Barrier to separate 55,000 Palestinian residents from Jerusalem

[cynatnite]

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Around a quarter of the Palestinian population of Jerusalem face being cut off from the rest of the holy city after Israel's cabinet approved a new route for its controversial West Bank barrier.

As Palestinians accused Israel of trying to shut down argument over the fate of occupied east Jerusalem, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the plan to pull out of the occupied Gaza Strip should last no more than two weeks.

The revised route of the barrier will mean that some 55,000 residents of east Jerusalem, which was captured and annexed by Israel in 1967, will no longer be able to travel freely throughout the holy city. Around 230,000 Palestinians live in the city.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050710/wl_afp/mideast_050710162813

[madrchsod]

1. what would jesus do?

[Behind the Aegis]

2. Unfortunate necessity.

There will be access for the Palestinians, just not as great as before. But, it should only be a temporary situation. Once 'good faith' negotiations start about the West Bank, then the need for the barrier will become moot and it will be removed. Israel has a right to maintain safe and secure borders. We have a fence to the south of our country and the worst thing that those 'crossers' do is take back-breaking labor jobs, get exploited, and blamed for 'taking jobs from Americans.' Can you imagine what OUR barrier would look like if they were blowing up the 7-11?!?

When will blame be levied against the PA for not getting factions under control as promised? When will the Arab nations stop bitching about Israel and how evil she is and actually help out the PA and the Palestinian people build a nation? When will people realize that these negotiations are not the completely responsibility of Israel and hold the other negotiating partner, the PA, to the same standards?

So many questions for a difficult and complex issue.

[wurzel]

3. Building a ghetto in Jerusalem is a "complex issue"?

Of course it is all the Palestians' fault. They exist.

[Behind the Aegis]

4. Good analysis (insert rolling eyes)

Did you read what I wrote or just 'cherry-pick' and make something up? The "complex issue" is the WHOLE situation. This is but one more thing in the SITUATION.

As for your statement in the body, well that is just plain ignorant. It is not ALL their fault, but they are not BLAMELESS. And according to your "logic" and sarcasm, you must really mean, "It's all Israel's fault because she exists!" :eyes:

[Jim Sagle]

5. Psssttt...I don't think he read what you wrote. I think he just

'cherry-picked' and made something up. :hi:

The Peace Fence...making the world a better place, one link at a time.

[wurzel]

6. I can remember when what you call "Israel" was called "Palestine".

I think the people who lived there were called Palestinians.

[eyl]

7. True

and the people who were referred to by that title were the Jewish residents. Those whose descendents are today called Palestinians were then known simply as "Arabs".

[Behind the Aegis]

8. And there was a time....

Palestine used to be Israel before that, Canaan. But, it wasn't known as Palestine after being occupied by the Ottoman Empire in around 1481 CE. Although, it had retained a similar name for awhile before.

Early on there was the Ottoman Empire and from 1481-1683 CE and the land we are now discussing was called Syria, among a few other names.

Let's see...Europe in the year 1900 CE. Make sure to note that in the land currently known as Israel, there is no Palestine, only provinces of the Ottoman Empire.

Of course Turkey was on the losing side of WWI and lost quite a bit of its land. Most ended up in the hands of the British and French. This map shows that the area we are discussing was once called Trans-Jordan & Syria.

Now, here we see Palestine emerge, notice the date of 1920 CE as the established date of Palestine, as well as Syria, and Trans-Jordan and Lebanon.

So, then we see this map from 1920 CE. (You will have to click on the map displayed and it will be brought up in a "pop up.") Notice the land we are discussing, now (1920) known as Palestine (again), along with Lebanon (Liban), Syria (Syrie), Trans-Jordan (transjordanie), and Iraq (Irak) are surrounded by a light-blue border. That border indicates the "territoires sous mandat de SDN (Société des nations)" or the territories under the League of Nations Mandate. We know that the area we are discussing was under British control until 1948, when Israel was born, and Palestine ceased to exist. So, for 28 years there was a "protectorate" known as Palestine, and it could be argued that the inhabitants were Palestinians. But here is the twist, the inhabitants were not just Arabs, but Jews, as well. Jews who had lived there before, during, and after the Ottoman Empire.

