The Palestians solution - an honest answer

[figatova]

Originally Posted by radgy

lots of what isreal's gotta do,what about them?

What do you suggest Palestine does besides what it has already done aka giving up most of its territory and accepting a two-State solution? Is that not enough for you? You do realise it is Israel, not Palestine, that's illegally occupying Palestine, increasing that illegal land grab as we speak and which has a military and economic blockade on Palestinian territories, do you?
If you're thinking of Gaza stopping the armed retaliation in response to the Israeli occupation and military oppression it has already done that, several times, and almost every time without exception Israel has broken the ceasefire. Regardless, armed resistance won't stop unless Israel stops the construction of illegal settlements, withdraws from the illegally occupied land and stops the barbaric oppression of Palestine.
The only reason why Hamas came to be and why Hamas has support is because of Israeli oppression. Same reason why Hezbollah came to be in Lebanon. Same reason why the IRA and ETA came to be in the Ireland and Spain.
Stop the barbaric policies and give diplomacy a chance and the armed resistance will lose its support.
Unfortunately every time Palestine has tried diplomacy Israel and the US have done their best to castrate a diplomatic solution and make sure it gets nowhere thus leaving armed resistance as the only option. Palestine's statehood bid was the latest example of it where Palestine was punished with sanctions and even more illegal settlements for daring to embrace diplomacy. Embarrassingly so for the US and Israel I might add.

[figatova]

Originally Posted by Wimbly

Palestine must accept the pre-1967 borders.
Palestine must renounce claims on greater Israel - they'll have to let that go.
Palestine should not seek compensation.
Palestine must unconditionally recognize Israel within her borders.

Palestine has already done all of that.

Originally Posted by Wimbly

Palestine must renounce terror and the idea of armed struggle against

Palestine won't renounce terror unless Israel renounces terror. An armed struggle against the occupying and oppressing power is the only option left to Palestine when a diplomatic solution is continuously opposed by Israel.

Originally Posted by Wimbly

IsraelPalestinian security forces must work with the IDF not against it

Palestinian security forces won't work with the IDF while the IDF continues to enforce a military and economic blockade on Palestinian territories and continues to assassinate Palestinians.

Originally Posted by Wimbly

The Palestinian people have to abandon troublemakers like Hamas

Hamas aren't troublemakers, they are the armed resistance of a nation fighting off an occupation of its territory and the oppression of its people.
If you consider Hamas troublemakers I don't know which adjective you would use to describe Likud and the IDF.

You might as well have called the French resistance troublemakers that should renounce terror and the armed struggle against the Nazis while working with the German SS and asked the French people to stop supporting them. It wouldn't happen.

[Wimbly]

Originally Posted by figatova

Palestine has already done all of that.



Palestine won't renounce terror unless Israel renounces terror. An armed struggle against the occupying and oppressing power is the only option left to Palestine when a diplomatic solution is continuously opposed by Israel.



Palestinian security forces won't work with the IDF while the IDF continues to enforce a military and economic blockade on Palestinian territories and continues to assassinate Palestinians.



Hamas aren't troublemakers, they are the armed resistance of a nation fighting off an occupation of its territory and the oppression of its people.
If you consider Hamas troublemakers I don't know which adjective you would use to describe Likud and the IDF.

You might as well have called the French resistance troublemakers that should renounce terror and the armed struggle against the Nazis while working with the German SS and asked the French people to stop supporting them. It wouldn't happen.

Fig, while I wouldn't go as far in my acknowledgement of Hamas's 'struggle', I wasn't just taking Israel's side. In response to the post you made where Radgy asked what the Palestinians could do I added what is pretty much a mirror image of your conditions for the Israelis. That's what it would take: both sides to compromise.

[figatova]

Originally Posted by Wimbly

Fig, while I would go as far in my acknowledgement of Hamas's 'struggle', I wasn't just taking Israel's side. In response to the post you made where Radgy asked what the Palestinians could do I added what is pretty much a mirror image of your conditions for the Israelis. That's what it would take: both sides to compromise.

