forces to Yemen shortly beforehand. Maybe nobody had told him there was going to be a fight!). Did the big Polish army on its western border justify Hitler's attack?
The point is that it was Israel that started the shooting and started the invading. The Territories were captured in this war.
(The "Transjordan" argument is also pointless. The Palestinians had been allotted this land and Palestinians lived on it. Jordan rule was at least as popular there as British rule is in NIreland. "Palestinians" existed at this time every bit as much as Italians did at the time of Garibaldi)
But it's good to see that these debates send you off for more information, unlike some who positively wallow in ignorance of the region and its history.
I've no information on the number of Arab visits to E.Jerusalem pre '67 and suspect nobody has. The only relevance this question can have actually is to show the dearth of argument on the anti-Palestinian side. Palestinians lived there, they owned the houses and the land.
But if you believe the Palestinians should be handed over the West Bank for their own state, to prosper or fail, I have no quarrel with you. In fact, Id go further and say the new state could be made contingent on a substantial period of peace and stability elapsing beforehand.
Either way, if that were on the table, there would soon be peace. There will be war as long as it isn’t.
Goodnight.
Thank you GUBA for revealing your lack of bona fides as an alleged supporter of Israel who has only recently become disappointed.
A " concern troll "?
" A concern troll is someone who is on one side of the discussion, but pretends to be a supporter of the other side with "concerns". The idea behind this is that your opponents will take your arguments more seriously if they think you're an ally "
Thanks Phantom, if you invented the term, it is a grand one. Damning with no praise (never mind faint) would be another.
No- the term was used against me on a liberal blog ( on this stupid thread, and I had to look it up!
I love words, and learning new ones, incl clever ones like this
Phantom - LOL. Stop slumming.
I'm buddies with Lindsay Berenstein, and with a few of the almost uniformly liberal commentators over there.
Most conversations are better than that one.
What I like about this place is the extreme divergence in points of view and the not-so-rare civility among those who hold them.
Over there, I'm the only righty, but that's OK. One righty against thirty liberals are fair odds.
Onward Christian Soldier!
Bad news from the Christian front down here.
I just read that in the paper on the train. A shame.
'There were many Jews in the Mandate for a long time before 1948. Many who arrived bought their land freely and openly.'
Approx 8% of Palestine was held legally in Jewish hands, purchased by the JNF before Israel declared statehood.
'Yes, I'm afraid the moral position of someone who cleared out to assist the Arab armies in their 1948 war of annihilation is somewhat inferior to whoever simply fled war.'
The majority of Palestinian refugees were exiled by force or through fear of suffering the same fate as those of Al-Dawaymima and numerous other villages. Also the arab leagues armies entered Palestine in defence of the majority population of Palestine. The propaganda that the Arab armies invaded Palestine is null and void. The Arab states had a moral right to intervene on behalf of the Palestinians, especially when one coond=siders the massacres and ethnic cleansing taking place.
RS -
The majority of Palestinian refugees were exiled by force or through fear of suffering the same fate as those of Al-Dawaymima and numerous other villages.
Well not necessarily. There's much evidence to suggest that very many simply sent away with the intention of returning after the Jews were defeated.
Why do you talk of Palestinians? They did not exist at the time. There was no sense of Palestinian identity prior to 1967, and even that, into the 1970s, no sense fo nationhood.
RS, come on, be serious:
The Arab states had a moral right to intervene on behalf of the Palestinians, especially when one coond=siders the massacres and ethnic cleansing taking place.
What ethnic cleansing? I'm sure you're aware of Israeli Arabs, the most free of all Arabs outside of ruling cliques. Why do you use this silly language?
>>Well not necessarily. There's much evidence to suggest that very many simply sent away with the intention of returning after the Jews were defeated.<<
Why do you continue to peddle this trash?
I can give you plenty of "evidence to suggest" that the majority of refugees were of the kind RS says.
I don't believe you can give any evidence to show that any substantial portion left "with the intention of returning after the Jews were defeated.", whatever that means.
Strip away your melodrama and you could mean they left with the intention of returning after the war had ended.
If so, well done, you have just defined normal refugees, of which there were, and still are, countless numbers.
>>What ethnic cleansing? I'm sure you're aware of Israeli Arabs, <<
Their land was taken from them by duress and sectarian laws. Large areas, especially in the north and west, were subject to continued martial law and curfew during daylight hours, any farmer leaving his house would be shot. A parallel law said that any land not tilled is automatically confiscated (this was only for the Arab areas under curfew). Large tracts of land in the west and north of Israel wwere taken from Palestinians this way.
They owned the majority of land before the state was set up. Now - at just under 20% of the population - they own less than 3% of the land.
Sicne then, the Israeli government has done little to reduce institutional, legal, and social discrimination against its Arab citizens, who do not share fully the rights and benefits provided for the country’s Jewish citizens.
Noel Cunningham -
Strip away your melodrama and you could mean they left with the intention of returning after the war had ended.
But they didn't. Sorry old son, but you again ignore inconvenient facts. I expect it of the usual fools, but it's aggravating from you. Yes, many Arabs fled fully intending to return after the Jews had been wiped out. It's documented and recorded.
Well, their luck was out. The only refugees flooding into Israel after were the 600,000 Jews expelled from Arab nations.
Since you're so keen over to talk of reparations, we'll have that one on the table too. You'll agree that 600,000 Jews and their descendents ought to be compensated - yes?
And we'll have none of this piffle from you lot about a few Jews booting out 'Palestinians' who were actually Jordanian.