Under British rule several Jews were allowed to move to Palestine. Many moving to cities already having considerably large Jewish populations others moving to areas they soon cultivated. Therefore, it can be argued, that Palestine still exists, it is has just undergone another name change and is now known as Israel. Many former Palestinians changed their names to Israelis as the name of the land changed, even a few Arabs did the same.

So what was the real problem? The real problem was that there were quite a few Arabs who were not willing to live in a country with a substantial Jewish population and demanded that the British colony of Palestine be their own country. The British and several others decided to create two states out of one area. There was grumbling from the Jews, but they accepted a creation of a Jewish state that would share land with an Arab state. However, the Arabs would not hear of it. So, when Israel became a state, several Arab nations tried to "push the Jews into the sea," and failed miserably. Also, they lost the Arab state of Palestine, and Israel became a nation.

After 57 years of Palestine being known as Israel, Arabs have decided they do want a state of their own that doesn't include all of Israel. See, for the longest time, the only acceptable 'solution' for the Arabs was a single state and it was not Israel; although there are a few who still only want a single state and it wouldn't be known as Israel.

So you are right, there was a time when people were called Palestinians, and some still exist, but many are now known as Israelis by their own choosing. So if you can remember when Israel was Palestine, surely you can see that people living in Israel are Israelis. And, if you advocate that the Palestinians should have a state, then you should have no problem advocating Israelis having a state. Since Israelis have a state, we just need a Palestinian state. I don't think, though, because Palestinians want a state of their own, the Israelis should not have to give up all of theirs.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Monkie]

14. sorry to interupt your touching narative of the birth of a nation but

there is one little thing i just cant let slip by without any rebuttal.

"But here is the twist, the inhabitants were not just Arabs, but Jews, as well. Jews who had lived there before, during, and after the Ottoman Empire"

you neglect to mention that the Jewish population was a TINY minority in Palestine before waves of imigration from Europe by people who had no actual connection to this "protectorate" as far as i know beyond some vague justifications based on a religious document over 2 centuries old. you neglect to mention the mass exodus of Arabs that is within living memory.

These are accepted historical facts that as far as i know are common knowledge and if they arent i would think that would be another good topic for discussion here.
I could if so inclined produce a one-sided narative of the birth of the state of Israel based upon historical facts that paint a different picture, a picture of terror and of some of those terrorists becoming leaders of this state.

[Coastie for Truth]

15. Okay -

You want to contradict Hala Fattah (a noted historian of the Arab provinces of the Ottoman empire, especially Iraq and author of The Politics of Regional Trade of Iraq, Arabia and the Gulf, 1745-1900 (S.U.N.Y Press, 1996)) and Maria Menocal.

Provide cites.

[Monkie]

18. the post i was replying to lacked cites,but you asked nicely so

i'll pretend nobody knows and provide some links to back up what i said.
for ease of discussion i will use wikipedia to illustrate what i meant as it receives peer review and i would like to avoid discussing sources of cites.but please note that my original post said "I could if so inclined produce a one-sided narrative" not "i WISH to create a one-sided narrative"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing

"On July 22, 1946, members of the Jewish underground military organization Irgun Tsvai-Leumi in the British Mandate of Palestine exploded a bomb at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. The hotel was the base for the British Secretariat, the military command and a branch of the Criminal Investigation Division (police). 91 people were killed, most of them civilians: 28 British, 41 Arab, 17 Jewish, and 5 other. Around 45 people were injured.

