West Bank - whose is it?

[Jayjay]

Yes, it did move. The general vicinity of "Gush Etzion settlement bloc" is not a clearly defined border. What matters is whether the land is by Israel considered "state land" or not, because Israel has a policy that any outposts in Palestinian privately owned land are illegal and are eventually going to be dismantled (yeah right!), but the ones in "state land" may be legitimized. By changing the border so that the outposts now reside inside "state land" effectively opens the door for legalizing their status as has been done for several other such outposts within the last decade.

And did you miss the part about this making the Palestinian-owned land into enclaves? This would not be possible if the border did not change. Unless of course you think the "border" is really the entirety of the West Bank and that Israel can take whatever land it wants.

Anything labeled a "settlement block" is inside the wall.

Read again. There is Palestinian land that is being made into enclaves by declaring this land as part of the settlement block, which is only possible if that land is inside the same block. How is it possible that there is Palestinian owned land inside the wall?

I notice, that you have failed to show where the actual border is supposed to be (though in all fairness, neither has the state of Israel declared any border). How can you claim that the border has not moved, if you don't even know where the border is?

 

[Jayjay]

Here's the possible solutions for peace. There maybe more.
1. Israel pushes all Palestinians into Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, and tells them to never come back.
2. Palestine pushes Israel into the Mediterranean Sea.
3. The Israelis remove their citizens from the West Bank and let the Palestinians create a landlocked sovereign nation. Gaza would still be a problem, but a diplomatic corridor could be negotiated.
4. Israel claims the West Bank and Gaza and gives Palestinians full Israeli citizenship. This would include compensation for all property seized of lost in the past 50 years of armed conflict. Amnesty is granted by both sides for all previous acts of patriotism-terrorism-military defense-PYL. Any further acts of violence are treated as criminal offenses.

Which one do you think would work? Got any other ideas?

I was referring to the eternal claims of continued loss of land.

2 would bring the peace of death.
1 would be neutral
3 & 4 would make the problem worse, not better.

Option 1 and 2 are pretty much the same. If Israel were to be pushed to the sea, the people would likely find refuge in Europe and elsewhere... millions of Israelis have dual citizenship and foreign passports already, something that cannot be said for Palestinians. It's no more a death sentence for Jews than pushing the Palestinians into Jordan and Egypt is a death sentence for them. If history is any indication, Palestinian refugees are treated like shit by the Arabs whereas Jews are enjoying a relatively high standard of living in the West, so option 1 would in purely utilitarian terms be less severe than option 2.

Option 3 would not make the problem worse, unless you think it is a "problem" if Jewish religious fanatics cannot steal land.

 

[untermensche]

How can you claim that the border has not moved, if you don't even know where the border is?

That's the trick.

"We haven't expanded our non-existent border."

The internationally recognized border is the UN border after the 67 war.

Has that border changed?

 

[Bronzeage]

The borders haven't moved in a decade other than the Gaza pullout. I find it hard to imagine how you can have expansion with no change in the border.

Draw a line that includes all the West Bank settlements and compare it to the pre-1967 borders. I find it hard to imagine how you can look at just the past nine years and say there is no expansion.

Draw that line now, draw it 10 years ago. See any difference?

That would be good if no one could remember more that 10 years ago. It's difficult to go to the table and say, "Yeah, we pretty much fucked you out of everything, but we haven't stolen any of your stuff for at least ten years, so that should make us cool, right?"

Here's the possible solutions for peace. There maybe more.
1. Israel pushes all Palestinians into Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, and tells them to never come back.
2. Palestine pushes Israel into the Mediterranean Sea.
3. The Israelis remove their citizens from the West Bank and let the Palestinians create a landlocked sovereign nation. Gaza would still be a problem, but a diplomatic corridor could be negotiated.
4. Israel claims the West Bank and Gaza and gives Palestinians full Israeli citizenship. This would include compensation for all property seized of lost in the past 50 years of armed conflict. Amnesty is granted by both sides for all previous acts of patriotism-terrorism-military defense-PYL. Any further acts of violence are treated as criminal offenses.

Which one do you think would work? Got any other ideas?

I was referring to the eternal claims of continued loss of land.

2 would bring the peace of death.
1 would be neutral
3 & 4 would make the problem worse, not better.

I'm not sure what you mean by the bolded words and your evaluations? You say #1 is neutral, but #3 and #4 make it worse? You're not making any sense.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I was referring to the eternal claims of continued loss of land.

2 would bring the peace of death.
1 would be neutral
3 & 4 would make the problem worse, not better.

