Oceans5555,

No no no! You can't do that. You need to see that after WWI, the land
that is now called Palestine and Israel were desert. They had been in
the control of the Ottoman Empire, but they were undeveloped and almost
uninhabited. The Zionists started buying land years before WWI and they
used the end of WWI as a chance to buy the land quickly. The owners
(mostly arabs) didn't know what would happen to the land, because it was
in the control of the British at the time. Once the Zionists had enough
land, they petitioned for the land to be declared a new country and it
was. The Muslims who were living there were allowed to stay.
"Palestine" was under the control of Trans-Jordan at the time.
Trans-Jordan, Egypt, Syria and several other Arab countrys all declared
war on Israel and attacked them. After Israel won the war, they took
"Palestine" from Trans-Jordan and Golan Heights from Syria to use as
buffers between Israel and their enemys. This is the ONLY legal way for
a country to take land from another country. Eventually, the
"Palestinians" started saying that they wanted to be their own country
again, but they never were in the first place! In all the history of
the world, Palestine has always been an area within another country.
Israel is legitimately concerned, because they NEED a buffer between
their enemies. Israel has offered the two state solution, which was
rejected by Arafat. Israel has given land back to the Palestinians who
have used it to launch rockets. Don't give me that "It was their land
that was invaded and seized by the Zionists who targetted Palestine as
the place where they would create a Jewish State." crap, that's not
supported by history. Palestinians and their Arab friends attacked a
sovereign country and got their butts kicked.

Hi, Jerry!

Good points, I'll try to address each one.

I'm not sure why you point to UNSC resolution 1402? If it remember
correctly, it calls for the Israelis to stop attacking the Palestinian
towns it occupied in 2002, and on all parties to stop attacking each
other. It refers to UNSC 242, which, I think is the more significant
resolution, which states that conquest of Palestinians terriotry does
NOT give Israel sovereighty over them.

So maybe your question is why abide (or denonce) UNGA 191 -- The
Partition resolution -- while denouncing (or abiding) by UNSC 242?

Theer are several reasons why these resoltuiuons cannot be treated int
he same way, from a legal and therefore moral point of view.

1. The Partition Resolution was passed by the General Assembly, which
does not have authority in matters of security and international
disputes -- this authority is reserved to the Security Council

2. UNSC 242 is, of course, a Security Council resolution, and as such is
legally and morally authoritative.

3. The Partition Resolution was only passed after a lot of arm-twisting
by the US of some of our then-client states in places like the Caribean.
And the, when it passed, a lot of countries started backpedalling. In
fact the US, the main sponsor of that resolution, was pushing toward an
entirely different approach to Palestine when the Israelis declared
their independence. The American approach in the end rejected a division
of the country, but it came to late: the Israelis had created, in their
words, 'facts on the ground.'

Yes, you are right -- plenty of violence on both sides. But I would
submot to you that not all is equal, and that it is the Palestinians who
are fighting to protect their lands, and the Israelis to hold onto lands
that they have illegally conquered.

To the 1967 war: you suggest that the situation was one in which the
Israelis knew they were about to be attacked and that they therefore may
have had the right to preemptively defend themselves by striking first
at the Egyptians. As you know, this argument has to be based on a
reasonable fear of attack, and that the attack is imminent.

The problem with this argument in the context of the 1967 war is simple:
it is well known now that the Israelis themselves knew that they were
under not threat from the Egyptians. For example, their Army Chief of
staff said so publicly. (I can dig up the references easily if you would
like them.)

And then the Israeli position becomes even weaker: once the preemptive
attack has taken place, the attacker has to withdraw. Which, now forty
years later, Israeli has yet to do. Instead, they have settled the West
Bank, wholly illegally, and treat it as if it were theirs, a massive and
long-standing violation of the Geneva Conventions.

I think it was spider who asked why the Israelis had to keep 'giving'
territory back to the Palestinians. The answer is simple: it is because
the Israelis keep on taking it.

Which brings us to...water routes.