The attack was initially ordered by David Ben Gurion, who was in the United States, but he later changed his mind and ordered the bombing to be cancelled. But Menachem Begin, the head of Irgun, went ahead anyway. Both Ben Gurion and Begin would later become Israeli Prime Ministers."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun

Irgun (ארגון), shorthand for Irgun Tsvai Leumi (ארגון צבאי לאומי, also spelled Irgun Zvai Leumi), Hebrew for "National Military Organization", was a paramilitary Zionist group that operated in the British Mandate of Palestine from 1931 to 1948. In Israel, this group is consistently referred to as Etzel (אצ"ל), a contraction of the Hebrew initials. It was classified by British authorities as a "terrorist organization" but many regarded it to be a "liberation movement". Its political association with Revisionist Zionism rendered it a predecessor movement to modern Israel's "right-wing" Likud party/coalition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Gang

"Lehi (Hebrew acronym for Lohamei Herut Israel, "Fighters for the Freedom of Israel") was a radical self-described terrorist group that had as its goal the eviction of the British from Palestine to allow unrestricted immigration of Jews and the formation of a Jewish state.

British authorities termed the group the Stern Gang, a label that persists in historical accounts.
~snip~
UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte was assassinated by Lehi in Jerusalem in 1948.

September 17, 1948, Lehi assassinated the UN Mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, who had been sent to broker a settlement in the dispute. The assassination was directed by Yehoshua Zetler and carried out by a four-man team led by Meshulam Markover. The fatal shots were fired by Yehoshua Cohen. Lehi leaders Nathan Yellin-Mor and Matitiahu Schmulevitz were arrested two months after the murder. Most of the suspects involved were released immediately and all of them were granted general amnesty on the 14th of February, 1949."

These examples should be enough to illustrate my previous post even if they are only the tip of this iceberg, anyone else interested more "depth" can use this as a starting point for their own reading.
The other possibly contentious thing i said was "mass exodus of Arabs that is within living memory" ,this was the most neutral phrase i could come up with at the time but if you wish i will back that up too in another post.

as to "You want to contradict Hala Fattah", you would first have to educate me before i would presume to contradict.

[Coastie for Truth]

19. The subject was

your statement

"you neglect to mention that the Jewish population was a TINY minority in Palestine before waves of imigration from Europe by people who had no actual connection to this "protectorate" as far as i know beyond some vague justifications based on a religious document over 2 centuries old. you neglect to mention the mass exodus of Arabs that is within living memory.

And you are changing the subject.

[Monkie]

20. now that i know that the subject was 1 of 3 issues i touched on

i promise i will get back to you on that part the subject later as i have some matters to attend to.
I am now under the assumption that 'Hala Fattah' has some bearing on either "the Jewish population was a TINY minority in palestine" or "the mass exodus of Arabs that is within living memory" and that this is what you wish to discuss with me or that you wish i provide some background to illustrate that part of my point.

[Coastie for Truth]

21. Hala Fattah

and to a lesser extent Maria Menocal, have written on "the Jewish population was a TINY minority in palestine"

[Monkie]

22. at the birth of zionism 95% arab population 5% jewish in Palestine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Israeli-Palestinian_conflict

that is from the wikipedia page on Palestine but in case that isnt considered a unbiased enough source for something of this importance maybe what the jewish agency for israel has this to say on early demographics can be of assistance:

http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/concepts/demography/dem3.html

"The emergence of an influential new Jewish center in the old/new land of Palestine is far more than a significant demographic change for the Jews: the demography itself is striking in a number of different ways. In 1800, the total Jewish population of Palestine was only a few thousand. This number had risen to just over 25,000 before the beginning of the ‘Zionist’ Aliyah that followed the 1881 pogroms.

In contrast to the mass immigrations of millions to the west – and especially to the United States – in the decades after 1881, the Zionist Aliyot (waves of immigration to the Land of Israel) were small. By 1914, at the end of the second Aliyah, a mere 65,000 are estimated to have joined the Jewish community of Palestine and to have stayed. Numbers increased considerably from the mid-1920s: at the end of the 1930s the Jewish population was estimated at over 425,000. The next decade brought slightly fewer than 200,000 Jews so that, on the eve of independence, the Jewish population stood at over 600,000.

