What kind of state deserves to exist?

[Karmadillo]

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article2592.shtml

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With regard to the Gaza Strip, the disengagement plan published in the Israeli papers on Friday, April 16th specifies that within a year and a half, the Israeli occupation there should be declared to be over. In every other aspect, the situation will remain as is. The Palestinians will be imprisoned from all sides, with no connection to the world, except through Israel. Israel also reserves for itself the right to act militarily inside the Gaza Strip.<1> But since the Strip will no longer be defined as an occupied territory, Israel will not be subject to the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Clause f of section I in the published plan states that "the disengagement move will obviate the claims about Israel with regard to its responsibility for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip". In other words, what Israel does today in violation of international law will become legal: It would presumably become formally permissible to starve people and to kill whoever Israel determines - from a child throwing stones, to the successor of a spiritual leader, himself executed a month before.

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According to a UN report from November of 2003, this segment, which did not include yet the region of Jerusalem, has already appropriated 14.5% of Palestinian land. Along this route, Israel is uprooting tens of thousands of trees, dispossessing Palestinian farmers of their land, and pushing them into small enclaves between fences and Walls, until, at the final stage, the Wall will surround them on all sides, as in the Gaza Strip.

In 1969, the Israeli philosopher Yesayahu Leibovitz anticipated that in the areas of the occupation "concentration camps would be erected by the Israeli rulers... Israel would be a state that would not deserve to exist, and it will not be worthwhile to preserve it". How far are we from Leibovitz prophecy in the fenced Gaza Strip?

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[stopthegop]

1. "with no connection to the world, except through Israel"

what about Egypt...and glorious Arab brotherhood? Won't Egypt help?..they're the country that lost gaza to Israel in the first place...

[Classical_Liberal]

3. What are the egyptians supposed to do about it?

precisely?

[stopthegop]

4. well, if nothing else...

Egypt is a pathway to the rest of the world...no need to deal with Isreal at all...except the people in Gaza want jobs and such (I presume) and that will require Isreal..

[Classical_Liberal]

6. The wall surrounds the Palestinians on the Egyptian side as well

Why should the Palestinians work for the Israelis? If the israelis want them to become productive citizens they should give them citizenship, otherwise the Israelis have a responsibilty to take care of the Palestinians until they are serious about giving them a state.

[stopthegop]

8. then you're correct, once the Isrealis leave the Gazans (?)

can/should tear down the wall between them and Egypt..but Egypt won't want them to...

as to jobs: Isreal has jobs available...Egypt doesn't...that's all

[Classical_Liberal]

9. Egypt probably doesn't want refugees this is true

since as you said Egypt doesn't have many jobs. I think the Palestinians should be deliberately a drain on the Israeli state and not make profits for them in anyway.

[regnaD kciN]

19. No, because...

...while Israel is pulling out of the Gaza strip, it is still maintaining a strip of border (with barbed wire, machine-gun towers, etc.) all the way around, cutting off Gaza from Egypt. The only way to get from one to the other is by passing through Israel proper, meaning a military checkpoint that the IDF can shut down at their whim any time, or just keep closed permanently.

It is much the same on the West Bank. One of the factors that sank Barak's "generous offer" back in 2000 (and which has been maintained in every Sharon "plan") was his insistence that Israel maintain possession of the Jordan River valley itself, meaning that residents of a West Bank "Palestinian State" couldn't cross into Jordan without passing through a strip of Israeli land, checkpoints, etc., either. Israel would have complete control over letting people in or out of a Palestinian state to any other country.

As has been claimed, the Sharon Gaza plan turns it into a giant open-air prison, cut off on all sides. The plans for the West Bank would do the same.

:grr:

[library_max]

5. I think the author meant that Gaza is bordered on all sides

by Israel, just like West Berlin was bordered on all sides by East Germany.

[stopthegop]

7. per this map Gaza shares some border with Egypt..

that was where I was going...
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/gz.html

[library_max]

21. See #19 above. /nt

[Classical_Liberal]

2. Why are the Israelis imprisoning the Palestinians

on their borders with Egypt and Jordan. The thing is the world doesn't yet realize the Palestinians are completely encircled in walls. It is literally a large ghetto.