"1" would be NEUTRAL? Kicking all those people off their land forever and giving it to someone else is what you would call "neutral"?

Neutral in terms of whether it would make the situation neither better nor worse.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Option 3 would not make the problem worse, unless you think it is a "problem" if Jewish religious fanatics cannot steal land.

The issue was whether the various actions would make more or less fighting.

3 would mean more fighting in the long run. Anything that can be seen as weakness encourages the terrorists.

And 2/3 of them favor continuing the fight even if there is a peace treaty, it's not like a "peace" treaty ends the war.

- - - Updated - - -

How can you claim that the border has not moved, if you don't even know where the border is?

That's the trick.

"We haven't expanded our non-existent border."

The internationally recognized border is the UN border after the 67 war.

Has that border changed?

67 is just an armistice line.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Draw a line that includes all the West Bank settlements and compare it to the pre-1967 borders. I find it hard to imagine how you can look at just the past nine years and say there is no expansion.

Draw that line now, draw it 10 years ago. See any difference?

Yeah, draw it. Pay no attention to the continual reports of "expansion"--the Palestinians regard construction even in Israel as settlement expansion.

I'm not sure what you mean by the bolded words and your evaluations? You say #1 is neutral, but #3 and #4 make it worse? You're not making any sense.

I was talking about what the effect on the fighting would be.

 

[Arctish]

Anything labeled a "settlement block" is inside the wall.

Read again. There is Palestinian land that is being made into enclaves by declaring this land as part of the settlement block, which is only possible if that land is inside the same block. How is it possible that there is Palestinian owned land inside the wall?

You made the assumption it was "inside the wall", whatever that means. What wall are you talking about? The wall around the illegal settlement Netiv Ha’avot? The wall around Gush Etzion? The security wall built on stolen land? Are you even sure there is a wall near the Palestinian farmland that Israel just grabbed for its Jewish citizens use?

1) That's Haaretz, a very questionable source.

The Ha'aretz article isn't the only one about this latest theft of Palestinian land. You can find plenty of talk about it, and how it appears to be designed to make an illegal settlement legal under Israeli law. This method of acquiring Palestinian land for settlements is a fig leaf covering the same old ethnic cleansing and theft that has been going on for decades.

Since the 1979 judgment of the High Court of Justice in the Elon Moreh case, which prohibited the requisition of private Palestinian land to build civilian settlements, the settlement enterprise has been based on the use of state land. However, the amount of land recorded in the land registry as government property prior to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in 1967 was limited (527,000 dunams, 9 percent of the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem), and was concentrated in the Jordan Valley. The Central Mountain Ridge region contained almost no state land.

Following the court’s ruling in the Elon Moreh case, and in line with policies of building settlements throughout the West Bank, including on the Central Mountain Ridge, the State of Israel declared more than 900,000 dunams as state land. Over the years, B'Tselem and other human rights organizations criticized Israel’s declarations policy, both on procedural grounds – Palestinians were often denied the right to effectively object to the declaration – and on the substantive claim that the declarations were intended to promote an unlawful objective: the establishment of settlements, which, because it creates permanent change in occupied territory, is forbidden under international law.

The point is you keep claiming the theft of land stopped years ago. You were wrong. Israel just took another bite out of the West Bank. It can't transfer the stolen land directly to Israeli settlers anymore but by simply declaring it State land first, Israel can and will give it to Zionist settlers.

 

[Bronzeage]

Draw that line now, draw it 10 years ago. See any difference?

Yeah, draw it. Pay no attention to the continual reports of "expansion"--the Palestinians regard construction even in Israel as settlement expansion.

I'm not sure what you mean by the bolded words and your evaluations? You say #1 is neutral, but #3 and #4 make it worse? You're not making any sense.

I was talking about what the effect on the fighting would be.

The four solutions mean an end to the fighting. If your solution that everybody keeps fighting, that's #5.

 

[untermensche]

67 is just an armistice line.

It's the internationally recognized border. No other legal borders exist.

To not respect it is a crime.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yeah, draw it. Pay no attention to the continual reports of "expansion"--the Palestinians regard construction even in Israel as settlement expansion.

I'm not sure what you mean by the bolded words and your evaluations? You say #1 is neutral, but #3 and #4 make it worse? You're not making any sense.

I was talking about what the effect on the fighting would be.

The four solutions mean an end to the fighting. If your solution that everybody keeps fighting, that's #5.

Only one of your four options would actually end the fighting.

Your argument basically assumes the land is doing the fighting and thus it will be resolved by making the contested areas entirely controlled by one side.

