In its continuous attempts to convince us that the Apartheid Wall is being built on Palestinian land purely for security purposes and not as part of a massive land grab, the Zionut entity has so far refused to tear down the Wall in the areas deemed by its own Supreme Court to cause ‘disproportionate harm’ to the Palestinians whose land and freedom it steals.
Despite some of these rulings being more than three years old, the Wall remains in place in Azzun, Nebi Alias, Bil’in and around the illegal settlement of Alfe Menashe.
The Israeli Supreme Court still finds it perfectly reasonable to build the wall as far deep in the West Bank as around Nablus, annexing 11.9% of the West Bank, including all of East Jerusalem, 92 Palestinian towns and villages, 498,000 Palestinians and 66 illegal Israeli settlements.
You’d think they could be a bit more accurate at defining their border.
Related posts:
- Protesting the Wall
- Finally! A “wall” not a “fence”
- REVIEW: The Iron Wall
- Israel is a bully
- Carter Falls Out of Love With Apartheid Wall
Agree entirely. Wanting the security of the wall was understandable but it should have gone along the recognised borders. The issue seems to have been totally ignored by the international community.
Posted by xoggoth | July 23, 2008, 10:53 amWanting the security of the wall was understandable but it should have gone along the recognised borders.
400,000 Israelis live on the other side of the ’67 armistice lines. Isn’t it also “understandable” to protect the majority of 400,000 people, especially when the Security Barrier is a temporary security instrument, not a demarcation of final status borders?
The issue seems to have been totally ignored by the international community
The reason for this is simple. After 2002-2004, no Western leader is arrogant enough to tell Israel how to protect itself from terrorism.
Terrorist acts are down 90%+ since the peak, and not because Palestinian terror organizations chose nonviolence. They still plan, they just can’t execute. This is as close to “peace” as the Israel/Palestinian Authority have ever been, and the security barrier, along with other Israeli security measures, imposed this peace, not diplomats.
People have a short memory. Everyone forgets what kind of pressure was placed on Israel in the 1990s from the US/EU/UN to create a Palestinian state. Israel bent under the pressure, and the result was the intifada. After that experiment, the West prefers stability to daily news of violence, which puts the Palestinian question back on the hot burner and radicalizes Muslim European youth.
Posted by Mitch | July 23, 2008, 3:40 pm“Israel bent under the pressure…”
What, by doubling illegal settlement construction, re-writing the Oslo accords at least four times, notably twice at Wye, repeatedly reneging on the withdrawal timetable, electing Binyamin Netanyahu (who stated said there will never be a second state between the Jordan and the Mediterranean), and then sending Ariel Sharon to Temple Mount????
Way to “bend”, Mitch…
And before you start bleating about “launching” the intifada, remember it started in the summer of 2000 as a series od peaceful protests in Gaza and among Palestinian citizens of Israel… 70 of whom were killed before the first Israeli casualty.
And remember the 400,000 “citizens” you name SHOULDN’T EVEN BE THERE… it’s war crime to colonise occupied land. So, a war crime for the sake of a war crime is, on the face of it, a horribly amateurish defence.
And talking about security, name one border that is made more secure by tripling its length?
Maybe people be more voiciferous in telling Israel what to do… like the International Criminal Court.
Posted by Lowfields | July 24, 2008, 12:32 amAnd talking about security, name one border that is made more secure by tripling its length?Israel. In any case, Low, since when are you concerned about Israeli security? Mitch explained perfectly why the West doesn't care about the security barrier – it works! And no amount of your BS on your end will change that.After all the money, resources and good will thrown at the Palestinians in the 90s, no one gives a damn anymore. Not Americans. Not Europeans. Not even your Arab cousins. They all want you to shut up, stop causing problems for everyone and stop trying to kill people, including your own. Aren't your people still in civil war, technically? Why don't you go focus on that first. Let's hear what the International Criminal Court has to say about throwing political opposition off high rise buildings.
Posted by Sara | July 24, 2008, 4:26 amSara are you defending Israel’s war crimes by deflecting to internal Palestinian problems? Seriously, that was almost as amateur as you misquoting me right under my original quote.
Like xoggoth said, if Israel’s claim to needing the wall for security purposes was legitimate, it would build it on its border. Mitch, do you accept that the 400,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank are illegal settlers there in direct contravention to international law or not?
Further, Israel’s own Supreme Court has ruled that the parts of the Wall in the areas I highlighted are illegal. So why are they still there?
How do you improve your security by changing your border so that instead of living six miles away from your enemy, you know live 6 meters apart?
Posted by Mohammad | July 24, 2008, 9:35 amMohammad, a day does not go by without you not simply defending, but endorsing and encouraging Palestinian terrorism against innocent civilians, including Palestinians that you don’t agree with, as we learned with ATFP.
