Israel's outpost hutzpah

07/02/2004

If you like this post - click to Reddit!
add to del.icio.us	Add to digg - digg it

Original text copyright by the author and MidEastWeb for Coexistence, RA. Posted at MidEastWeb Middle East Web Log at http://www.mideastweb.org/log/archives/00000274.htm where your intelligent and constructive comments are welcome. Distributed by MEW Newslist. Subscribe by e-mail to mew-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Please forward by email with this notice and link to and cite this article. Other uses by permission.

by Moderator @ 05:01 PM CST [Link]

Replies: 8 comments

Ami:

You have GOT to be kidding - right? With all the terrorist groups the PA funds and directs, you are complaining about a few trailers perched on isolated and desolate hills?

Just today there was a report where a palestinian "collaborator" was dragged into the town square and machine-gunned by four executioners while a crowd of spectators cheered and danced around the corpse.

No one dies when a few crazy Israelis set up an outpost, but the fanatic arabs are determined to kill jews no matter what.

You point out that the outposts are unpopulated or have only a few families. However, you imply, this is too provacative to the sensitive arabs, who then are then justified in their murderous zeal.

Posted by rick @ 07/02/2004 07:04 PM CST

This author must be smoking something that is only legal in the Netherlands. Under the Oslo Accords, the "Palestinian Authority" was supposed to stop using terror and combat other groups that were using it as well. Instead, not only did then not stop anyone else but are directly involved in the daily attempted genocide of Jews in Israel. When you compare that violation of the accords (long looked upon as a historic national disaster in Israel) to the building of outposts your moral compass appears out of whack.

Regards Smoky,

Amir

Posted by Amir @ 07/02/2004 08:03 PM CST

The previous comments are about moral equivalency. They contend that weighting the issues morally, settlements and outposts are less serious than killing people - or trying to. Well, I agree killing people is worse than trespassing; however, the settlements make a contiguous Palestinian state an impossibility and so lead to more deaths. There is a reason why the multiple agreements juxtapose these issues.

Posted by Carol @ 07/02/2004 08:27 PM CST

Dear Carol. Are you still dreaming that the "Palestinian" Arabs actually want a state of their own? Did you miss the offer made by Barak to Arafat...the one that was turned down as Arafat launched the Oslo War?

Besides, you are forgetting that this is not Palestinian land we are talking about, rather disputed land that both parties have legitimate claims to. If you contend that these territories must be Judenrein than you must also move all Arabs and non-Jews out of "Israel Proper".

Does that make any sense to you?

AMir

Posted by Amir @ 07/02/2004 10:52 PM CST

No, Amir, it does not make sense to me. Israel has decided that it is to be a state of all of its citizens, Jew and others, with special immigration rights given to Jews and some related to them. The state of Palestine will decide its own policies. They may decide that those Jews in the occupied territories who are willing to live as Palestinian citizens are welcome to stay. They may not.
As for "disputed territory," not under the Geneva Convention. The West Bank and Gaza were captured in a war and are, until there is a negotiated settlement, occupied and as such not to be settled by the occupiers.
Carol

Posted by Carol @ 07/03/2004 12:10 AM CST

IT AMAZES ME HOW FEW PEOPLE REALIZE OR CARE THAT ARAFART HAS NOT MOVED ONE INCH TO EVEN BEGIN TO COMPLY WITH THE VERY FIRST OBLIGATION IN THE ROADMAP, WHICH IS TO DESTROY THE TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS AND INFRASTRUCTURE. BUT HOW CAN HE WHEN SOME OF THEM ARE PART OF HIS OWN ORGANIZATION? WHY IN THE WORLD SHOULD ISRAEL REMOVE ANY SETTLEMENT OR OUTPOST BEFORE THE PLO TAKES STEP # 1?
IN FACT ISRAEL HAS ALREADY TAKEN MANY STEPS, SOME IN THE 'ROADMAP' AND SOME BEYOND IT. LET THE PALESTINIANS DO LIKEWISE. IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO AND TO MAKE PEACE. AS FOR THE MISNAMED 'PEACE NOW' THEY ARE MORE FOR 'CONSCESSIONS NOW' BUT ONLY BY ISRAEL.

Posted by MIKE LEVINE @ 07/05/2004 09:35 AM CST

Ultimately Israel must withdraw from most of the territories that it captured in 1967. Israel cannot expect the Palestinians to respect Israel, if Israel does not respect the potential Palestinian state. Israel cannot have perpetually amorphous national boundaries if it expects the Palestinians to relinquish their claims upon the entire Mandate territory (i.e Israel, West Bank & Gaza). This tendency by Israel is arrogance.
That the nascent Palestinian state wishes to exclude all Jews from its territories does not diminish Israel, it diminishes Palestine. It is a notable fact that every state in the world that seeks to exclude minorities is fundamentally poorer in every way for it. It is not an accident that the most tolerant states are also the wealthiest.
If the future Palestinian society wishes to perceive Jews in a variety of anti-semitic guises or simply as perpetual enemies, then it is Palestine that loses the potential contribution that Jews might make to the development of Palestine. It also limits the nature of any engagement it could have with Israel, and will find that obtaining Israeli cooperation will be that more difficult. Israels most powerful weapon against the future Palestine will not be the vast array of weapons it possesses, but the simple measure of closing its borders with Palestine. If Israel were to do that effectively, Palestine would collapse.
When the term Judenrein is used it harks back to a period in history when Nazi Germany and its allies were powerful and the various Jewish communities impotent. However the relationship between Israel and its neighbours is completelyu different. It is Israel that is the regional super-power.
That Israel does not seek to evict its non-Jewish communities and has sought, albeit inadequately, to integrate them into the body of Israeli society is Israels strength.

Posted by Rod Davies @ 07/06/2004 09:43 PM CST

Comments on some of the replies:
No, I am not kidding. We know that Arafat has not done anything to fulfill his part of the roadmap etc. and killing people is not morally equivalent to setting up a trailer. However, that is not relevant. Israel's commitment to remove outposts is within the phase 1 roadmap commitments it undertook. The roadmap is lock-stepped in the sense that each side should not move to phase 2 until phase 1 is completed by both sides, but within a phase, each side must fulfill its obligations. Otherwise each side would be saying "you first" to the other side forever. Israel's obligations RE the outposts are to the US and Europe, not to the PA. If Israel thought that it had no obligation to remove outposts, they would have said so. But they didn't. They submitted a fictitious list of outposts. Even if the PNA were to comply with all aspects of the roadmap, they would still feel themselves bound only by that fictitious list.
As a postscript to the article, I should add that Peace Now now claims there are only about 56 such outposts rather than 60 as they claimed previously. Israel certainly has no right to "authorize" or "legalize" the outposts after the fact, regardless of Palestinian actions.

Ami I.

Posted by Ami Isseroff @ 07/08/2004 03:45 PM CST

Please do not leave notes for MidEastWeb editors here. Hyperlinks are not displayed. We may delete or abridge comments that are longer than 250 words, or consist entirely of material copied from other sources, and we shall delete comments with obscene or racist content or commercial advertisements. Comments should adhere to Mideastweb Guidelines . IPs of offenders will be banned.