Here is a sequence of photos I took this month as I left Bethlehem in the West Bank and returned to Jerusalem.
The pic above was taken from the Palestinian side of the checkpoint. Driving from Israeli-controlled Jerusalem into the Palestinian-controlled Bethlehem area of the West Bank was unencumbered. Vehicles pretty much breezed right through. The Palestinians have no fear of Israeli suicide bombers coming to devastate their buses or restaurants. After all, there are no Israeli suicide bombers.
Security instructions, in Hebrew (top), then Arabic and finally English. All traffic signs in Israel appear in those three languages.
Palestinian graffitti on the Palestinian side of the security barrier.
More graffitti.
Just inside the Israeli side of the barrier is this mural. Sorry for the oblique angle - when we moved directly in front of it, I was too close to get the whole mural in one shot.
I found the mural ironic, since whatever they Israelis and Palestinians have, "love and peace" ain't it, on either side.
Most of the entire West Bank is enclosed by a security fence, about 700 kilometers. About six percent of the distance is a wall rather than a fence because of the density of the buildings present. The fence generally follows the "Green Line," but the Green Line is ill defined in some places. The Green Line, btw, is the ceasefire line agreed to in 1949, at the close of Irael's war for independence. It is not actually a border of any kind. It is called the Green Line because it was drawn on the negotiators' map with a green pencil. Really.
This shot of the security wall was taken near the unused Jerusalem airport. Rock throwers shut the airport down some years ago. They threw rocks over the wall above at airliners landing or just onto the runway, the horizontal, flat gray feature just below the wall. Any pilot who may be reading can imagine how eager airline pilots were to land on runways covered in rocks.
Despite the international controversy about the fence/wall, it would be very hard to find an Israeli of any political stripe who would call for its removal. The fence was erected by a government very reluctant to do so, and was opposed by both Labor and Likud. But the bombings of the Second Intifada, begun in 2000, became so severe that the people demanded the barrier go up. Since it went up, terrorist violence inside Israel has fallen by 80-95 percent, depending the on the region of the country.
The barrier has made life harder for the Palestinians, who complain that it has degraded their quality of life. The typical Israeli responds, "Our lives come before your quality of life." Hard to argue with that.
Yossi Klein Halevi, a prominent Israeli journalist, said the barrier should be named the "Yasser Arafat Memorial Wall."
Having been there in 1998-1999 when the wall was just built and things had settled down for a time, I can tell you that Israel is one of the best nations on earth. The people are nice and friendly. They wish the Palestinians no harm but they will not accept losses of life from them. Why should they?
There is history to see there that is truly ancient. tel Meggido, Gomorrah, Sodom, the Old City, Avdat, Masada, Ein Gedi - where ever you walk you step in history.
That Israeli argument that "lives > inconvenience" is perfectly reasonable, until the security fence crosses the Green Line. We (America) are completely within our rights to build a fence along our border with Mexico, and even to close that border entirely if we so choose, but it would obviously be unacceptable to extend such a fence to encompass Americans living on the other side of the border, even if their lives were threatened; to do so would be to expropriate Mexican land.
Ultimately, ones views on the justice of the security fence depend primarily on whether you see the West Bank as justly Palestinian. It seems clear to me that the consensus Israeli position is a desire to annex the West Bank, hindered only by the inconvenient presence of too many Palestinians. The fence is a way to protect the settlements and grab more land while reducing the land remaining to the Palestinians.
"That Israeli argument that "lives > inconvenience" is perfectly reasonable, until the security fence crosses the Green Line. We (America) are completely within our rights to build a fence along our border with Mexico, and even to close that border entirely if we so choose, but it would obviously be unacceptable to extend such a fence to encompass Americans living on the other side of the border, even if their lives were threatened; to do so would be to expropriate Mexican land."
How so???
If Mexico declared war on America and threatened the lives of American citizens, I would think we would be completely within or rights to protect ourselves even to the extent of taking land to do so. If the Palistinians didn't want the wall to go up, they shouldn't have declared the Second Intifada.
If Mexico declared war on America and threatened the lives of American citizens, I would think we would be completely within or rights to protect ourselves even to the extent of taking land to do so.
That's not why the arbitrary fence veers over the ever more arbitrary Green Line. It does so in order to protect settlements, and take some valuable land. In some cases for ease of routes - hills, natural obstacles, etc.. I am not sure of the volume affected, but I do remember between 5 and 10% of the existing area of the Green Line/West Bank was originally talked about. It's no longer just about security.
When you have Palestinians with houses on the Israeli side of the border, and schools/jobs/family on the other side - this is where the problems come in.
All of the land in the Palestinian pseudo-state(s) is vastly more valuable and developed for having been under Israeli control.
Agricultural output in Gaza tripled between 1967 and 1992. In the West Bank it increased more than 500%. Then you have roads and infrastructure. As a reward for an attempt to destroy Israel, the Palestinians not only got their land back but got it back in a greatly enhanced condition.