Equally important in the developing picture was the ethnic background of the Jewish population. Before the waves of Zionist Aliyah started to change the country, a large proportion of the Jewish population consisted of Sephardim, many of whom traced their families back for generations in the Land"

as for the Palestinians,the BBC has these figures relating to Palestinian refugees on its website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/world/2001/road_to_refuge/return/testimony.stm

"Between 550,000 and 900,000 Palestinians were displaced in 1948
In 1967, a further 120,000 were displaced
There are now more than 3.7m Palestinian refugees in the Middle East, and many more elsewhere"

from this it is fair to conclude that jews where a tiny minority in palestine before zionism as a movement was born and that at the time of the creation of the state of Israel more Palestinians where displaced from Palestine than there where Jewish people living there.

[Coastie for Truth]

23. And what about the Sephardis and Mizrachis

forced to flee Iraq, Syrua, and Egypt (as well as North Africa)? Non-people?

[Monkie]

24. just not relevant to my original post or figures up to the birth of Israel

so i dont mind moving on to a discussion of the plight of the Sephardi people at some other time but i dont see how this or the other vague allusions change anything about the validity of my original post or the subsequent posts with examples and figures to back up what i believed was common knowledge enough to not require this discussion in the first place.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Violet_Crumble]

27. The subject was...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x95482#95540

How quickly we forget!

Violet...

[Coastie for Truth]

37. In a "Progressive" and "Liberal" web site

any form of racism or discrimination is always proper discussion.

[Violet_Crumble]

39. And I didn't say it wasn't...

I pointed out that the subject was being changed and pointed you to yr own words earlier in this thread...

Violet...

[Behind the Aegis]

16. nice try

The Jewish population was not the MAJORITY, but it was not TINY. There was a substantial Jewish population. Many already lived there, but more arrived in the 15th and 16th centuries after the forced expulsions from Spain. The rulers of Turkey welcomed Jews from all over Europe and more than a few took them up on the offer.

The almost one million who immigrated before the second World War did so with the permission of the British. Considering the pogroms in Russia, Poland, and a few other places, it seemed logical that Jews would flee and enter a place they could live undisturbed. What you neglected to mention was the expulsion of Jews around the world from as early as the Roman Empire when the first Jews were expelled from Israel to the modern expulsions from several Arab nations following WWII.

No doubt you could produce a picture of terror as the birth of Israel. I don't dispute that. Terror directed at both sides and one emerging victorious.

[Violet_Crumble]

28. No 'nice try' about it...

While the Jewish population of Jerusalem was quite large, it was not the case in other parts of Palestine. In 1918 Palestine consisted of 650,000 Muslims, 80,000 Christians and 60,000 Jews.* That's in no way numbers that could be described as substantial...

Violet...

* from A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples - Ilan Pappe

Violet...

[Lithos]

36. You are being a bit too casual

There are additional facts which supplement what you are saying and provide contrast to the situation. To ignore them is to commit a grave error in understanding the mechanics of the situation.

The Jewish population was in fact the majority in several cities up thru the middle of the 19th Century. This included Safed and Jerusalem. The Ottoman government had given Jews full autonomy over yet still another territory (Acre?) in this same time frame.

Contrary to your implication in other posts, Jews in the region actually had a fairly strong ties back to the people of Europe in that they continually received a form of tithing because of their nearness to the holy land. (They were basically supported by other Jews to pray and maintain the institutions). Also, most of the Jews living in Safed were immigrants from Moorish Spain following the final conquest by Ferdinand and Isabella.

As for the start of Aliyah, yes it started in the middle of the 19th Century under Ottoman rule. The first few Aliyahs were done using land bought from (often distant) land owners.

