Interloper wrote:That, in and of itself, is the chief reason why Israel’s survival is critical to the Jewish people.
Conditions for a 10 year truce with Israel
1. Withdrawal of Israeli tanks from the Gaza border.
2. Freeing all the prisoners that were arrested after the killing of the three youths.
3. Lifting the siege and opening the border crossings to commerce and people.
4. Establishing an international seaport and airport which would be under U.N. supervision.
5. Increasing the permitted fishing zone to 10 kilometers.
6. Internationalizing the Rafah Crossing and placing it under the supervision of the U.N. and some Arab nations.
7. International forces on the borders.
8. Easing conditions for permits to pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque.
9. Prohibition on Israeli interference in the reconciliation agreement.
10. Reestablishing an industrial zone and improvements in further economic development in the Gaza Strip.
I recognize Israel and it [the new government] will recognize Israel
…
I reject violence and terrorism and the government will also reject violence and terrorism, and I recognize international legality and international commitments and the government will be committed to what I am committed to.
President Abbas emphasized that these commitments include recognition of Israel, nonviolence and adherence to previous agreements. [The UN continues to support Palestinian unity] on this basis as the only way to reunite the West Bank and Gaza under one legitimate Palestinian Authority.
Israel has as much to fear from a Palestinian state as the Soviet Union does from Luxembourg.
Well, one has to realize—you know, one has to know some simple technical facts. First of all, most artillery rockets are carrying warheads in the 10-to-20-pound range. So if you’re sitting in a room and the rocket comes through the roof and explodes in the room, it will kill you, and it will kill everybody else in the room. If you have 10 seconds or 20 seconds of warning and you go into the shelter that’s, by law, built in your home, and the rocket happens to hit your home, you won’t be killed. It can even hit the shelter, and you won’t be killed. So, sheltering and early warning are extremely critical to keeping the death toll down. Now, the odds of an artillery rocket going through the roof and into your room are very low. They’re high enough that if I were in Israel, I would advise you, and I would do so myself: I would take shelter, because there’s—you know, the inconvenience is small relative to being killed or injured. But most of these rockets are landing in open areas, landing between buildings, landing outside buildings. And the real danger is that this relatively low-lethality warhead lands within 10 or 20 feet of you.
Now, if you just lie on the ground—let’s say you’re caught in the open, and you can’t go to a shelter—the Israeli government itself will tell you that your chances of being a casualty from a falling artillery rocket are reduced by 80 percent—80 percent—if you simply lie on the ground. And the reason for that is the lethal range of these low-weight warheads is not very large, and they are blowing fragments out sort of like a shotgun, and if you get close to the ground, unless you’re very unlucky and the thing lands on you or lands very close to you, you’re not going to be injured by the explosion. So, although these artillery rockets are fantastically disruptive, with regard to the functioning of Israeli society—and I think that that is true, and because of that, there’s a psychological and political leverage associated with these artillery rocket attacks—they are not killing people, as long as people are taking shelter and sheltering is available.
SIEGEL: By way of contrast, when the Israeli Air Force strikes at targets in Gaza, is the weaponry substantially more accurate than these rockets?
POSTOL: When you're talking about an airstrike from an aircraft, especially with the very, very highly trained pilots Israelis have and, of course, the very advanced equipment that they're using, you're talking about precisions of tens of meters - very, very high precision.
SIEGEL: On the other hand, tens of meters in, let's say a dense place like Gaza City - that could be three houses away.
POSTOL: You're going to kill a lot of innocent people.
Neither Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can disqualify terrorism as a means of combat.
We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.
3. Attacks by Israeli forces on government buildings and persons of the Gaza authorities, including police
Mission finds that the attacks on these buildings constituted deliberate attacks on civilian objects in violation of the rule of customary international humanitarian law
…
These facts further indicate the commission of the grave breach of extensive destruction of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.
5. Obligation on Israel to take feasible precautions to protect the civilian population and civilian objects in Gaza
The Mission concludes that the Israeli armed forces violated the requirement under customary international law to take all feasible precautions in the choice of means and method of attack with a view to avoiding and in any event minimizing incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.
6. Indiscriminate attacks by Israeli forces resulting in the loss of life and injury to civilians
The Mission thus considers the attack to have been indiscriminate, in violation of international law, and to have violated the right to life of the Palestinian civilians killed in these incidents.
7. Deliberate attacks against the civilian population
The Mission further examined an incident in which a mosque was targeted with a missile during early evening prayers, resulting in the death of 15 people, and an attack with flechette munitions on a crowd of family and neighbours at a condolence tent, killing five. The Mission finds that both attacks constitute intentional attacks against the civilian population and civilian objects.
From the facts ascertained in all the above cases, the Mission finds that the conduct of the Israeli armed forces constitutes grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention in respect of wilful killings and wilfully causing great suffering to protected persons and, as such, give rise to individual criminal responsibility. It also finds that the direct targeting and arbitrary killing of Palestinian civilians is a violation of the right to life.
9. Attacks on the foundations of civilian life in Gaza: destruction of industrial infrastructure, food production, water installations, sewage treatment plants and housing
The Mission also finds that the destruction of the mill was carried out to deny sustenance to the civilian population, which is a violation of customary international law and may constitute a war crime.