I understand but you can't ask for the same conditions when considering the reality of the conflict. Palestine is not illegally occupying Israel, Palestine is not building illegal settlements in Israel, Palestine doesn't have a military and economic blockade on Israel and Palestine, contrary to Israel, is not opposing but embracing a diplomatic two-State solution.
Couple all of that with the fact Palestine is the only one of the two sides which has made concessions in regards to territory and the comparison is hardly valid my friend.
The conditions you mentioned have already been accepted by Palestine, that is to say a return to the '67 borders (as a matter of fact not just Palestine but the whole world including the US has been asking Israel to withdraw from the illegally occupied land and into the '67 borders), loss of even more Palestinian territory in favour of Israel, recognition of the State of Israel even when that includes Palestine giving more territory than established under the '67 borders and when Israel refuses to recognise a Palestinian State, going as far as punishing Palestine through sanctions and more illegal settlements when it dares ask for recognition at the UN as required for a two-State solution. The only pre-condition for the continued peace talks Palestine is putting on the table is for Israel to stop the construction of illegal settlements, which I'm pretty sure you'll agree is the least one could expect.

[beuwolf88]

The poll question is biased.

Where's the option, Israel ceases to exist.

[rpgray]

The problem is the concept of government itself:

http://mises.org/daily/3285/

[avisegev1]

Originally Posted by seanjo

Sorry I can't "debate" with this Islamic clown anymore...

He showed you a map, and your response is.

"my head feels nice in sand"


Awesome. Though you should shave your asshole, or not bend over at all. That is horrifying.

[heehaa]

Originally Posted by beuwolf88

The poll question is biased.

Where's the option, Israel ceases to exist.

Yes indeed it is biased.

[Joe Schmoe]

First of all, I want to get one thing out of the way. The Israeli military and civilians in the West Bank are not illegal under international law:

Article 80 of the UN Charter preserves intact all the rights granted to Jews under the Mandate for Palestine, even after the Mandate’s expiry on May 14-15, 1948. Under this provision of international law (the Charter is an international treaty), Jewish rights to Palestine and the Land of Israel were not to be altered in any way unless there had been an intervening trusteeship agreement between the states or parties concerned, which would have converted the Mandate into a trusteeship or trust territory. The only period of time such an agreement could have been concluded under Chapter 12 of the UN Charter was during the three-year period from October 24, 1945, the date the Charter entered into force after appropriate ratifications, until May 14-15, 1948, the date the Mandate expired and the State of Israel was proclaimed. Since no agreement of this type was made during this relevant three-year period, in which Jewish rights to all of Palestine may conceivably have been altered had Palestine been converted into a trust territory, those Jewish rights that had existed under the Mandate remained in full force and effect, to which the UN is still committed by Article 80 to uphold, or is prohibited from altering.

As a direct result of Article 80, the UN cannot transfer these rights over any part of Palestine, vested as they are in the Jewish People, to any non-Jewish entity, such as the “Palestinian Authority.” Among the most important of these Jewish rights are those contained in Article 6 of the Mandate which recognized the right of Jews to immigrate freely to the Land of Israel and to establish settlements thereon, rights which are fully protected by Article 80 of the UN Charter.

This one relates to the oft-quoted UN Resolution 242. This was part of the 1991 New Republic articles with one of the architects of the resolution:

Assuming the Middle East conference actually does take place, its official task will be to achieve peace between Israel and its Levantine neighbors in accordance with Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. Resolution 242, adopted after the Six-Day War in 1967, sets out criteria for peace-making by the parties; Resolution 338, passed after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, makes resolution 242 legally binding and orders the parties to carry out its terms forthwith. Unfortunately, confusion reigns, even in high places, about what those resolutions require.