As for the mass exodus of Arabs, I am first going to excuse your poor definition here (strictly speaking Palestinians are not ethnically Arab), there was also a mass exodus of Jews from Arab lands starting with the Independence of Israel. The numbers approximately equate to each other. The causation is the same in both cases, the rise of Nationalism.

Side note: During the original conquest of the area, the Arab armies did not colonize what they conquered, but instead installed themselves as overlords. Some bedouin tribes did migrate northward, but they primarily live in the area of the Negev and south. Other conquering powers of the region (the Mamluks and the Ottomans) also did the same thing as the Arabs. The original inhabitants became the fellaheen or peasants.

And even so, depending on where you are at in the area, you will find great differences. The coastal area saw greater trade to the west thru out history and is a mixture of Greek, Egyptian, Turkish, Lebanese and local stock. The area for what is now the West Bank remained more pastoral and did not intermingle as much. These distinctions also explain the relative strength of families in the West Bank areas as opposed to the coastal areas which had greater diversity. It also explains why Palestinian nationalism was taking a different path than what the artificial occupation by Great Britain and France of the ares following WWII ended up forcing downward.

I would suggest that you read the works by Rashid Khalidi, particularly Origins of Arab Nationalism and the Palestinian Identity. Also Dawn's work, from Ottomanism to Arabism, Aweed Dawisha's book on Arab Nationalism, Ilan Pappe's book on the Palestinian People and of course Fromkin's book.

L-

[Monkie]

38. no B/W in my worldview,you understand i was myself providing contrast

to what i felt was a casual representation of a serious situation.
Ofcourse there is much much more to this issue than those few facts i mentioned as answer to those cast doubt upon the factual basis for the content of my post.and none of it is simple or black and white.

I dont even see any contradiction between what you had to say on the period up to and including the first few aliyahs and my post on the actual immigration and population figures.When quoting the jewish agency for israel i included in my quote mention of the original jewish population.

I have never seen anything to imply that jews and muslims havent always lived in relative peace with eachother up to a point in very recent history, and especially compared to the dreadful experiences of the jewish people in western and "christian" countries throughout history.

I'll apologise for my too glib "no actual ties" part of my original post as it deserves correction.

on the mass exodus point,i agree the causes are broadly similar and i would be the last person to argue for either, but there is not only cause and effect there is also action and reaction. And a timeline of events.While factual and undisputed and obviously something worthy of discussion the Jewish exodus from arab countries did not in any way contradict or have relevance to the argument over my original post or the examples and figures that backed them up which was my only objection.

[wurzel]

17. I am sorry for my lapse.

When I replied to your post I had not noticed that I was in the "Israeli/Palestinian" forum. I try scrupulously to avoid posting to this forum. I hope to be to be more observant in future.

[Coastie for Truth]

12. Good point

My wife's Jewish grand father (born in Poland) had a Palestinian passport -- and so did my wife's Polish born aunt and uncle.

My wife also had a Sephardic, Syrian born aunt who had a "Palestinian" passport.

Your point?

[Violet_Crumble]

9. Israel illegally annexed East Jerusalem...

Putting a barrier in East Jerusalem that cuts of residents of East Jerusalem from the rest of the city is clearly not the same as the US putting a barrier along its border with Mexico. Israel of course has a right to maintain safe and secure borders. What it doesn't have the right to do is to build barriers that take in occupied territory...

Are that bunch of questions asked rhetorically? If so, I've got a bunch of links to a bunch of articles and posts that do nothing but Blame The Arabs All The Time...

Violet...

[eyl]

10. And if

"safe and secure" and "barrier on the border" are mutually exclusive in places?

[Monkie]

13. that still doesnt allow under international law the collective punishment

of the civilian population in occupied territories.
or the destruction,confiscation or seizure of property.
That Israel has not been held accountable for its breaches of international law and the trampling of the human rights of millions doesnt change the facts.

