The Sheba'a Farms were part of the Ottoman Empire, and there was no dispute over administration until the Empire fell. It became part of the French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon,
not the British Mandate for Palestine. In the 1920s and 1930s that area paid taxes to the government of Lebanon and in the 1940s and 1950s the government of Lebanon was the one issuing land deeds there. It wasn't until the 1950s that the Syrians took over. In any event, it was not part of the (grossly unfair) Partition Plan that gave tacit approval for the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine. Israel has no legitimate claim to it, no matter how much anyone wants to quibble over whether it truly belongs to Lebanon or Syria.
The Israelis claim to have annexed the Farms. The Lebanese, the Syrians, and the international community considers that an illegal act of outright theft. Saying Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon isn't entirely accurate as long as Israel occupies the Sheba'a Farms and plants colonies there.
Theft of land and resources and ethnically cleansing west bank is an exception, because Israel wants those things regardless of what Palestinians do about it. And the blockade of Gaza was a response to Hamas violently taking power in Gaza in 2007.
It's not an exception. It's how Israeli Zionists have operated since the 1940s. Heck, it's how European colonists have operated for centuries.
To be clear, when I said "long-standing policy" I'm talking about past decade or so. Not ancient history.
Then you should say "recent policy".
First they sort the indigenous population and decide who can stay and who'll be forced out. The unwanted are forced into reservations or ethnic zones with few resources and almost no economic development that isn't controlled by the colonizers, with barriers and separation walls to keep them penned and powerless. Then comes the excuses for why it's okay for the colonizers to imprison an entire population that way, with all the crying and hand-wringing about how much the 'backwards' people on the reservations hate their benefactors who oh-so-generously allow them to have food and water out of the goodness of their hearts.
You think the establishment of a walled off ghetto full of unwanted Semitic people is something new? You think their decision to protest, to fight, to try to escape is wrongheaded or foolish? I think it follows a well known pattern.
If the people in Gaza wanted to escape, Egypt would be a better destination than Israel.
What if they want to go home? What if they want their human rights respected and upheld? What if they don't want to start over with absolutely nothing in a place where they never lived, and resent having to due to the blatant racism and religious bigotry that demands they remain separate from Jews in Israel?
You are talking about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. You are openly supporting it. And that's interesting because I don't think you are in favor of ethnic cleansing or state sponsored bigotry in general.
You don't appear to support white supremacists and segregationists who want to keep blacks out of their neighborhoods and Native Americans confined to reservations, or to purge Tutsis from Hutu areas, or to banish the Armenians from Kosovo. Why are you arguing that the Palestinians should leave their homeland and cede it to the Israelis? Why do you support ethnic cleansing in Palestine?
Anyway, what exactly do you think is a reasonable goal for the people of Gaza? Israel doesn't recognize their right to any part of Palestine, keeps them penned inside a ghetto, controls their food supply, commerce, and resources, and continues to displace non-Jews in the West Bank. What is a reasonable response to that?
The best thing for the people in Gaza is to protest the restrictions on food, resources and commerce. Best way to do it is non-violent protest and building up their infrastructure. And likewise, the most efficient way for Gazans to help stop the displacement of Palestinians in West Bank is to
live well and behave themselves. Every time Hamas fires rockets from Gaza or tries to breach the fence or attacks a checkpoint, the Israeli public is nudged slightly to the side of the settlers, while actually doing nothing to deter the latter. If Gazan show that withdrawal of settlements is met with peace, that would put pressure (albeit not necessarily enough) for Israel to do the same in West Bank.
If Hamas wants to break the blockade, the way to do it is small steps. Don't try to breach the fence, just get closer to the fence and get some of the land back that Israel designated as a no-man's land.
IOW, surrender to their new overlords. Be grateful Israel lets them have food. Be thankful they have electricity for a few hours each day. Don't fight. That will only make things worse. It amazes me sometimes how much Zionist apologetics sounds like what wife beaters and child abusers say to their victims. Behave, do as you're told, don't get uppity, "now look at what you made me do" as they crush any resistance to their absolute rule.
I didn't say they shouldn't find; but rather they should choose their battles. If they are so keen on food an electricity, why not protest for food and electricity rather than storming the fence? There is no way Israel would ever let them breach the border and run amok in Israel and that's a non-starter.
Previous wars started by Hamas are main reason for the lack of electricity. Power plants and lines tend to get damaged, and that makes Gaza even more dependent on Israeli electricity and fuel. If they had half a brain, they'd be protesting at the Egyptian border and demanding to import more fuel through the Rafah crossing.
Been there, done that.
