Haaretz published an article by a woman named Allison Speiser the other day in which she explains her reasons for moving into an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.
Read her article here.
This is my response:
Ms Speiser,
You paint a very moving picture of a woman – a wife, a mother – sacrificing her home and community for peace. It’s a bit strange, however, that you are reminiscing about a moment that has never happened, in a place you don’t even live, in an area that the entire world in unanimous in declaring illegally occupied.
Your article makes no mention of the people you say you are ready to sacrifice so much of what isn’t yours to make peace with. I suppose that is because the Palestinians do not register in your psyche as equal human beings. If we did, you would not be so inclined to speak of stealing our lands and subjugating us to your ethno-supremacism while floundering in your own sense of heroism.
I hesitate to call you a criminal or a thief, because such people are aware of the illegality of their actions. You seem to have the mentality of a spoiled child, justifying your theft with lies and fabrications. Leave aside your false implication that Israel was not the instigator of the Six Day War, it is a complete lie to claim that territory can be captured by war. That is a clear and direct violation of international law, as is the forcible removal of the occupied population, and the transfer of citizens of the occupying state into the occupied territory. You are advocating all three and are claiming sympathy for the latter.
You maintain that you would give up living in an illegal settlement when the Israeli government commits to vacating it. Yet your government has repeatedly and consistently announced that it will not expand the settlements further. As an Israeli patriot, why are you not committing to your own government’s pledges?
You only inspire sympathy amongst others like you; people wallowing in the sickness of entitlement and racial supremacy. Everyone else has nothing but disgust and contempt for your appalling ideology and juvenile justifications. If you truly want peace, you will stay home where you are.
Related posts:
- Just another war crime
- CNN will publish anything the Israelis feed them
- Letter to RE/MAX
- Settler violence and more batshit excuses
- The Myth of Israeli “Response”
YES! very well written!
Posted by Samar | April 8, 2009, 9:26 pmThe Gaza Strip and West Bank, a section of the areas awarded by the UN to a prospective Arab state of Palestine, remained in Arab hands while the rest of that area was captured by Israel in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The former was administered by Egypt while the latter was annexed by Jordan. International bodies, including the United Nations Security Council, the International Court of Justice, the European Union, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and some legal scholars have characterized the settlements as a violation of international law. Israel, the Anti-Defamation League, and other legal scholars disagree with this assessment. The establishment and expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been described as "having no legal validity" by the UN Security Council in resolutions 446, 452, 465 and 471. These resolutions were made under Chapter VI of the United Nations Charter which relates to the "Pacific Settlement of Disputes" between parties, and as such have no enforcement mechanisms and are generally considered to have no binding force under international law Some legal scholars (including prominent international law expert Julius Stone, and Eugene Rostow, Dean of Yale Law School) and others, have also argued that the settlements are legal under international law, on a number of different grounds.
Posted by eagle007blogger | April 8, 2009, 11:17 pmNo attempt was ever made to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza between 1949 and 1967. The Geneva Conventions only apply to sovereign territories captured from a signatory to the conventions. Israel 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. 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. The U.S. position has changed over the years, but the Bush administration said that Israeli settlement activity must stop and the settlers be withdrawn to the Israeli side of the Green Line.
Posted by eagle007blogger | April 8, 2009, 7:25 pmThe Settlement Freeze Fallacy Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Posted by eagle007blogger | April 8, 2009, 11:31 pmThe Settlement Freeze Fallacy Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Posted by eagle007blogger | April 8, 2009, 7:31 pmThe Settlement Freeze Fallacy Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Posted by eagle007blogger | April 8, 2009, 11:31 pmThe Settlement Freeze Fallacy Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Posted by eagle007blogger | April 8, 2009, 11:31 pmNice response. My favorite part was where you wrote "You seem to have the mentality of a spoiled child, justifying your theft with lies and fabrications". Unfortunately, this appears to be the mentality of so many Zionists.
Posted by Light | April 8, 2009, 11:45 pmLeave aside your false implication that Israel was not the instigator of the Six Day War Egypt began by building up forces along the border with Israel. The entire Arab world became excited In May, 1967, President Nasser asked the UN to remove the UNEF from the Egyptian-Israeli frontier in Sinai. The path for war was cleared on 16 May when President Nasser ordered the withdrawal of the United Nations Emergency Forces from the Egyptian-Israeli border. On May 22, 1967, President Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping. On May 29 President Nasser declares "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight." On May 30 Egypt and Jordan unite against Israel. On May 31 Jordan moves forces towards Israel. You say that Israel was the instigator? Do you know that the whole thing began with false intelligence from the USSR that Israel would attack Syria – that's when Egypt began the buildup, but that intelligence was proven to be false in plenty of time to stop, but the Arab world was already on fire with the fever to attack Israel and Nasser continued to build up for war. Egypt instigated the war, with the rest of the Arab world fanning the flames of war. The propagandists use terms like "The Israeli War of Aggression" because Israel, in it's own defense, made the right decision to strike on June 5th destroying the Arab air forces. It would have been foolish to wait and fight on their own territory.
Posted by eagle007blogger | April 9, 2009, 12:39 amDid you read Article 49 of the Geneva Convention, that I posted? What part of 'The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies' does NOT apply to Israel? The Geneva Convention IS binding under international law.
Posted by Shafiq | April 9, 2009, 11:10 amIsrael defended itself by attacking another country? Talk about taking logic (well, a lack of logic) to a whole new level.
Posted by Shafiq | April 9, 2009, 11:12 amTheir very own 'special' kind of logic – why, recently, they were 'forced to kill Palestinian children' to defend themselves.
Posted by AlFannan | April 11, 2009, 5:09 amThe Six Day war of 1967 was instigated by Egypt.
Posted by egypt | April 12, 2009, 1:19 am