[Muddleoftheroad]

10. The gall of EI trying to say what kind of state Israel must be

Then again, EI is, well, EI.

[Classical_Liberal]

11. So the Palestinians aren't directly effected by the Israeli state?

They have had their leaders chosen for a long time by Israel. I don't understand your outrage. It is like a southerner who gets made at uppity Negroes.

[Muddleoftheroad]

12. I take offense that EI challenges Israel's right to exist

Because there is nothing Israel can EVER do to satisfy them except surrender and even that wouldn't do it.

EI is a propaganda arm for terrorists.

[Classical_Liberal]

13. Where has EI challenged Israel's right exist?

They challenge their right to exist as an aparthied state as do I.

[Muddleoftheroad]

14. From their editorial

"In 1969, the Israeli philosopher Yesayahu Leibovitz anticipated that in the areas of the occupation "concentration camps would be erected by the Israeli rulers... Israel would be a state that would not deserve to exist, and it will not be worthwhile to preserve it". How far are we from Leibovitz prophecy in the fenced Gaza Strip?"

Since no action by Israel will ever satisfy the likes of EI, then you are left the inescapable conclusion that THEY consider Israel does not have the right to exist.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[library_max]

17. Teensy bit of a leap there.

"Since no action by Israel will ever satisfy the likes of EI" is your statement, not theirs. This is pretty much blatantly putting words in their mouth. Furthermore, they were quoting Liebovitz, not saying for themselves that Israal had no right to exist if this or unless that.

[Muddleoftheroad]

18. No leap, not even much of a step

The Intifada is terrorism. EI is the voice of terrorism. Terrorism -- Hamas and others -- have vowed to destroy Israel.

As for quoting, they could quote Adolph Hitler, but by doing so they would be taking on those words as their own.

[library_max]

20. And your saying it's so makes it so.

And that "fact" is so obvious to you that you're not even aware of it.

[Muddleoftheroad]

22. No, their saying it makes it so

[library_max]

23. What "they" said that the intifada is terrorism,

that EI is the voice of terrorism, or that quoting someone means "making those words their own"? I see where you said it (hence my response), but I don't see where "they" said any such thing.

[Muddleoftheroad]

24. The I in EI is Intifada

The Intifada is terrorism.

[Violet_Crumble]

25. Intifada is terrorism?

Intifada is Arabic for 'shaking off'. While terrorism is a part of the second Intifada, to try to portray the Intifada as terrorism is pretty sloppy stuff. I'm aware that you believe that attacks on Israeli military targets are terrorism, and that non-violent protests are terrorism, but that's a ridiculous stance to take as it would mean that for there to be any consistancy in a view like that, the person would also have to believe that attacks on legitimate Palestinian targets are terrorism...

btw, sorry to break into the slagging off the source session, but if you'd looked at the article you would have noticed it's an article written by Tanya Reinhart that's appeared in quite a few places. Here's a link to it at zmag. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=5373 Feel free to try commenting on the actual article. Or if you prefer you can explain why EI enables terrorism, and maybe even explain how Tanya Reinhart's doing that....

Violet...

[Karmadillo]

16. The article comes from Yediot Aharonot. EI just republished it.

Then again, Yediot Aharonot is, well, Yediot Aharonot. And, of course, the author, is, well, Tanya Reinhart, and she's quoting Yesayahu Leibovitz who is, of course, well, Yesayahu Leibovitz. Did I miss anyone?

http://www.wzo.org.il/en/resources/view.asp?id=145

Letting Leibovitz Speak for Himself
The Late, Great Professor Leibovitz

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Prospects for Peace: All spiritual and material resources in Israel are channeled in one direction: to maintain the Palestinian occupation in the eventual hope that we may seize their land. We are truly Bolshevik. And we should get out of the territories just as the Portuguese left Angola, the British left India, and de Gaulle abandoned Algeria. Then there might be a real possibility of peace. Maybe Jews in the Diaspora like the image of the iron fist; I don’t. It’s pretty hypocritical to call us a democracy while we deny the Arabs their rights. Our national structure is starting to crumble…and without US aid we would be cast adrift in the space of a single day.

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