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  Posted By: farmdad @ 07/05/2009 1:19:31 PM

  Froy, if you are still there. I???m not saying that Jews should claim the entire West Bank. But you seem to be saying that Jews should not be allowed to live there at all. The settlements were built on land that was neither privately owned nor under any recognized Palestinian sovereignty. No Palestinian entitlement to the entire land has ever existed (again, please identify the international agreement that asserts otherwise), yet you have somehow divined that it is their birthright to have every square inch of the stateless, untitled land that actual international agreements designated for a Jewish homeland. Even though the Arabs rejected every partition compromise that has ever been proposed, attacked Israel on several occasions, and launched a campaign of vicious terrorism, Israel is willing to concede 97% of the West Bank. And as soon as Palestinians demonstrate they are no longer inclined to shoot rockets or blow up pizza parlors, many of the security measures that the Palestinians have brought upon themselves can be eased.
  
  Isn???t it remarkable that in the 60 years since the Fourth Geneva Convention, the High Contracting Parties have convened only to condemn Israel? I guess the atrocities against people in Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Sudan, Congo, and Tibet have been too trivial to warrant their attention when compared to Jewish construction projects. In 1999, the meeting lasted for an entire 17 minutes. No wonder no one bothered to read Article 2; there was barely any time. The December 5, 2001 affair was a great follow-up to the UN so-called Conference against Racism in Durban three months earlier. The December meeting was particularly obscene, occurring within days of Palestinian suicide attacks in Haifa and Jerusalem which killed more than two dozen Israeli citizens, with barely a peep about it from the high-minded humanitarians in attendance. I especially liked how Jewish NGO???s were banned from the parallel conference on December 4, a harbinger of the absurdity to follow. At least the U.S. and Australia had the good sense to join Israel in boycotting the kangaroo court on December 5 whose outcome was predetermined by the Arab bloc that instigated the meeting. As for the moral authority of the UN since the 1970???s? What can you say about an organization in which Sudan is considered the authority on Human Rights? The real atrocity is how formerly respected humanitarian institutions have been hijacked for transparently biased political purposes.
  

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  Posted By: froy1100 @ 07/01/2009 12:45:25 AM

  Of course, farmdad, the analogy of Israel and Apartheid South Africa must encompass all the territories controlled by Israel. As I pointed out earlier, the real problem here is occupation, which is allowing the existence of a new kind of apartheid. Even visiting South African politicians to the West Bank have attested this resemblance, only remarking that the situation of Palestinians is much worse. I also take for granted that Israel will not annex the West Bank and Gaza willingly. Afrikaners also rejected this at the beginning, adducing excuses shockingly similar to the ones posed by Israel (the blacks will turn the country in a dictatorship, they will ruin the economy, they will kick us out, they will kill us all???), all of which turned out to be wrong and false. To achieve the end of the Bantustans and true democracy it was necessary enormous international pressure. In the case of Israel, a similar path should be followed: diplomatic isolation, sanctions, etc. Unfortunately, the blind diplomatic and economic support of the US for Israel renders this solution highly unlikely. Palestinians and Arab nations have realized this, and for that reason they have adopted the pragmatic position evidenced by the Arab Peace Offer. Palestinians have already explicitly accepted to live alongside Israel in a separate state, provided that it???s viable, so it???s not valid that Israel keeps dragging its feet arguing that they just want to destroy Israel. Nobody is buying that anymore. The one-state option would indeed be the most just and democratic solution, just like it was in South Africa, but Palestinians and Arab nations have proved to be pragmatic enough to accept this new partition. Israel has run out of excuses.
  
  From your comments I can just infer that you just prefer the status quo to continue indefinitely (until Israel decides that the Palestinians ???genuinely want peace???, that???s a good one), while at the same time keep with their continuous land grab. But that???s just not an option. Occupation must end.

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  Posted By: froy1100 @ 06/30/2009 11:25:40 AM

  Farmdad, the West Bank belongs to the peoples who inhabit it, as long as they don't do so illegally, as in the case of the Israeli settlements. The inalienable right of self-determination of the peoples, internationally recognized, guarantees this regardless of the fact of the preexistence of a sovereign state of their own. Presuming that the land they inhabited for generations doesn't belong to them, but to the newly-arrived Israeli settlers, is not only at odds with International Law, but with common sense.
  
  Jews in the WB accounted before partition for less than 2% (around 10.000 of a total population of over 700.000). To justify a claim over the WB based on such paltry Jewish presence and negate the right of 98% of its people is plainly ridiculous. If those expelled in 1948 want to return to their rightful properties and live in peace under Palestinian authority, by all means, but Israel will have to do the same with the 800.000 they expelled in the same period. I don't think you want to continue down this road.
  
  And then you go again with another of the peculiar interpretations of International Law by Israel. If you find jurist outside Israel supporting this interpretation of the 4th GC, he must surely be in a mental asylum. On 15 July 1999 a conference of the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention met at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva. It ruled that the Convention did apply in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including Jerusalem.In 2001, at a one-day conference of High Contracting Parties, 114 countries adopted a three-page declaration re-affirming that the terms of the Convention applied to the Palestinian territories. Israel's position has not been accepted by the International Committee of the Red Cross, nor has it been endorsed by the other High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention. Article 1 of the Convention states that "The High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances". This position was previously asserted in the UN???s Security Council resolution 446, and reiterated in resolutions 452, 465, 471 and 607.
  
  But what is most absurd of all is to maintain that ???Jews moving to the West Bank have done so on their own initiative???, when it???s notorious that the Israeli government has offered active support and voiced encouragement for the settlement of the West Bank, built all kind of infrastructures for their comfort (the infamous Jew-only roads), and financed their land grab with soft loans that settlements don???t even have to pay back if they stay a certain amount of time. This is not individual initiative, this is a state-driven policy with the clear aim to expand its territory at the expense of the Palestinians, thus in full contravention of the Geneva Convention.