For twenty-four years Arab states have pretended that the two resolutions are "ambiguous" and can be interpreted to suit their desires. And some European, Soviet and even American officials have cynically allowed Arab spokesman to delude themselves and their people--to say nothing of Western public opinion--about what the resolutions mean. It is common even for American journalists to write that Resolution 242 is "deliberately ambiguous," as though the parties are equally free to rely on their own reading of its key provisions.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Resolution 242, which as undersecretary of state for political affairs between 1966 and 1969 I helped produce, calls on the parties to make peace and allows Israel to administer the territories it occupied in 1967 until "a just and lasting peace in the Middle East" is achieved. When such a peace is made, Israel is required to withdraw its armed forces "from territories" it occupied during the Six-Day War--not from "the" territories nor from "all" the territories, but from some of the territories, which included the Sinai Desert, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

Five-and-a-half months of vehement public diplomacy in 1967 made it perfectly clear what the missing definite article in Resolution 242 means. Ingeniously drafted resolutions calling for withdrawals from "all" the territories were defeated in the Security Council and the General Assembly. Speaker after speaker made it explicit that Israel was not to be forced back to the "fragile" and "vulnerable" Armistice Demarcation Lines, but should retire once peace was made to what Resolution 242 called "secure and recognized" boundaries, agreed to by the parties. In negotiating such agreements, the parties should take into account, among other factors, security considerations, access to the international waterways of the region, and, of course, their respective legal claims.

Resolution 242 built on the text of the Armistice Agreements of 1949, which provided (except in th case of Lebanon) that the Armistice Demarcation Lines separating the military forces were "not to be construed in any sense" as political or territorial boundaries, and that "no provision" of the Armistice Agreements "Shall in any way prejudice the right, claims, and positions" of the parties "in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine problem." In making peace with Egypt in 1979, Israel withdrew from the entire Sinai, which had never been part of the British Mandate.

For security it depended on patrolled demilitarization and the huge area of the desert rather than on territorial change. As a result, more than 90 percent of the territories Israel occupied in 1967 are now under Arab sovereignty. It is hardly surprising that some Israelis take the view that such a transfer fulfills the territorial requirements of Resolution 242, no matter how narrowly they are construed.

Resolution 242 leaves the issue of dividing the occupied areas between Israel and its neighbors entirely to the agreement of the parties in accordance with the principles it sets out. It was, however, negotiated with full realization that the problem of establishing "a secure and recognized" boundary between Israel and Jordan would be the thorniest issue of the peace-making process. The United States has remained firmly opposed to the creation of a third Palestinian state on the territory of the Palestine Mandate. An independent Jordan or a Jordan linked in an economic union with Israel is desirable from the point of view of everybody's security and prosperity. And a predominantly Jewish Israel is one of the fundamental goals of Israeli policy. It should be possible to reconcile these goals by negotiation, especially if the idea of an economic union is accepted.

The Arabs of the West Bank could constitute the population of an autonomous province of Jordan or of Israel, depending on the course of the negotations. Provisions for a shift of populations or, better still, for individual self-determination are a possible solution for those West Bank Arabs who would prefer to live elsewhere. All these approaches were explored in 1967 and 1968. One should note, however, that Syria cannot be allowed to take over Jordan and the West Bank, as it tried to do in 1970.

The heated question of Israel's settlements in the West Bank during the occupation period should be viewed in this perspective. The British Mandate recognized the right of the Jewish people to "close settlement" in the whole of the Mandated territory. It was provided that local conditions might require Great Britain to "postpone" or "withhold" Jewish settlement in what is now Jordan. This was done in 1922. But the Jewish right of settlement in Palestine west of the Jordan river, that is, in Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, was made unassailable. That right has never been terminated and cannot be terminated except by a recognized peace between Israel and its neighbors. And perhaps not even then, in view of Article 80 of the U.N. Charter, "the Palestine article," which provides that "nothing in the Charter shall be construed ... to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments...."

Some governments have taken the view that under the Geneva Convention of 1949, which deals with the rights of civilians under military occupation, Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal, on the ground that the Convention prohibits an occupying power from flooding the occupied territory with its own citizens. President Carter supported this view, but President Reagan reversed him, specifically saying that the settlements are legal but that further settlements should be deferred since they pose a psychological obstacle to the peace process.