If they would focus their attention on that, instead of pretending that they're being robbed of all the land on the other side of the fence, they might rise above the level of a violent gang territory kept alive by international charity.
Bah. Moving the fence (which is in itself, a good thing) to accommodate settlers is poor policy, both for the Palestinians and the rest of Israel. Israel should put itself on a path in which supporting the settlements is no longer a demographic necessity.
Hey Glenn, did you know that most African Americans are much better off than their African brethren? It's almost like we were doing them a favor, putting them in chains an all!
Tierce, the Grenn Line is ill defined in many areas. As I stated in the post, the GL is not a border. One of the things Barak offered Arafat in 2000 at Camp David was for the two sides to work out an actual border. Arafat refused.
"It's almost like we were doing them a favor, putting them in chains an all!"
In terms of those being put in chains. No.
But none of those are alive today. Those that are alive today are not in chains. What happened to your or my ancestors is pretty much irrelevant, or at least, no more relevant than you choose to make it. None of them are in chains now, and lots of blood was shed that it might be so.
And as you said, they are as a population vastly better off being Americans than being Africans.
The Green Line was not well-defined (or well-remembered) in some areas (near Latrun and the Canada Park built on a razed village of Arab expulsees), but it didn't run anywhere near the location of the Fence in places like the large settlement of Ariel or the eastern suburbs of Jerusalem. There the fence is as much as 20km from the Green Line.
I'm a reluctant convert to the fence, but as far as I'm concerned every settlement can and should lie of the far side.
Also, robohobo's memory is off. Israel was a great place to be in 1998-99 because the second intifada hadn't started yet, and there was a lot of optimism. (That may explain why he came away with the unusual description of Israelis as nice and friendly; it was a brief shining moment.) Violence resumed in summer 2000. The fence wasn't authorized until 2002/03.
SAO -
I don't think you mean to compare the Palestinians to African slaves, and Israel to the slave owners. That would be a little crazy even for the Nation of Islam. Let's step back from such analogies.
To make myself clear, I think Israel had every right to occupy those territories in 1967. Those territories were never not a Palestinian state (the West Bank had been annexed to the Kingdom of Jordan) however many people like to pretend that they were. If Israel continued to occupy those territories today, they would have as good a claim to them as anyone else. The Palestinians are not the indigenous people of Palestine and never were.
Continuing to feed Palestinian resentment over every last olive tree is the surest way to make sure that Palestinians repeat their history again and again. Many of their so-called friends know this, and don't care.
If they would focus their attention on that, instead of pretending that they're being robbed of all the land on the other side of the fence, they might rise above the level of a violent gang territory kept alive by international charity.
Let's suspend relative army strengths for a moment and imagine the US declares war on Canada. Canada retaliates, occupies half of Montana, spend 30 years sending Canadians into Montana - building small outposts, generally improving the land. Then, towards the end, separate roadways are created, one for Canadians and one for Montanans, in part to improve the area and in part to provide Canadians with safety - this creates a good deal of problems, in part because it makes it harder to get around. And then create a barrier that goes into Montanta to protect these settlers, though Canada continues to occupy much of the state.
Could we as Americans be able to say "well, look at how much improvement has been done", and ignore the arbitrary border?
Wars and national bitterness over small tracts have existed for centuries - to use this, especially when so much of their national identify is being an oppressed people. Sure, ask Palestinians to stop doing this, and making this a goal wouldn't be bad. But to ask them to not do something that has fueled people for centuries?
To make myself clear, I think Israel had every right to occupy those territories in 1967. Those territories were never not a Palestinian state
Me too, Gaza as well. They chose not to. Adding land through a war is a time honored (if disdained) tradition. Instead of seizing the land from Jordan and saying "ours now", they chose to occupy it rather than give a sizable chuck of people rights as citizens of Israel.
Let's suspend relative military strengths, suppose there is not and never has been a functioning independent government in the US, pretend Americans will kill any Canadian in America on sight, imagine Americans seeking out opportunities to sneak into Canada to murder people, fantasize that the international community overwhelmingly applauds the bloodthirsty Americans who do so, and stipulate that somewhere between most and all Americans don't just want the previous border redrawn, they want all of Canada for themselves, and for the Canadians to either be cast out or killed.
OK, back to Dave.
OK, back to Dave.
So, by changing the topic about how murderous the Palestinians have been over the past 20 years(and more over 60), does this mean you have figured out a way to convince people to give up what they believe is theirs?
Before World War 1, the entire area encompassing modern Israel, the West Bank and most of the countries aroiund them were part of the Ottoman Empire. In 1917, the British army took possession of the region because the Ottoman Empire was allied with the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy). The end of the war also spelled the end of the Ottoman Empire.
Britain ruled the area, referred to as Paelstine at the time, on its own until 1923, when the League of Nations mandated that modern-day Jordan, Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip be declared by intewrnational agreement to be under British rule. (Other areas ofr the former Ottomman Empire were placed under other mandates of other nations.)
