Gaza is not occupied, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday, rebutting accusations from visiting UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that Israel was to blame for this summer’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza.
Ban made a whirlwind trip to Jerusalem, meeting with its top politicians to call for a renewal of the frozen peace process with the Palestinians, to urge Israel to lift restrictions on the Gaza Strip and to halt settlement activity and Jewish building in east Jerusalem. He also met in Ramallah with Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah and is scheduled to visit Gaza on Tuesday.
“I’m very concerned about the recent announcement of plans to advance settlements in east Jerusalem, which are in clear violation of international law,” Ban told Netanyahu. “This does not send the right signals, and I urge the government of Israel to reverse these activities.”
There were polite moments during Ban’s visit. The soft-spoken secretary-general was careful to drop Hebrew words such as “toda” for thank-you and “hag sameah” for happy holidays. He acknowledged the harm caused to Israel by Hamas rocket attacks against it.
But the sharp policy differences between Israel and the UN were evident, particularly during Ban’s meeting with Netanyahu, where both men accused each other of harming the renewal of the peace process.
The Palestinians have asked the United Nations to take charge of ensuring that Israel withdraws to the pre-1967 lines rather than proceed with US-brokered negotiations to set a permanent border between them and Israel.
http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Netanyahu-to-Ban-Gaza-is-not-occupied-378807
Is Gaza Still Occupied and Why Does It Matter?
In view of Israel's assertions that it has not occupied the Gaza Strip since 2005, Jadaliyya re-posts an analysis of this claim authored by Lisa Hajjar, initially published in 2012.]
Yes, the Gaza Strip is still occupied. Despite official Israeli remonstrations that the unilateral disengagement of 2005, which removed Israeli military bases and Jewish settlers, transformed Gaza into “no longer occupied territory,” neither those changes nor anything that has transpired since has ended the occupation.
“Occupation” is a legal designation of an international nature. Israel’s occupation of Gaza continues to the present day because (a) Israel continues to exercise “effective control” over this area, (b) the conflict that produced the occupation has not ended, and (c) an occupying state cannot unilaterally (and without international/diplomatic agreement) transform the international status of occupied territory except, perhaps, if that unilateral action terminates all manner of effective control.
Sui Generis Nonsense
The irony of Israel’s assertion that Gaza is no longer occupied can be best appreciated when one considers Israel’s earlier position that Gaza and the West Bank were not occupied in 1967. Israeli officials claimed that the status of these areas was sui generis because, at the time of conquest, they were controlled by but not sovereign to Egypt and Jordan, respectively. “Occupation,” according to Israel, only pertains to areas that were recognized sovereign territory of the displaced states. Hence the premise, never accepted by the international community, was: no sovereignty, therefore no occupation. Rather, Israel insisted that Gaza and the West Bank were “administered” territory. The other premise of the original “not occupied” position was that Israel could lay claim to all or parts of these lands because they compose the remainder of Eretz Israel to which the Jewish people have historic and/or biblical rights.
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/8807/is-gaza-still-occupied-and-why-does-it-matter
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