You have been justifying and covering up Palestinian war crimes, extrajudicial killings, abuses of human rights and violations of every agreement the Palestinians ever signed, with anybody, longer than you’ve been out of diapers.
Of all people, you don’t get a say in Israeli security measures, which have reduced attacks on Israelis perpetrated your favorite terrorist groups by 99%.
Your side is losing. Every day.
Once it is defeated, those Palestinians that remain will join with Israel to create a state you’ve spent most of your life attempting to destroy.
Tough beans.
Posted by Sara | July 24, 2008, 12:07 pmMitch. If you look at some of my previous comments on this blog re Palestinians they are not exactly supportive.
Sick to death of my tax money being used to fund them personally, they prefer to indulge in an endless conflict they cannot win rather than use the leverage past terrorism has given them to make a deal. (As the IRA and other groups have had the sense to do) Maybe then they might give their kids some hope of normal human happiness, like a decent job, instead of bringing them up to be suicide bombers.
Nevetheless, not all Palestinians are rocket-firing nutjobs and might be persuaded if attitudes in some quarters were not quite so consistently one sided. I am generally pro Israel but the wall, the confiscation of Palestinian owned land there after a period of absence and the settlements in the West Bank are not things the West should be condoning to in my view.
Posted by xoggoth | July 24, 2008, 1:03 pmSara, your continued attempts to sidestep any point I make by pulling the most random shit out of your ass never cease to astound me.
If you can find instances of me doing what you have accused me of, then present your findings.
But please don’t try to misquote me again. That was embarrassingly pathetic.
Posted by Mohammad | July 24, 2008, 2:45 pmXoggoth, I don’t think you’re in the minority. The vast majority of Israelis are against the things of which you spoke. The left in Israel was very strong in the 80s and 90s. The only reason they fell is the Intifada, which shattered the notions of “peaceful coexistence” for a generation.
Personally, I am for complete, broad-based, simultaneous settlement of the West Bank by Israelis. I don’t think the Palestinians as a people will lose hope to gain more through war than by negotiation until they are breathing Jews out of their pores.
Take the Druze and Bedouin for example. After 1948, completely surrounded by Jewish villages and infrastructure, they signed contracts with the State of Israel which bind the future of their people to that of the Jews. They fight alongside Jews in the IDF for the sake of their country. They are not occupied, abused, etc. They are given the same rights and responsibilities as any other Israeli citizen. I think this is the only hope for a lasting solution with the Palestinians.
Most Israelis don’t think so, and neither do you, and that’s fine. People like us don’t feel the need to pick up weapons and start blowing up buses to make a political point.
As for Palestinians, I am friends with several, a very close friend with one. Let me just say that arguing with the communists, fascists and islamists who write for this blog about Palestine issues is meaningless. They have no credibility in the villages, where Palestinians are much more pragmatic and open to accommodation with the Yehudim.
One of the problems of dealing with the Palestinians has always been that they are so irrevocably splintered – always were, always will be. The number of terrorist groups does not seem to decrease, despite incessant “consolidation” through violence.
I think Israelis should stop trying to make peace with “the Palestinians” and start making local arrangements with individual villages, clans, families, etc.
Posted by Sara | July 24, 2008, 8:00 pmSara, I had no idea israelis were such fans of the British Raj….
“Those bloody locals, they just don’t have the discipline, wot? If only the pesky brown-skinned ‘uns accepted that their enslavement and disenfrachisement was not just for the glory of our empire but for their own damn good, we could all take the afternoon off and have a jolly good game of cricket…”
Sara, you’re an apologist for colonialism, race-based supremecy and institutional theft.
Fuck off back to the 19th century, please…. and take your “close Palestinian friend” with you. Is he called Mowgli, by any chance…?
Posted by NOX | July 26, 2008, 6:49 amThanks Nox…that actually made me laugh. Perfect response.
Posted by Mohammad | July 27, 2008, 7:14 amhahaha, that’s so cute
The British left Israel.
The Jews were there three thousand years before the Palestinians even identified as one people, and they will remain there, forever.
Posted by Anonymous | July 27, 2008, 11:51 am“The British left Israel….”
hahahahaha! How ignorant!
The British left Palestine… the UN created this thing called Israel when the Brits decided that Irgun and Hagannah terrorism wasn’t much fun after a six year war against Nazi Germany….
Posted by Lowfields | July 28, 2008, 7:47 amMaybe the British preferred dealing with Arab gangs beating, raping and murdering Jews, as they did in Hebron, Haifa, Jerusalem, Jaffa, etc.
The Jews were there three thousand years before the Palestinians even identified as one people [much less resided in the land], and they will remain there, forever.
Posted by Mitch | July 28, 2008, 9:04 am