There were two issues pertaining to water way access, the Suez Canal and
the Gulf of Aqaba.

Under international maritime law, all countries are guaranteed the right
of innocent passage through the territorial waters of another country.

The Suez Canal is an artificial waterway and as such not considered part
of the territorial waters of Egypt: Egypt has a full right to determine
what flags it will allow through, and which it will not. Even if the
argument were made that the Canal should fall under the legal regime of
maritime law, Egype simply also pointed to the fact that it and Israel
were still in a state of war, and that Israeli use of the Canal could
tehrefore not be considered 'innocent passage.' It would be too easy for
a Israel to blow up a ship in mid-Canal and stop its use by anyone,
harming Egypt's economy. This is not a fanciful scenario, as it is
precisely what Israel DID do in 1956.

The Gulf of Aqaba is a different matter. The Straits of Tiran are within
the joint terriotrial waters of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Nasser
threatened to prohibit Israeli passge through the Straits is Israel did
not proceed to peace discussions with the Palestinians. Egyptian-Israeli
relations were then legally controlled by the Armistice Agreements
between it and Israel. The Armistice Agreements were not the same as a
peace treaty, so the legal issue of the relationship between Israel and
Egypt was still up in the air.

That they were up in the air does not confer on Israel the right to
attack Egypt; indeed the Agreement specifically adressed and prohibited
that.

Whew!!!1 Jerry, you always get me into these long explanations...


Did I address the questions you raise?

Good to see you posting, brother.

Hey, I've got to go do some work. Coincidentally, it has to do with just
these issues, so this was a good warm-up. Thanks.

Oceans

Oh, OK, one or two more....

Here is a good quote re. what the Israelis thought prior to the attack
on Egypt June 5, 1967:

Israeli Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin: "I do not believe that Nasser
wanted war. The two divisions he sent into Sinai on May 14 would not
have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it and
we knew it."
– Le Monde, 29 February 1968


Cheers,
Oceans

Hi, Spider....

There are a lot of inaccuracies in your summary of Jewish immigration to
Palestine, and the state of Palestine. I don't have time to do into this
in detail, but maybe the following will answer:

This addresses the population of Palestine before, during and after the
time period you are referring to.

YEAR POPULATION JEWISH PORTION

1860 411,000 (0% Jewish)
1890 553,000
1914 738,000 (5% Jewish)
1918 689,000 (famine associated with WWI)
1922 752,048 (11% Jewish)
1947 1,845,000 (33% Jewish)

In 1947, on the eve of their conquest of Palestine, jews owned only 7%
of the land of Palestine. Please note also that a person owning apiece
of land is different from a people declaring sovereignty over it. You
own you house and land, but you don't have sovereignty over it.

When the Israelis seized Palestine and declared it a Jewish State, they
were declaring sovereignty.

As you can see from the population numbers a bove, Palestine was not
empty at all. It was a prosperous place of orchards and fields, towns,
farms. It had even in 1911 several well-regarded schools and a good
civil administration. And it had one of the greatest cities in the
wolrd, Jerusalem. It was no desert, and it had a vibrant population.

I hope this helps. And I hope the population graphic turns out ok!

Oceans

Sorry, I'll try again...

YEAR POPULATION JEWISH PORTION

1860 411,000 (0% Jewish)
1890 553,000
1914 738,000 (5% Jewish)
1918 689,000 (famine associated with WWI)
1922 752,048 (11% Jewish)
1947 1,845,000 (33% Jewish)

ok....

YEAR -- POPULATION -- JEWISH PORTION

1860 .....411,000 .....(0% Jewish)
1890 .....553,000
1914 .....738,000 .....(5% Jewish)
1918 .....689,000 .....(famine associated with WWI)
1922 .....752,048 .....(11% Jewish)
1947 ...1,845,000 .....(33% Jewish)

LMAO, for additional infornmation see "Terrorist" same forum!!

Oceans,

That is still a small population. I have a link for you here:
http://www.mideastweb.org/palpop.htm

It covers just about everything you covered, but it includes the fact
that there were Jews living there pre-1900's.

