Gaza Evacuation Should Be Americans' Last Straw

[Tinoire]

Gaza Evacuation Should Be Americans' Last Straw

August 20, 2005
Gaza Evacuation Should Be Americans' Last Straw

by Charley Reese
As I watched the extensive, plainly sympathetic coverage of Jewish settlers being evicted from their Gaza homes, I couldn't help but take note once again of the striking double standard applied by American news media as well as the U.S. government.

I cannot recall any sympathetic coverage of Palestinians being evicted from their homes. No interviews with weeping mothers or fathers. No discussions of whether the evictions were right or wrong. This is obviously a deliberate policy on the part of America's television networks, for after all, they had 4,170 opportunities to report on Palestinian evictions since September 2000. That's how many homes were destroyed, and, of course, doesn't count the orchards and olive trees bulldozed by the Israeli army or Israeli settlers.

Of course, Palestinians were not evicted by sympathetic soldiers or promised huge amounts of money to relocate. No, they were brutally told to get out of their houses, which were then blown up or bulldozed into rubble by decidedly unsympathetic Israeli soldiers. What little they had was destroyed, and they were offered nothing except verbal abuse by the Israelis and invisibility by the American media.

One idealistic American girl who tried to stop an Israeli bulldozer from destroying a Palestinian home was crushed to death by the bulldozer. Naturally, the United States government did nothing, and the American media obediently either ignored her death or accepted the Israeli excuse that the driver couldn't see her, which is bull. She was killed in broad, sunny daylight while wearing a blaze-orange jacket and standing atop a pile of dirt.

(snip)

The West Bank and Gaza are not "disputed territory," which is the latest Israeli propaganda term adopted by the American lickspittle politicians. Under international law, the West Bank and Gaza are illegally occupied by the Israeli military. They were seized in 1967 in Israel's blitzkrieg war. The Palestinians, who even then had no government and no army, did not provoke the war.

(snip)

http://www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=7022

[SouthernDem2004]

1. Some people are never happy.

[garthranzz]

2. Revisionist History Redux

Thank you, Charley Reese, for yet another example of execrable revisionist history. And of course the Holocaust never happened. :sarcasm: (Just because Reese won't get it.) (For starters, the Arab blockade of the Straits of Aqaba, which threatened to strangle Israel, and Nasser's declaration that Israel would soon be destroyed, forced Israel to attack. It was a matter of self-preservation. But of course, the likes of Reese apparently don't want Israel to exist. (See the second sentence above.)

(And under international law, Israel can claim both Gaza and the West Bank. Herewith some facts: "In fact, prior to 1967, Jordan had occupied the West Bank and Egypt had occupied the Gaza Strip; their presence in those territories was the result of their illegal invasion in 1948, in defiance of the UN Security Council. Jordan's 1950 annexation of the West Bank was recognized only by Great Britain (excluding the annexation of Jerusalem) and Pakistan, and rejected by the vast majority of the international community, including the Arab states.

"At Jordan's insistence, the 1949 Armistice Line, that constituted the Israeli-Jordanian boundary until 1967, was not a recognized international border but only a line separating armies. The Armistice Agreement specifically stated: "no provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims, and positions of either Party hereto in the peaceful settlement of the Palestine questions, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations" (emphasis added) (Article II.2).

International jurists generally draw a distinction between situations of "aggressive conquest" and territorial disputes that arise after a war of self-defense. Former State Department Legal Advisor Stephen Schwebel, who later headed the International Court of Justice in the Hague, wrote in 1970 regarding Israel's case: "Where the prior holder of territory had seized that territory unlawfully, the state which subsequently takes that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense has, against that prior holder, better title."9

Here the historical sequence of events on June 5, 1967, is critical, for Israel only entered the West Bank after repeated Jordanian artillery fire and ground movements across the previous armistice lines. Jordanian attacks began at 10:00 a.m.; an Israeli warning to Jordan was passed through the UN at 11:00 a.m.; Jordanian attacks nonetheless persisted, so that Israeli military action only began at 12:45 p.m. Additionally, Iraqi forces had crossed Jordanian territory and were poised to enter the West Bank. Under such circumstances, the temporary armistice boundaries of 1949 lost all validity the moment Jordanian forces revoked the armistice and attacked. Israel thus took control of the West Bank as a result of a defensive war.

