Israel tightens its grip while world looks to Iraq

[nicky g]

Sorry for all this but the recent behaviour of the Sharon government is astounding, and getting very lttle attention

Israeli wall to encircle Palestine
Sharon accused of turning territories into huge prison
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,916222,00.html

No independent Palestine, Sharon insists
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,915690,00.html

Palestinians caged in beach paradise
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,915238,00.html

Anyone still think the Israelis are serious about a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians? It seems obviuos to me that they are counting on forcing as many more out of the occupied territories as they possibly can before borders for the Palestinian state - I mean, territory with "some aspects of sovereignty" - are finally settled.

Excerpt from the last article:


Claims of the persecution of the residents are supported by the Israeli human rights group, Betselem. Its latest report, 'Impossible Life in an Isolated Enclave', says the people of Al Mawasi, 'live in intolerable conditions and are engaged in constant and prolonged struggle to survive... An entire community is imprisoned.'

The nearest that most outsiders can get to Al Mawasi is the Tufah checkpoint, where residents try to re-enter the community. On the left of the approach road is a group of middle-aged men and on the right are middle-aged women with children aged under 12. The women take the children of young women for medical attention which cannot be provided in Al Mawasi (young women are not allowed through).

A loudspeaker summons a group of five men or women to approach the checkpoint, where they are searched by bored Israeli soldiers. They are forbidden to carry anything, so many try to smuggle items in their bulky robes.

When Fatima Najah, 43, attempted to smuggle a bottle of varnish six weeks ago, female soldiers found it and asked the mother of 10 what it was. When she explained, they told her to drink some of it. She refused and two of the soldiers held her and opened her mouth while a third poured in some of the liquid.

Speaking in a weak voice from her home in the Swedish Village in Al Mawasi - so called because it was built by Swedish soldiers in Gaza in 1965 - she told The Observer she collapsed in agony and lay on the floor for 15 minutes until an ambulance arrived.

She spent the next month in hospital being treated for damage to her vocal chords and stomach.

'I thought I was going to die, even when I was in hospital,' she said. 'Now I am not sure if I will ever be all right. Sometimes I am OK, but then the pain returns and I can do nothing.' She fears her husband will leave her or take another wife because of her injuries.

An Israeli army spokesperson said the allegation was being investigated.

Ali Abu Ouda, 65, the mukhtar or chief of the Swedish Village, said about 300 of its 1,000 residents were stranded outside Al Mawasi. 'They get taken to hospital and then they are not allowed back in because they were at school or university when the rules changed last year. Sometimes the soldiers say someone is a security risk and that is that,' he said.

International agencies believe the harsh policy, which the army says is under review, is designed to force the residents of Al Mawasi to leave. However, the alternatives are not much better, since the whole of Gaza is poor and beset by violence.

[MMMMMM]

Well I agree it's a mess and a tragedy, but just what is Israel supposed to do while living next door to terrorist organizations dedicated to its overthrow regardless of whether or not Israel gives up the territories.

As long as Hamas, and its charter which calls for the complete destruction of Israel and the thwarting of any peace process, exist (along with other like-minded terrorist organizations), Israel has no choice but to employ aggressive security measures in its own defense. It won't do Israel any good to bargain or negotiate with these organizations as they have made it clear that the complete destruction of Israel is their only goal.

So...what is Israel to do???

Keep trying to aggressively restrain them to limit attacks? All this seems to do is prolong the unsatisfactory status quo.

Give the Palestinians all a cash settlement and boot them out into Jordan? (actually this might be the most workable long-term solution--Jordan is Palestinian anyway and Jordan stole some of the land that was partitioned for the Palestinians).

Build a Berlin-type wall? Maybe a short-term solution, maybe a solution for a couple of decades or so--but not truly a long-term solution.

Retreat from the territories only to continue to be attacked from a closer vantage point? Not practical as long as uncompromising terrorist organizations like Hamas exist.

Give the Palestinians a state conditional on the dissolution of these terror organizations and the arrests and imprisonment of their leaders and members? Probably too difficult to implement either practically or fairly.

Well I don't really know.

It's unreasonable to expect Israel to reduce security buffers or measures as long as there are viable and totally dedicated terror organizations living right next door to them, which organizations won't be appeased by any peace process or negotiated settlement, and which proclaim that the destruction of Israel is the only satisfactory end. It's also unreasonable to expect the Palestinians to live indefinitely in the conditions they have been living in.

[nicky g]

I don't understand why you see it as one way traffic - Palestinians constantly attacking Israel. Who are the more numerous victims of this conflict? Palestinians. Who have lost the most in this conflict? The Palestinians. Why don't you class Israeli killings of innocent civilians and children as "terrorism" as well?

"what is Israel supposed to do while living next door to terrorist organizations dedicated to its overthrow regardless of whether or not Israel gives up the territories. "

Hamas and Islamic Jihad are - not the ordinary Palestinian or the PA. Furthermore, as I've stated before, the IRA said they were committed to a 32 county Ireland. Yet they have stopped their war without achieving that, thanks to brave negotatiations from Tony Blair.
Why do you think there is a conflict? Because Palestinians are just raging antisemites? Or do you think the conditions they are forced to live in by Israel might have something to do with it. Furthermore, how does cutting off people's best land, their water supply, increasing the number of settlements, barring humanitarian organisations from entering, poisoning a distraught mother, or any of the other things in the articles I posted, improve Israeli security? They don't - they are clearly aimed at ultimately ejecting the indigenous Palestinians and taking over the Occupied Territores for Israeli settlers. Sharon imposes stricter and stricter conditions, further and further expands the settlements, and yet things get worse and worse and he doesn't seem to care a jot. Happy, well-treated, prosperous and independent people don't fight - oppressed people do. Why do the Palestinians have no right to security? They've lost their lives and homes for 5 decades.

You ask why Israel should put up with people who want to destroy the Israelis state. WHy should Palestinians put up with an Israel that has no interest establishing an Palestinian state, or indeed etting the Palestinians stay in their homes? WHy should the Lebanese put up with their belligerent neighbour who've invaded in the past, committing war crimes while lead by the now Prme Minister Sharon, and who continue to occasionally bomb them, and many of whom clearly have visions of a Greater Israel incorporating all biblical israel, Lebanon and what's left of Palestine included?

"It's unreasonable to expect Israel to reduce security buffers or measures as long as there are viable and totally dedicated terror organizations living right next door to them, which organizations won't be appeased by any peace process or negotiated settlement"

How do you know? Despite the fact that Oslo was enormously unsatisfactory from the Palestinians' point of view (and the barest of compromises from the Israelis'), during the negotiations, and event the stagnation that followed, the suicide bombers remained largely quiet. They only returned after Israel shot 14 unarmed Arab protestors following Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount. If Sharon had any interest in peace he would restart proper negotiations with the Palestinian authority immediately, instead of endlessly dragging things out as he has done.

Finally, regarding your point about Jordan being "Palestinian" etc - it doesn't matter. The fact is, those people live there. Regardless of the larger politics, the West Bank and Gaza Palestinians have a right to the homes they live in, and Israel has no right to expel them, even if that land were legally Israeli, or incorporated into Israel, or Jordan were partly Palestinian. Do you think Saddam should be allowed to expel the Kurds because, well, it's Iraqi land and they're Kurds and there's already lots of Kurds in Turkey so that should be the real Kurdistan? Of course not. Stop kidding yourself tha Israel has the right to do what amounts to exactly the same thing.