I don't think that arguing over if 500,000 is a large or small
population is a lot of disagreement on this subject.

Agreed. It just means that the land was not an unpopulated desert.
Remember that a century ago a half-million people was not insignificant.
Yes, there were Jews living there before WWI, but, as you see from my
table -- sorry for the repeats! -- but very few.

We can also distinguish between those Jews who were living there,
principally in Jerusalem, as a part of the general Palestinian
population (these are included in my table. Palestinians include Muslims
and Christians, Jews, and Orthodox....) and who had no Zionist goals,
and the European Jews who came in the wake of the publication of Herzl's
THE JEWISH STATE. These are called Zionists, and their goal was to
establish a Jewish State in Palestine. It was part and parcel of the
many European colonization ventures in other parts of the world, and of
which Israel is one of the last vestiges.

The local Jews often opposed their European co-religionists, and indeed
in Israel today there exist at least a couple of Jewish groups that
vehemently oppose the creation of Israel, viewing it, as I understand
it, as a prohibited preemption of God's will.

It is a fascinating situation, isn't it?

Oceans

'When the Israelis seized Palestine and declared it a Jewish State, they
were declaring sovereignty.'

Aye. Lets see they only declared the part that was givin them by the
world government mandates. At which point they were immediately
attacked by armies from the surrounding countries of Syria, Iraq,
Transjordan, Lebanon and Egypt as well as an unregulated Palistenian
group. The result of that attack was Israel defending its MANDATED
territories counterattacking (this does occur in war) and seizing the
areas where the attacks were launched from. (which also just happened to
be the territories they were originally promised before OIL was
discovered and the British bowed to Arab pressure and changed the deal
because of that oil)

Prior to the war in 1947 Jewish and Arab settelers in those areas
mentioned got along in a much better way.

you mentioned once that the current kill ratio was 8 Palistinian to 1
jew. How many of the Jewish casualties were armed vs how many of the
Palistinian.

From what I have seen the casualty figures are skewed. With a
disporportionate number of Jewish causualties being women and other
non-combantants. i.e. (bus passengers) vs Palistinian causualties (some
of which are non-combantants also) being predominately people who were
armed and shooting or had just fired a rocket (you know combatants).

One of the reasons for this figure might just be that the Palastinians
are firing rockets with out aim at a civilian population while the
Israelies are attacking or defending against actual military (armed)
targets.

Hi, AB!

No world government has ever had the authority to take land from one
people and 'give' it to another. Self-determination and sovereignty
protect people from having that happen to them.

The UNGA partition resolution had no legal significance; it was nothing
more than an unbinding recommendation, and, as I explained, was in the
procees of being withdrawn.

But if you want to have a world government that can make such decisions
then you would, I think, have to agree that the UN Security Council
(which DOES have some authority in matters of terriorial security) would
be even more important, and it is these (e.g. UNSC 242) that Israel has
refused to abide by.

In 1948, when Israel declared its independence, its armies (the Hanagnah
and Palmach, together with some terrorist groups like the Irgun and
Stern Gangs, immediately implemented a plan to seize as much of
Palestine as they could get. The Palestinians were caught flat-footed,
and the Arab 'armies' (really only the Jordanian units qualify for that
term) only came in well after the Israelis had seized terriotry far
beyond what the UN General Assembly had recommended they have in the
Partition resolution.

I know that a lot of people believe that the Israelis were attacked
first, and then bravely fought back, but this is not what actually
happened.

If there is any doubt, you might look at the work of the First and
Second Transfer Committees (under the Jewish Agency pre-independence)
and then the work of the Third Transfer Committee. It will be clear what
the Israeli goals were: driving the Palestinians out of Palestine
entirely.

As David Ben Gurion, head of the jewish Agency, said: the borders of
Israel will be determined by the Israeli forces.

Keep in mind, too, that even before 1915, IIRC, Ben Gurion determined in
his mind that one day the Zionists would drive Palestinians out of
Palestine. His autobiographies are quite explicit on this point.