That means that all residents of the British Mandate were legally stateless persons, regardless of religion. The Ottoman Empire was gone and no nations in Palestine had yet taken its place. The people were subject to British rule without actually being British subjects. Hence, they held citizenship of no nation.
Jordan was made independent in 1946. In 1947, the United Nations adopted a partition plan that would create an Arab country,, a Jewish country and placement of Jerusalem under international administration. The Arabs rejected this plan out of hand, as did many Jews, including Menachem Begin, leader of the Jewish Irgun militia.
Mn May 14, 1948, one day before the expiry of the British mandate, Jewish leaders in Palestine declared Israel's independence. Recognition by foreign governments followed quickly, but Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi and Egyptian army units invaded the new nation immediately, literally within days. Jordanian troops also fought, curiously commanded by former British officers. Arab volunteers also came from other countries.
At the end of the war, Israel's territory consisted of what is nowadays called the "pre-1967 borders." Egypt controlled the Gaza strip and Jordan controlled the West Bank, which promptly annexed it.
There things stood, basically, until 1967, when Israel seized Gaza and the West Bank by force of arms. (It also seized the Golan Heights, bordering Syria, but that's another issue.)
Because the UN Plan was never implemented, which would have established what land belonged to what country, Israel today says that the West Bank is a "disputed" territory over which sovereignty has still not been established by treaty.
Always surprises me this kind of discussion because Israel somewhat gets a different take than all other countries and the only reason that i find for that it was much more respectfull of people that inhabited the War zone. Millions and thousands of Germans, Italians, Romanians, Poles expelled after II WWar and no one cared. Millions of whites and blacks expelled from Africa after decolonisation no one cared. I would not even talk about Soviet Union, China etc. in the 1990's Croats, Serbs and Bosnian and Kosovars burned, massacred entire villages of enemy and Europe and USA didnt said anyone need to return to former borders, actually to stop the murdering enforced fact accompli. Somewhat i feel that Israel was guilty of not making a fast ethnical cleaning like everyone at time of war including the Arabs that expelled most of their Jewish population. Rewarding bad behavior...
He wasn't changing the subject. He was pointing out the context without which your analogy is meaningless.
We certainly aren't going to convince them to give up their designs on Israel by constantly telling them how much we sympathize with them. The cheers of the Israel-haters, left and right, are not exactly discouraging them, are they?
I think Rev. Sensing points towards a better way in his new post. Make all aid conditional on thorough-going reforms. Including the repudiation, by explicit treaty, of all claims on Israeli territory, and rejection of the "right of return", which is nothing but trouble.
The only thing that surprised me about Israel: it's like a Plum Pudding. This hill has an Arab village on, the next a Jewish one, then another Jewsish one, then an Arab one, then a Christian one...
The original split into "Jewish" or "Arab" sections was always very iffy. The Jewish areas had lots of Arab settlements in, the Arab areas lots of Jewish settlements in. A fair number of places in the "West Bank" have been Jewish since time immemorial. That's in addition to the post-48 construction and expansion of Jerusalem and environs.
One sixth of Israelis are Arab, mainly Muslim. Then there's Circassians, Druze etc etc. Large numbers of unassimilated Eastern European migrants.
It rather reminded me of Australia.
He wasn't changing the subject. He was pointing out the context without which your analogy is meaningless.
The additional context does not change the main focus on the question, or to show how weak of an analogy it was - it was done to limit sympathy and distract from answering. If anything, a murderous people best on destruction would be harder to convince to give up the territory they believe is theirs.
His context allows for the arguing of why Israel should keep troops there, not why the Palestinians should accept it.
BTW, Kudos to Donald on the short history of the West Bank - I think the only thing missing is the idea of a adversarial occupation and lack of reversioner feeds into either the choice of annexation of land-for-peace.
Hopefully after the security wall and Gaza-West Bank highway gets done, more of the aid-for-reforms can start. Probably not though.
My post was to limit sympathy by illustrating some of the weaknesses of your analogy, since your post was done to increase sympathy for the Palestinians, the least sympathetic people on the face of the earth. Your effort to justify Palestinian behavior is shameful. If anything, world opinion should not be at all concerned with convincing 'a murderous people bent on destruction'. The Germans once thought neighboring countries should be theirs. They were convinced otherwise. So can the Palestinians be, and by the same methods.
Well, of the billlions of dollars of fioreign (mostly US) aid funneled into the PA since the beginning of Oslo, about half of it (I think) wound up in Yasser Arafat's personal Swiss bank accounts. What about the other half? Well, consider that we were informed while there that not one new school for Palestinian kids has been built with foreign aid.
"and stipulate that somewhere between most and all Americans don't just want the previous border redrawn, they want all of Canada for themselves, and for the Canadians to either be cast out or killed"
Imagine? The map at the high school i went to had Ontario labeled as spillover parking.
just kidding jk!