In any case, the issue of the legality of the settlements should not come up in the proposed conference, the purpose of which is to end the military occupation by making peace. When the occupation ends, the Geneva Convention becomes irrelevant. If there is to be any division of the West Bank between Israel and Jordan, the Jewish right of settlement recognized by the Mandate will have to be taken into account in the process of making peace.

This reading of Resolution 242 has always been the keystone of American policy. In launching a major peace initiative on September 1, 1982, President Reagan said, "I have personally followed and supported Israel's heroic struggle for survival since the founding of the state of Israel thirty-four years ago: in the pre-1967 borders, Israel was barely ten miles wide at its narrowest point. The bulk of Israel's population lived within artillery range of hostile Arab armies. I am not about to ask Israel to live that way again."

Yet some Bush administration statements and actions on the Arab-Israeli question, and especially Secretary of State James Baker's disastrous speech of May 22, 1989, betray a strong impulse to escape from the resolutions as they were negotiated, debated, and adopted, and award to the Arabs all the territories between the 1967 lines and the Jordan river, including East Jerusalem. The Bush administration seems to consider the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to be "foreign" territory to which Israel has no claim. Yet the Jews have the same right to settle there as they have to settle in Haifa. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip were never parts of Jordan, and Jordan's attempt to annex the West Bank was not generally recognized and has now been abandoned. The two parcels of land are parts of the Mandate that have not yet been allocated to Jordan, to Israel, or to any other state, and are a legitimate subject for discussion.

The American position in the coming negotiations should return to the fundamentals of policy and principle that have shaped American policy towards the Middle East for three-quarters of a century. Above all, rising above irritation and pique, it should stand as firmly for fidelity to law in dealing with the Arab-Israeli dispute as President Bush did during the Gulf war. Fidelity to law is the essence of peace, and the only practical rule for making a just and lasting peace.

Are the settlements legal? Resolved
By Eugene W. Rostow,
Copyright 1991 The New Republic Inc.
The New Republic, October 21, 1991

http://digilander.libero.it/asdfghj2...ts%20legal.htm

Furthermore, the blockade around Gaza is legal under international law and has been declared legal after an international review.


Israel is in a state of war with Gaza (there was just rockets fired at Israel earlier this week during a Holocaust memorial ceremony) and has a legal blockade around Gaza to stop arms smuggling. Here's just a sampling of the weapons the Israeli's intercepted on three ships alone:

6 C-704 anti-ship missiles
230 mortar shells, caliber 120mm
2,270 mortar shells, caliber 60 mm
2 radar systems manufactured in England
2 rocket launchers
2 hydraulic mounting cranes for the radar system
66,960 7.62x39 rounds (Commonly used in the AK-47).

50 Katyusha rocket launchers
Four Strela 2 (SA-7) antiaircraft missiles
120 RKG anti-tank grenades
20 rocket-propelled grenade launchers
Two 60-mm mortars
98 60-mm mortar rounds
62 TMA-5 land mines
Eight TMA-3 anti-tank land mines
24 hand grenades
30 Kalashnikov rifles
116 gun cartridges for the rifles
13,000 7.62-mm Kalashnikov bullets
[edit]

122 mm Katyusha rockets.
107 mm Katyusha rockets.
80 mm mortar shells.
120 mm mortar shells.
Anti-tank missiles.
Anti-tank mines.
Sniper rifles.
AK-47 ("Kalashnikov") assault rifles.
Ammunition.
Two and a half tons of pure explosives.

Now, you can ask why Egypt on the other hand also at times restricts its border crossings with Gaza. Gaza has a fully independent of Israel border crossing with Egypt. This is further exacerbated by the fact that prior to 1967, Gaza was part of Egypt.

Here's a video of the rocket attack earlier this week during a Holocaust remembrance memorial (and a further violation of the ceasefire, one that was broken first and continuously by the Palestinians in Gaza):
http://youtu.be/eXLF5sZM_98

[figatova]

Originally Posted by Joe Schmoe

First of all, I want to get one thing out of the way. The Israeli military and civilians in the West Bank are not illegal under international law:

Yes they are, that's why international law, the UN and every country on Earth except Israel deems the settlements as illegal and as occupied territory.