1.2 million Jews lived in what became Israel against 800,000 Arabs. They were 'hemmed in' there because Jews were legally barred from settling in the rest of Transjordan - all tens of thousands of square miles of it.
Yeah, we can talk about justice and compensation alright, but we'll be going back a long way and you'll have to get used to some discomforting truths.
By the way, Noel Cunningham, there's a video at the top showing the IAF aborting already launched missiles because of the presence of civilians.
At least have the grace to acknowledge these acts.
I propose a motion condemning the smurfs for the rape, drug dealing and pimping they get up to in vulnerable third world countries.
'Well not necessarily.'
If we were debating theological matters or philosophy that turn of phrase might fit. But when discussing historical fact, one can only wonder why you would choose to use that kind of phrase.
'There's much evidence to suggest that very many simply sent away with the intention of returning after the Jews were defeated.'
Well considering independent study has shown there to be no such orders from the Arab league. And coupled with the fact the zionists were ethnically cleansing large swathes massacring many civilians, I'll go with the facts. One also wonders why you choose to use the term 'jews'? Would zionists or Israelis no be more apt considering the majority of Jews in the world had nothing to do with the atrocities of 1948. Anyone would think you're trying to paint the palestinians as anti-semitic. I know you're better than that Pete.
'Why do you talk of Palestinians? They did not exist at the time. There was no sense of Palestinian identity prior to 1967, and even that, into the 1970s, no sense fo nationhood.'
I would direct you to the thread last week where Patty was shown the error of such thinking and how old the term Palestine etc is. Oh and you seem to think like her that because a people had no central govt system they do not deserve to ever be independent or free from colonialism. So your against the existence of the irish free state and numerous other post-colonial countries as well. Furthermore you don't seem to be aware that Palestine was designated as a class 'A' mandate, which means it was closet to becoming a fully fledged nation prior to the Nakba. In contrast South-west Africa was designated a class 'C' mandate.
'What ethnic cleansing?'
Ok Pete what would you call the systematic removal of civilians who do not fit the racial/religious make-up you designate for your new country? What would you call the murder of civilians who do not fit the bill. What would you call the confiscation of the land of people you exiled and who fled from you for fear of being murdered? If the above is not ethnic cleansing please give me yours. (Nevermind the fact many Zionists have admitted the above took place, but Pete knows best eh?)
'Their land was taken from them by duress and sectarian laws.'
Indeed Noel,
'All land was confiscated from those Palestine Arabs who were refugees beyond the 1949 armistice lines. Of the land belonging to Arabs who remained, 65% was confiscated by the mid 1950s. The value of land taken from the Palestine Arabs was estimated at 100million palestinian pounds. It included stone quarries, 10,000 acres of vineyards, 25,000 acres of citrus goves, 10,000 business establishments, 95% of what became Israel's olive groves and 30,000 apartments.'
'The Knesset in 1949 enacted the Emergency Land Requisition (Regulation) Law, which authorized expropriation "for the defense of the State, public security, the maintenance of essential of essential supplies or essential public services, the abosorption of immigrants or the re-habilitation of ex-soldiers or war-invalids". Another 1949 law permitted the minister of agriculture to take control of "waste" (uncultivated) land. the land of arab refugees could be seized as "waste" land.
The Absentees' Property Law, adopted in 1950, permitted confiscation of the land of a person deemed an "absentee". It defined "absentee" to include any Palestinian who in 1948 left the land to go either to another state or to an area of Palestine held by the Arab League forces. The original draft of the Absentees' Property Law would have defined as absentees' only those who remained outside the 1949 armistice lines, but as enacted it not only meant that absent external refugees but internal refugees and returning external refugees were deemed "absentees". Forbidden to return to their homes even though they were living in Israel, they were referred to as "present absentees".
"The government confiscated water pumps in abandoned Arab orange groves and gave them to jewish farmers. Members of kibbutzim and moshavim in the Galilee took over flocks of cattle and sheep left by departing Arab. The government confiscated over 85% of the land of the Bedouin Palestinians of the Negev Desert and concentrated the remaining Bedouins into small, largely uncultivable areas. If an animal wandered off, a Bedouin might need a permit to look for it - a permit obtainable only by travelling to a military official a considerable distance away.'
'The government continued in later years to confiscate Arab agricultural land on a peicemeal basis. In the Negev the government confiscated the land of 8000 farmers in 1980 to construct a military airbase to replace evacuated fields in the Sinai Peninsula'
'According to a Jewish Agency report on the Galilee, the fact that the population there was 70% arab posed "a major threat to the character of the area as part of the Jewish state, to jewish control thereof, and even to Israeli sovereignty over it." The report called for more jewish settlements as "mini-lookouts".
(The Case For Palestine - An International Law Perspective by John Quigley)
Mahons:
I am a supporter of Israel's right to exist. They, though, have a responsibility to ensure that the people who's land they took are compensated. It is pretty simple really. One must face the REALITY of the situation, something which most everyone discussing the situation conveniantly ignores.
Should Israel have been created in the way it was? No.
But, alas, it was and exists. The only real option now is a two state solution. It is, however, Israels responsibility to placate the palestinians. How? Well i dunno; fortunately for me, it is not my job.
Pete:
What do the 600,000 Jews who were kicked out of Muslim countries got to do with the land once owned by palestinians and now owned by Israel?
Take that matter up with the Arab states, it has nothing to do with this matter.
Noel, i'd recommend 'The Case For Palestine - An International Law Perspective'.
Very informative, much more accessible than Hollow Land (if you've read it)