I've never heard of land attacking. People attack. Three of your four solutions leave both combatants on the field, they just change the field. That won't end the fighting.

 

[steve_bnk]

It is a cease fire line. Final borders were to be negotiated. As it stands the border is anywhere Israel says it is.

Egypt and Jordan made peace, the rest of the Arab coalitions never made peace. Technically the last war never ended.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Line_(Israel)

'...Green Line refers to the demarcation lines set out in the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and its neighbours (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria) after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The Green Line is also used to mark the line between Israel and the territories captured in the Six-Day War, including the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula (the last has since been returned to Egypt as part of the 1979 peace treaty). The name derives from the green ink used to draw the line on the map while the talks were going on.[1]

The green line is commonly referred to as the "pre-1967 borders", the "1967 borders" or the "1967 lines" by the United States president Barack Obama,[2] Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas,[3] Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu,[4] and by the United Nations in informal texts[5] and in the text of UN GA Resolutions....'

While the line is only an armistice demarcation line,[9] in practice it is used to differentiate between those areas which are administered as part of Israel, and the areas outside it, which are administered by the Israeli military or the Palestinian Authority.[10][11] The extended municipality of Jerusalem constitutes one exception to this: although the parts occupied by Jordan until 1967 fall outside the Green Line, Israel declared Jerusalem "complete and united" as the capital of Israel according to the 1980 Basic Jerusalem Law.[12][13] No other country in the world has recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital (see positions on Jerusalem) and the UN Security Council confirmed that Israel's measures at changing the status of Jerusalem were invalid.[12][13]...'

 

[untermensche]

As it stands the border is anywhere Israel says it is.

That's not what international law says.

Any violation of the 67 borders by Israel is a crime. Building settlements in land you occupy is a crime.

"We've only been violating international law for 50 years."

"Why does everybody hate us?"

 

[Rhea]

Here's the possible solutions for peace. There maybe more.
1. Israel pushes all Palestinians into Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, and tells them to never come back.
2. Palestine pushes Israel into the Mediterranean Sea.
3. The Israelis remove their citizens from the West Bank and let the Palestinians create a landlocked sovereign nation. Gaza would still be a problem, but a diplomatic corridor could be negotiated.
4. Israel claims the West Bank and Gaza and gives Palestinians full Israeli citizenship. This would include compensation for all property seized of lost in the past 50 years of armed conflict. Amnesty is granted by both sides for all previous acts of patriotism-terrorism-military defense-PYL. Any further acts of violence are treated as criminal offenses.

Which one do you think would work? Got any other ideas?

2 would bring the peace of death.
1 would be neutral
3 & 4 would make the problem worse, not better.

I was talking about what the effect on the fighting would be.

So you're saying,

1. Palestinians get kicked out and told to never return - this stops the fighting. (because why, they just say, oh, the Jews must be right that we never had homes worth defending?)
2. Israel gets kicked out completely and told to never return - this keeps up the fighting. (there would be no "peace of death" - the Israelis have boat, planes and lots of wealthy friends to rescue them. "peace of death" is hyperbolic martyr talk, and patently unrealistic.)
3. Israelis are told to share the land - this keeps up the fighting (because Israelis cannot share?)
4. Israelis are told to share the governing - this keeps up the fighting (because Israelis cannot share?)

It's hard to believe you can keep a straight face while claiming these things.

 

[whichphilosophy]

The Israelis are taking possession of Palestinian territories but it doesn't mean they own it as their own.

Of course it does. The essence of government is the ability and will to enforce and protect property rights. In simplest terms, one cannot own what one cannot secure and protect. We could fortify our property and live under siege, but it's much more efficient to hand this problem to our government. Whether I am threatened by a burglar or a foreign country, my government will handle the problem. It's a great deal for me. The Palestinians have made a poor bargain with their government.

By definition Ownership means the legal right of possession. Legal ownership is not determined by the ability of someone to take over another's property and keep it. A colonial power would of course beg to differ. It works exactly the same as if someone took over someone else's home or their IPAD. The fact that the UN is unable to enforce international laws on Israel does not mean Israel automatically has the right of ownership. The Zionists have appointed God as their estate agent, thus property Laws made in heaven override those made by man.

 

[steve_bnk]

67 is just an armistice line.

It's the internationally recognized border. No other legal borders exist.

To not respect it is a crime.

What law and what rime? The crux of the conflict is that borders have not been settled and Israel usurps land.

The Green Line was accepted as a temporary defacto border contingent on negotiations as a final settlement of the first Arab-Israeli war. It was actually a line updated on a mp as he war progressed.