[Violet_Crumble]

29. Then 'barrier on the border' must be used...

There is absolutely no justification for constructing a barrier on territory that doesn't belong to a country. What it does on and within it's borders is legitimate, and Israel has every right and obligation to its citizens within Israel to provide them with safety and security without resorting to illegitimate means...

Violet...

[eyl]

30. We've been over this before

If you want to consider the Palestinians to be a country in this regard, than if they launch large-scale violence from their territory, Israel can take military action against them - and that includes building defensive structures.

Note, that the original article in this thread complains that the barrier is to the west of Palestinian neighborhoods, cutting them off from services in Jerusalem. A lot of those services are to the west of the Green Line. Building the wall their would mean cutting off even more Palestinians from those services. Beyond that, it would leave Jewish neighborhoods, such as the Jewish Quarter, to the east of the line, which kind of defeats the entire purpose of the barrier.

[Violet_Crumble]

32. No, I don't consider Palestine to be a country...

The argument is that the occupied territories are NOT part of Israel. What I'm saying is that Israel does not have the right to build structures on territory that is not part of Israel. No other country has that right so why should Israel have it?

[eyl]

35. By that token

any fortifications built by Allied forces in WWII in Europe (in Germany and Italy in particular) were a violation of international law.

[Violet_Crumble]

40. What international law would it have been?

fwiw, the most famous post-war fortification of them all, the Berlin Wall, sure wasn't constructed in the interests of Germans...

Violet...

[eyl]

42. Was the Berlin wall

objectionable as it might have been, illegal under international law? Also, AFAIR, Germany wasn't occupied at the time it was built (at least not technically). I fail to see the relevence.

As for what international law it would have violated - I'm not sure I understand the question. In any event, by the argument you advanced earlier, no advancing army has the right to construct fortifications.

[Violet_Crumble]

48. I only mentioned it as being the most famous post-war structure...

...and my question about international law wasn't asked about the wall. In the case of the wall, it was objectionable that the two superpowers used Berlin as the frontline of the Cold War, but legally I've got no idea at all. I don't know what fortifications yr talking about, so could you maybe give a specific example? I was wondering what piece of international law would have applied to Berliners after the Nazis were destroyed, because I read of some terrible things done to Berliners by the Red Army...

Violet...

[eyl]

50. What I meant was this

If, as you say, international law prohibits an occupying power from building any sort of structures in the occupied territory, including defensive ones, than in any war, once an army has crossed into the other side's territory (regardless of whether it did so as the initial strike of the war or after repulsing the second side's armies from its own territory) it is illegal for it to build any fortifications whatsoever.

[sabbat hunter]

45. east jerusalem

well in theory east jerusalem, or more accurately the old city should be an 'international city' under UN rule. but since the british mandate ended, that never happened, it was first ruled by Jordan and then Israel.
at the time of the end of the mandate,there wasnt as much built up around the old city, especially on the east side. however that has obviously changed.

what i think israel should do is give east jerusalem to the future palestinian state, EXCEPT for the old city. that will be ruled by israel as it is now, with the holy sites maintained by the various religions.
under israeli control people of all religions have been able to go to any of the holy sites, unlike what happened prior to Israeli rule.

david

[Coastie for Truth]

46. Before the 67 War

1. The Old City, the Western Wall - closed to Jews (Dhimmi?, Jim Crow?, Apartheid?).

2. Mt Scopus - which was an Israeli island within Palestine/Jordan - required passing through armed check points, and an armed escort - with access only at limited times. (Dhimmi?, Jim Crow?, Apartheid?).

I do agree that "East Jerusalem" should be given to a Palestinian State. But the "Old" or "Walled" City must at the very, very minimum, be open for free, complete. access by all (No Dhimmi?, No Jim Crow?, No Apartheid?)- with religious sites maintained by their respective faiths.

Any attempt to force a return to the pre-1967 Status Quo Ante as to "access" to the "Old City" is a Biblical Sin (Genesis, XXXVIII: 7-10)

[IndianaGreen]

26. Sharon's Wall is a great success, except it is in the wrong place!

Granting the argument that Sharon's Wall protects Israel from terrorism, let us build it along the borders as they were prior to June 1967. Immediate peace will follow with Syria and with the Palestinians!