"The language of "occupation" has allowed Palestinian spokesmen to obfuscate this history. By repeatedly pointing to "occupation," they manage to reverse the causality of the conflict, especially in front of Western audiences. Thus, the current territorial dispute is allegedly the result of an Israeli decision "to occupy," rather than a result of a war imposed on Israel by a coalition of Arab states in 1967."

Excerpted from "FROM "OCCUPIED TERRITORIES" TO "DISPUTED TERRITORIES" by Dore Gold

[Tinoire]

3. Yes...

Just like the eternal cry of the thief forced to return pennies on the billions he stole... Grumbling that some people are never happy.

Israel needs to RETURN IT ALL- return every dime, nickel and penny ever "borrowed" over the bulldozed homes and ruined lives of 900,000 displaced Palestinians. And even then, don't expect "happiness" and ever-lasting gratitude.

A few acres returned on millions stolen and especially as more are being stolen is sadly not a formula for "happiness".

[SouthernDem2004]

4. Some people would dispute your version of the innocents attacked by the

evil Israeli's. Both sides are to blame. Isreal did not just take the land without cause.

I am certainly not about to get into a debate over this issue. Both sides are so full of hate that it is often impossible to discuss the matter. A war was fought, the winners took land from those that would see it destroyed and started the war actually. Revising the facts helps no one.

[HawkerHurricane]

5. Right of conquest. Oldest there is.

Isreal took the land from the Palastinians, who took it from the crusaders, who took it from the Turks, who took it from the Byzantines who took it from the Romans, who took it from the Hebrews who took it from the Ptolomies who took it from Macedonia who took it from Egypt who took it from Babylon who took it from Judea who took it from Canaan who took it from Sumer...

No, that list is not in proper order, and left a lot out.

The solution is obvious: find another holy book, declaring that the real holy land is in Oklahoma, and have one side move there.

[Orrex]

6. Is it morally acceptable to retain land that you seized by force?

Can the United States simply annex Afghanistan because we were attacked?

By what authority did Israel lay claim to Gaza?

I'm not about to get into a debate over this issue either, but I think that a review of the basics can only help clarify things.

[SouthernDem2004]

8. The nations surrounding Israel caused a war. To the winner goes

the spoils....

[Orrex]

9. I see--and that kind of barbarism is morally acceptable to you?

nt

[SouthernDem2004]

10. No, attempting to wipe out an entire nation is completely unacceptable.

Does not matter who is trying to do the wiping.

[Orrex]

13. That argument is, at best, tangential

"Two rights don't make a wrong," and all that.

In displacing thousands of Palestinians who themselves did not attack Israel, Israel acted with aggression toward innocent civilians. It doesn't matter whether Israel was attacked first; to engage civilians in a military displacement is unacceptable.

If some resident of North Dakota kills some resident of South Dakota, can SD simply lay claim to all of North Dakota as "the spoils" to which it's entitled?

[Gildor Inglorion]

12. By that kind of barbarism the USA owns Texas and California

not to mention Hawaii. Not defending the Israeli conquest, but what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

[Orrex]

14. And pretty much all of the United States, to be frank

That's the main reason why the US has no moral authority to speak on behalf of Israel (which for some stupid reason I keep typing as "Isreal").

I'm not saying that we can't discuss it here, but as a State our nation has no business commenting on the displacement of indigenous peoples.

[Igel]

7. I was surprised to learn today that Kfar Darom had originally

been established in 1946. It was one of the settlements evacuated in the last few days.

It ceased to exist in 1948, and was reestablished in 1967. Sort of a second departure.

[papau]

11. Indeed Kfar Darom was established on purchased land before 1936

It was established on 250 dunam (65 acre) of land purchased by Tuvia Miller for a fruit orchard. Following the Arab riots of 1936-1939. Miller deeded his land to the Jewish National Fund. A community was established on the land in 1946 by the Hapoel Mamizrachi kibbutz movement. In the summer of 1948, the community was withdrawn following a three month siege by the Egyptian army during the Israeli War of Independence.

[Jim Sagle]

15. Charley Reese is Buchananite Nazi filth. Fuck'm.

[Lithos]

16. Locking

Anti-war.com is explicitly not allowed for use in I/P discussions.

Lithos
I/P Forum Moderator