I don't have the breakdown about what the casualties are -- men, women,
children, etc., but I would guess that they are not too different, with
this exception: Israeli soldiers are probably a higher percentage of
Israeli total casualties than Palestinian soldiers are of Palestinian
casualties. But this would not be too surprising, as the Palestinian's
'army' is non-existant. It is the Palestinian population that is
fighting for its life and they are mostly civilians.

And yes, you are right, both sides use terrorism against the other.

Thanks for the good questions, AB.

Oceans

Oceans

Oceans I did not say soldiers. I said combantants vs non-combantants.

If you are carrying a weapon or just fired a rocket you are a combatant.

as far as tactical considerations. Lets take a look at the situation
involving the Golan.

Far more important is the fact that the Golan is a plateau, easily
crossed by mechanized divisions, whose eastern cliffs tower
strategically above Israel’s northern valleys and crucial water sources;
that it was conquered in 1967 after Syria launched a war of aggression
from it following years of firing at Israeli settlements, farmers, and
fishermen from its heights; that even if it were demilitarized, it could
be reoccupied in a matter of hours by Syrian troops moved from bases
around Damascus; and that at its northern end, a 7,200-foot peak of
Mount Hermon gives Israel an invaluable forward viewing and listening
post into the Syrian borderland that would serve as a jumping-off point
for any new attack on Israel.

Would you give back to some one the same place they had been firing
rockets into your citys from? I would not.

I checked four different histories of the 1948 situation. All of them
said essentially the same thing. Israel declared its independance from
international rule on 14 May 1948 as the international community was
preparing to make even more concessions to the Arab demands that Jews
not be allowed to have a homeland. (gave in to demands based on need for
oil). Palistine declared its independance from international rule on 15
May 1948. Several weeks later Arab forces from several countries
attacked Israel. Until that attack Israel nor the Palistinians had done
more than saber rattle at each other.

The more I read the more it looks like the idiots in power all over the
world WANT to bring about the end times. It does appear that they have
delibratly set things up so that Jerselem will be surrounded by enemies
on all sides and they have USED the Jews and the Arabs to make it
happen. Do they think they are God? You can't force prophesy to happen
you can only live through it.

That is not true AD, They had been having tensions and clashes from the
late 1800's. Mostly started by the Jew's treatment of Palestinian native
as peasants and a lower class than they.

It was peasants driven off their farmland by Zionist land purchases,
mainly from absentee landlords, in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, who first understood the nature of the process of
colonization affecting Palestine. Their struggle for their rights in
turn alerted the urban intellectuals who thereafter played a prominent
role in the opposition to Zionism, even as they helped to shape
Palestinian identity."

The Jews often lost these clashes though...

"Tensions began after the first Zionist settlers arrived in the 1880s.
Quarrels broke out between the new settlers and neighboring villages
over grazing, crop and other land issues. Disputes also arose when
Jewish settlers purchased land from absentee Arab owners, leading to
dispossession of the peasants who cultivated it. As the number of Jewish
settlements increased and as Arabs became aware of the Zionist intention
to establish a Jewish homeland, opposition to the movement spread among
the fellahin [peasants], urban notables, intellectuals and the merchant
class. The lack of familiarity of the European settlers with traditional
Arab customs often stirred conflict. At times, there were armed
altercations between Jewish farmers and Arab herdsmen when the former
interfered with cattle or flocks that strayed onto Jewish cultivated
areas. One of the first clashes occurred at Peta Tikva, the oldest
Jewish colony, established in 1878. When the settlers denied grazing
rights to the neighboring Arab village, its inhabitants attacked the
colony. The fear of peasant dispossession became a central issue in Arab
nationalism."

Whats not true?

What I saw in the history is true and backed up by every history I saw.

Yes there were clashes between arabs living in the area and jews living
in the area. But I was not speaking of those 1800's clashes between
villages. I was speaking of the movements of governemnts.