10. The use of Palestinian civilians as human shields
The Palestinian men used as human shields were questioned under threat of death or injury to extract information about Hamas, Palestinian combatants and tunnels. This constitutes a further violation of international humanitarian law.
11. Deprivation of liberty: Gazans detained during the Israeli military operations of 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009
…continuous and systematic abuse, outrages on personal dignity, humiliating and degrading treatment contrary to fundamental principles of international humanitarian law and human rights law. The Mission concludes that this treatment constitutes the infliction of a collective penalty on these civilians and amounts to measures of intimidation and terror. Such acts are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and constitute a war crime.
12. Objectives and strategy of Israel’s military operations in Gaza
Statements by Israeli political and military leaders prior to and during the military operations in Gaza indicate that the Israeli military conception of what was necessary in a war with Hamas viewed disproportionate destruction and creating maximum disruption in the lives of many people as a legitimate means to achieve not only military but also political goals. [The definition of terrorism].
13. The impact of the military operations and of the blockade on the people of Gaza and their human rights
Even before the military operations, 80% of the water supplied in Gaza did not meet the World Health Organization’s standards for drinking water.
Interloper wrote:Jews settled in Europe not out of choice, but because they were kicked from land to land and settled wherever they could find a modicum of tolerance. Like the Roma and Sinti, they became a stateless people, and as such were constantly persecuted. The underlying theme of existence became the hope of returning to Samaria and Judea, someday. That's what kept the Sephardim and Ashkenazis going.
A Jewish remnant has existed in the region of Samaria/Judea unbroken from after the final Roman conquest to now, and has always maintained a presence in the region. Though numerically fewer than other Semitic people (the Arabs), they have a historic foothold there.
Large swatches of land possessed by Arabs, were also legitimately purchased by Jews prior to the Partition, from warlords and tribal leaders who snickered because they were selling malarial swampland of no value to them. Then the Jews drained the swamps and created thriving farms.
The proposed Jewish state would not be continuous. The frontier line would separate villages from their fields…the Arab reaction [to the partition idea] would be negative because they would lose everything and gain almost nothing…they would lose the richest part of Palestine…the orange plantations, the commercial and industrial centres…most of the coastal areas…and [they] would be driven out into the desert.
As for now, we must not forget who would have to exchange the land? Those villagers who live more than others on irrigation, on orange and fruit plantations, in houses built near water wells and pumping stations, on livestock and property and easy access to markets. Where would they go? What would they receive in return? This would be such an uprooting, such a shock the likes of which had never occurred before and could drown the whole thing in rivers of blood.
yeniseri wrote:Israel rightfully won the land when Syria, Jordan, Egypt and the Arabs armies tried to destroy Israel i.e. the spoils of War
The territory of a State shall not be the object of acquisition by another State resulting from the threat or use of force. No territorial acquisition resulting from the threat or use of force shall be recognized as legal.
They…were given a piece of the original land back, and they want to keep it.
The main form of collective punishment employed by the British forces was destruction of property. Sometimes entire villages were reduced to rubble, as happened to Mi'ar in October 1938; more often several prominent houses were blown up and others were trashed inside.[1][56] The biggest single act of destruction occurred in Jaffa on 16 June 1936, when large gelignite charges were used to cut long pathways through the old city, destroying 220–240 buildings and rendering up to 6,000 Arabs homeless.
Desmond Woods, an officer of the Royal Ulster Rifles, described the massacre at al-Bassa:
Now I will never forget this incident ... We were at al-Malikiyya, the other frontier base and word came through about 6 o'clock in the morning that one of our patrols had been blown up and Millie Law [the dead officer] had been killed. Now Gerald Whitfeld [Lieutenant-Colonel G.H.P. Whitfeld, the battalion commander] had told these mukhtars that if any of this sort of thing happened he would take punitive measures against the nearest village to the scene of the mine. Well the nearest village to the scene of the mine was a place called al-Bassa and our Company C were ordered to take part in punitive measures. And I will never forget arriving at al-Bassa and seeing the Rolls Royce armoured cars of the 11th Hussars peppering Bassa with machine gun fire and this went on for about 20 minutes and then we went in and I remembered we had lighted braziers and we set the houses on fire and we burnt the village to the ground ... Monty had him [the battalion commander] up and he asked him all about it and Gerald Whitfeld explained to him. He said "Sir, I have warned the mukhtars in these villages that if this happened to any of my officers or men, I would take punitive measures against them and I did this and I would've lost control of the frontier if I hadn't." Monty said "All right but just go a wee bit easier in the future.”
[I]n Palestine, we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country. The four great powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder impact than the desires of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit this ancient land.
Interloper wrote:http://rumsoakedfist.org/index.php
"No friendships, dammit! Stop it now!"
According to recent public opinion surveys by Pew Research Center focused on the conflict in Gaza, black Americans have tended to be somewhat less sympathetic toward Israel (64 percent expressing “a lot” or “some” sympathy for Israel, versus 70 percent for whites), and somewhat more critical of its response to Hamas, with 36 percent saying Israel’s response had gone too far, compared to 22 percent of white Americans.
Steve James wrote: Otoh, many eastern nations have gone into the casino business.
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