Jerusalem was and is still in dispute. Israel has unilaterally declared Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and that is not internationally accepted.

Nations that recognize Israeli honor Israeli passports and grant diplomatic rights etc IAW international law. Borders were to be set by negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel. Something that neither Israel nor Hamas wants. Hence the see-saw running battle.

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

'...At present, a total of 32 United Nations member states do not recognise the State of Israel: 18 of the 22 members of the Arab League: Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen; a further 11 members of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Chad, Guinea, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Mali, Niger, and Pakistan. Other countries which do not recognise Israel include Bhutan, Cuba, and North Korea.[14] in 2002, the Arab League proposed the recognition of Israel by Arab countries as part of the resolution of the Palestine-Israel conflict in the Arab Peace Initiative.

Some countries that do not recognise Israel have also questioned the legitimacy of Israel. Some do not accept Israeli passports and some also do not accept passports of other countries whose holder has an Israeli visa endorsed in it...'

 

[Bronzeage]

Yeah, draw it. Pay no attention to the continual reports of "expansion"--the Palestinians regard construction even in Israel as settlement expansion.

I'm not sure what you mean by the bolded words and your evaluations? You say #1 is neutral, but #3 and #4 make it worse? You're not making any sense.

I was talking about what the effect on the fighting would be.

The four solutions mean an end to the fighting. If your solution that everybody keeps fighting, that's #5.

Only one of your four options would actually end the fighting.

Your argument basically assumes the land is doing the fighting and thus it will be resolved by making the contested areas entirely controlled by one side.

I've never heard of land attacking. People attack. Three of your four solutions leave both combatants on the field, they just change the field. That won't end the fighting.

All four of the options end the fighting. You assume people will keep fighting after agreeing to one of the options, or there are still people left on one side or the other.

 

[untermensche]

What law and what rime? The crux of the conflict is that borders have not been settled and Israel usurps land.

The borders have never been fully settled because Israel with the help of the US refuses to settle them and continues to expand.

But the borders are recognized and they are spelled out in the agreement Israel entered into following the 67 war.

Building settlements in land you occupy is a crime under international law.

The criminal here is Israel. The provocation is coming from Israel.

And mainly the people being killed are Palestinian civilians.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

2 would bring the peace of death.
1 would be neutral
3 & 4 would make the problem worse, not better.

I was talking about what the effect on the fighting would be.

So you're saying,

1. Palestinians get kicked out and told to never return - this stops the fighting. (because why, they just say, oh, the Jews must be right that we never had homes worth defending?)
2. Israel gets kicked out completely and told to never return - this keeps up the fighting. (there would be no "peace of death" - the Israelis have boat, planes and lots of wealthy friends to rescue them. "peace of death" is hyperbolic martyr talk, and patently unrealistic.)
3. Israelis are told to share the land - this keeps up the fighting (because Israelis cannot share?)
4. Israelis are told to share the governing - this keeps up the fighting (because Israelis cannot share?)

It's hard to believe you can keep a straight face while claiming these things.

1) Just because they're kicked out doesn't mean they won't just attack from elsewhere. Thus the effect is neutral.

2a) If the Jews are kicked out they aren't going to be engaging in any widespread terrorism.
2b) If they were disarmed they would likely die before they had time to flee.

3) Share the land--the Palestinians have made it very clear that they're going to attack so long as there are Jews there. All you have done is given them more ability to attack. The violence goes up.

4) Share the government--same problem, the Palestinians aren't going to accept that and will continue to attack. More violence.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, draw it. Pay no attention to the continual reports of "expansion"--the Palestinians regard construction even in Israel as settlement expansion.

I'm not sure what you mean by the bolded words and your evaluations? You say #1 is neutral, but #3 and #4 make it worse? You're not making any sense.

I was talking about what the effect on the fighting would be.

The four solutions mean an end to the fighting. If your solution that everybody keeps fighting, that's #5.

Only one of your four options would actually end the fighting.

Your argument basically assumes the land is doing the fighting and thus it will be resolved by making the contested areas entirely controlled by one side.

I've never heard of land attacking. People attack. Three of your four solutions leave both combatants on the field, they just change the field. That won't end the fighting.

All four of the options end the fighting. You assume people will keep fighting after agreeing to one of the options, or there are still people left on one side or the other.

Yes, I assume the Palestinians will keep fighting even if they get an agreement. That's what they say they want, why shouldn't we believe them when they say they won't stop fighting?

 

[Shadowy Man]

properLY

Please, please tell me you recognised the irony I was going for, but you're pretending you didn't for comic effect.

You could also have used a comma after the word "Although".