And Oceans the reason the Arabs did not agree to the Resolution 181
(which by the way you glazed right past) is because that was the
resolution made by the UN in 1947 and allowed Israel to have control
over 3 parts of Palistine. The Arabs rejected this proposal because
they had stated intentions of DESTROYING any Jews in the area.

the subesquent UN resolution 1402 that was mentioned was an order by the
UN that would have placed Israel in a stratigic and tactical position to
be unable to efectively defend themeselves from an enemy that had proven
by both action and words their intention was to completely remove all
Jews from the Holy Land.

If you were responsible for security of Israel what would you have done.

Curious that Iran ignores all UN resolutions and you say nothing yet
Israel ignores a resolution and you paint them as the bad guy.

From what I have been reading the bad guys here are the Brits and the
French.

Almost sounds like you work for the Arabs.

From what I can see ALL SIDES IN THIS MATTER ARE WRONG.

Jess I am begining to agree with you lets just make all the guns
disapear. Then they can throw rocks at each other for a few centuries
till the human race grows up.

You gonna throw rocks at me, AB???

I must say, I am learning so much from this thread, and there is so much
reference material to support each post...a very well managed
thread...respectful...even when differing in opinions...

(always the student)

AB, you are right on the number of the UNGA resolution: it is UNGA 181.
I misnumbered it, so all the comments I made for "191" are actually for
181. My apologies -- please reread my posting -- you will see that I
discuss 181 (not '191') at length.

Iran??? The title of the thread is the Israeli Occupation of Palestine
and the fortieth anniversary of that occupation -- nothing to do with
Iran and no need to hijack my own thread with stuff about Iran. I think
we have an Iran thread somewhere if you want to have a discussion of
Iran there. Or you could start a new one.

Jewish forces rolled immediately. The Haganah and Palmach units deployed
against the Palestinians immediately, together with the two terrorist
groups that I mentioned and the Tarnsfer Committee folks. Have you had a
chance to study these?

The Jeiwsh forces were built up under cover of WWII when the British
attention was elsewhere. You remember the many stories of gun-running
and secret smuggling of people to the Jewish forces. A lot of war
materials was stolen from the US, British and other allied armies and
smuggled into Palestine. Trained soldiers and officers who fought in the
Jewish Brigades immediately went to Palestine to get ready to take the
Palestinians down. And that is what happened. The Palestinians had zero
military training and no limitary organization, so they were sitting
ducks for the Israelis.

Check out Deir Yassin.

Don't be insulting, AB. You are better than that.

My interest is in justice and what needs to happen next for this damn
conflict to be resolved. Yes, I am critical of Israel, for all the
reasons I have explained. That doesn't mean I work for anyone, and it is
unfortunate that you would stoop to that kind of innuendo.

AD, I was referring to when you said this. Until that attack Israel nor
the Palestinians had done more than saber rattle at each other.
I didnt think you meant, massacring dozens of women and children was
little more than saber rattling.

Tony Straw admitted, and I agree with him and you, that the British are
at fault in this situation, and many other problems around the globe.

The Israeli's had an Army, trained and equipped by the allies, with
combat experience from Europe in WWII. During the British withdraw they
managed to attack and steal (capture) additional arms and ammo, and kill
and hang British police in the process. So it wasnt like they werent
prepared, or preparing to claim Independence.

The whole situation is a mess,
I tend to believe it was all orchestrated by Christian coalitions.
Forced Biblical Prophecy......
Alas, I can not prove this, but it is a theory that can not be disproved
either.

Its already a mess, the Israelis have no intention to give back the land
they have taken, and we keep aiding their ways. Therefore, it will be a
sore spot that will fester until one day it explodes. Maybe it is Bible
Prophecy, after all they are all beginning to aquire Nukes. Desperate
people do desperate things, ya know!!!!

Repeat, going to bed, Peace everyone------------>

When Russia and Iran attack Israel, the fire from the sky destroying
their armies will remove all doubt on God's position about the
"occupation" of "Palestine".