After all, NO ONE can claim exclusive rights to Jerusalem!

[eyl]

31. Reasons the barrier is not on the Line

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x93371#93455

And there was peace with Syria and the Palestinians before the barrier was constructed? I didn't know that.

[Violet_Crumble]

33. Reasons why that argument is wrong...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x93371#93457

And Indy didn't say there'd been peace with Syria, btw...

Violet...

[eyl]

34. From post 23 on the thread you referenced

As I've shown, the ICJ basically rewrote several international treaties to match (among other flaws), so it's not "very sound"; and sometimes, the law is wrong.

I've addressed your argument the barrier could be built inside the Green Line when it can't be built on it; that would mean placing Israeli communities to the east of it, which kind of negates the purpose. Reread my comment on the Jerusalem area, where most of the deviations take place.

here's the most recent map of the barrier route; saying it deviates "into middle of the West Bank" is somewhat of an exaggeration (note that the only part of the route where that description might possibly apply, the East Jerusalem-Ma'ale Edumim area, has not yet been decided)

[Violet_Crumble]

41. The ICJ doesn't rewrite international treaties...

What I thought it does is make rulings based on existing international treaties and stuff...

The Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal. Using them to justify another illegality doesn't work. If those 'communities' need to be protected and lives are considered more valuable than land, then they should be moved back to Israel..

That map is much easier to read than the one I was looking at a few weeks back. But I noticed that Ariel will be on the Israeli side of the barrier and Ariel's pretty much right out there in the middle of the West Bank...

Violet...

[eyl]

43. rephrase that to

"The ICJ isn't supposed to rewrite international treaties..."

The ICJ rewrote (at at least, took extreme liberties with) both GC4 (as we're discussing on the other thread) and Article 51 of the UN Charter, at the very least.

Regarding your point about the settlements - (whatever their legality - which I won't go into here) I specifically discussed the situation in Jerusalem - where the majority of deviations from the line occur. The article this thread is based on complains about the separation of Palestinians from services in Jerusalem, many of which are located in West Jerusalem. So your proposal is to cut off even more? Second, as I also noted, placing the wall on the Line would imperil West Jerusalem, as well as placing the Jewish Quarter, the Hebrew University, and other neighborhoods at risk. Lastly, once again, there are places where for topographical reasons the barrier cannot be placed on the Line; and moving it west is not an option because that would leave the communities it's supposedly protecting to the east of it.

As for Ariel, it's not even as far east as West Jerusalem; it doesn't come anywhere near cutting the WB in half.

[Coastie for Truth]

44. The problem is

that many of appenders pontificating about International Law - haven't even read the "Elementary International Law for Non-Lawyers" (e.g., US Army FM 27-10, International Law of Land Warfare; Brittin's "International Law for Seagoing Officers"; or the International Commission of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Society's "International Humanitarian Law") much less Henkin's "International Law: Cases and Materials" treatise - relying on Wikipedia and advocacy web sites.

At least in Henkin - they will see that there are no simple, cut and dry answers.

(Some of these appenders appended that the Corfu Channel Rule/Arbitration had absolutely no relevance to the Straits of Tiran and the '67 War - well meaning, idealistic, and uninformed ).:eyes: :shrug:

[Violet_Crumble]

49. Eyl, let's continue this discussion in the other thread...

No fault of yr own, but thanks to the appearance of an appender who seems to have nothing to add but attempts at insults, the atmosphere in this sub-thread took a dive into cesspitville...

Violet...

[eyl]

51. Doing this on a single thread

would be more convenient.

I'll cross-post my last post there

[geek tragedy]

47. I agree--the wall's location is the primary evil. Many have concluded

that such a wall was necessary.


Unfortunately, it's the Likudniks who are determining its location.