Your suggestion of Palestinians getting better conditions through peaceful demonstrations and forswearing violence would be a lot more convincing if that was actually happening in the West Bank. But since all it seems to be doing is making it easier for Zionists to take over more and more land, it looks more like wishful thinking than anything reality based.
The people in West Bank undeniably do have better living conditions than Gaza. And risk of zionists taking more land is not likely to occur in Gaza. All in all, Gaza is in a lot better position than West Bank in a lot of ways: they have access to Egypt not patrolled by Israel, they have access to mediterranean (sans blockade), the border fence with Israel is actually at the internationally recognized border, and they have no internal checkpoints or Israeli settlers.
The Palestinian people of the West Bank are being crowded into ever shrinking strips of land, surrounded by IDF forces and separation barriers, with Jews-only communities being built on land stolen from them. If this pattern doesn't change in the near future they will be in the exact same position as the people of Gaza - trapped into an economically depressed enclave surrounded by barriers and barbed wire, dependent on the Israeli government for food, water, electricity, etc.
It's the same series of steps that led to the creation of the Gaza Strip and the imprisonment of the population. All that's missing are the truckloads of refugees literally dumped on the Palestinian side by Zionists seeking to remove them from anything valuable enough to claim for Israel.
If your suggestion of peaceful demonstrations and 'living well' was a viable plan then the West Bank Palestinians wouldn't still be subject to removal by Israelis, or having their orchards uprooted and burned, or having their wells confiscated and destroyed.
Warning shots for approaching the fence.
Which you suggest they should do as they reclaim no-man's-land.
Palestinians murdered by Israelis. You think the Gazans are any safer?
Yes.
Part of the recent violent protest organized by Hamas.
So, it's okay to shoot people standing in an open area during a peaceful protest if you just call it a violent protest? Or are you equating the peaceful guy with a violent guy because of his national origin?
When you participate in a violent riot, even if you yourself don't happen to do anything but stand around, there is a chance of getting hit as collateral damage. And that's assuming this guy wasn't doing anything else, a claim that should be taken with a grain of salt given that considerable majority of the victims were Hamas members.
He wasn't participating in a violent riot. He posted the video right there in the link I provided. He was just standing there out in the open, no where near to the Israeli position, just talking as he made his recording, when an Israeli sniper shot him.
You say Palestinians should engage in peaceful protest. I highlighted your words to that effect above. But what does it take for a Palestinian to be seen as a peaceful protester by you? In what way was that guy in the video not peacefully protesting?
The article is behind a pay-wall, but I suspect this happened also in West Bank?
It's another case of a Palestinian who was minding his own business but was murdered by Israelis anyway.
You want to make the case that Palestinians will be safe from harm as long as they're peaceful. But that's not the reality. They aren't safe from harm even when they aren't edging in close to the separation wall as you suggest.
And that's why it's important to make the distinction between West Bank and Gaza. In latter, there are far more many places where either Israeli settlers or soldiers may bump into Palestinians.
Your suggestion that they 'live well' assumes they are allowed to live at all. That's not a given. And even if it was, they should 'live well' where? They can't do that while they are slowly being extirpated from their homes in the West Bank or imprisoned in Gaza.
I'm talking about Gaza. Of course living well is relative. But seeing what you've got and building up infrastructure and pushing for slow easing of blockade, as well as reclaiming no-man's land would be far more effective than starting a shooting war every 12 to 18 months that turns the entire strip to rubble.
They can't build up their infrastructure unless Israel allows it. Israel doesn't allow it.
Gaza has off-shore natural gas deposits. Do you honestly think the Israelis will allow them to develop those resources on their own, to their own benefit, and charge Israelis fair market price for it?
How does storming the fence help with that?
Gaza grows flowers and produce for the European market. Do you honestly think Israel allows them to control that trade, to choose their own trading partners and negotiate their own contracts freely, to ship their goods to market and receive payment without obstacles or interference?
How does storming the fence help with that?
It doesn't happen that way. Just like Israel doesn't allow the Palestinians to control their own water supplies. Everything goes through Israeli businesses or Israeli government agencies, for the benefit Israelis, just like every attempt to improve life on the Reservations here in the US went through white owned companies and the BIA. It's going to take more than a cheerful, positive, Pollyanna attitude to change that.
And storming the fence is supposed to change it, how exactly?
By making it harder for people like you to ignore the gross violation of human rights and the undiluted bigotry at the heart of Israeli policies towards Palestinians.
People are trapped in Gaza because racists and religious bigots want their land but don't want them. The US supports it because racists and religious bigots have enough influence in Congress to make it so, and because it's profitable. That could change if enough people care about the situation in Gaza to change it. But no one will care if no one even notices.
