Israel Resumes Building Wall

NABLUS, January 25 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Israel is mulling a measure to enforce a decades-old law to seize tracts of land owned by Palestinian citizens in the occupied Al-Quds (eastern Jerusalem) without compensation.

This comes as the Israeli government has resumed the construction of its separation wall in the West Bank, a move seen by the Palestinian Authority as affecting efforts to reach a ceasefire between the Palestinian resistance factions and Israel.

A number of Palestinian landowners in the West Bank city of Bethlehem were informed by the Israeli authorities that their lands in the occupied Al-Quds had been seized under the Absentee Property Law even though they live nearby, Mohammed Dahleh, the lawyer for Palestinian landowners, told Reuters Monday, January24 .

With the absentee law reactivated, the Palestinian citizens will lose more than1 , 000acres ( 415hectares) of farmland within Al-Quds municipal borders, he added.

Under the 1950 absentee law, Palestinians living in the West Bank and own property in Al-Quds could be labeled as absentee landowners, allowing the Israeli government to confiscate their lands without compensation.

The absentee law was passed in1950 , allowing the Israeli government to confiscate properties owned by hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes during the 1948 war which resulted in the creation of what is now known as Israel.

Secret Decision

Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported recently the Sharon government had made a decision in June2004 , to enforce the law, but did not make it public.

However, a senior Israeli official declined to assert the measure has already been approved, while not rejecting the intention to pass it.

“There is an intention to do that. It hasn't been approved yet. That's all. There are discussions about this law,” he told Reuters, declining further comment.

The justice and housing ministries and the Jerusalem municipality also declined to comment.

“All the government decisions on this issue are made secretly,” Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer representing many of the landowners, was quoted by the New York Times Tuesday, January25 , as saying.

“It is treated like a security issue, not a property issue.”

Khalil Al-Tafakji, map circle director of the Ramallah Arab studies body said the Israeli law risks the loss by Palestinians of half their properties in Al-Quds.

“Israel had used the law in 1948 to seize around97 % of lands of what is now known Israel,” he noted.

He added that the law had also been used to seize Palestinian properties to allow Jewish settlement groups to control whole areas and neighborhoods.

Land Seizure

Johnny Atik, a Palestinian resident in Bethlehem, said that he was told by the Israeli authorities that eight acres of olive groves now belonged to the Israeli Custodian of Absentee Properties, a body formed by the 1950 law, according to The Washington Post.

Atik's land is 100 yards from his home, which sits on the other side of Israel’s illegal separation wall in the West Bank.

He added that lands belonging to 40 Palestinian families in his neighborhood had also been taken.

“This is state theft, pure and simple,” said Hanna Nasser, the mayor of neighboring Bethlehem.

The mayor linked the Israeli decision to the West Bank separation barrier that Israel is building in the same area.

“When Israel started building this wall, they stopped letting people use this land,” he said.

What Will Remain?
The Israeli move was seen by the Palestinians as a bid to pre-set the final status negotiations, Reuters said.

“What will remain for us in final status talks?” Palestinian Negotiations Minister Saeb Erekat said.

He added that the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) would protest to Israel against the absentee law.

Israeli lawmakers and human rights groups also said the government measure was a land grab.

Yossi Beilin, leader of the Israeli Yahad Party, said the Sharon government has taken unprecedented measures to seize the Palestinian lands in Al-Quds.

He noted that the Israeli opposition would hold a meeting to annul the government absentee law.

“It's just an obvious land grab, and it is absolutely illegal,” said Sarit Michaeli, spokeswoman for the Israeli rights group B'Tselem.

He added that “it is so blatantly an attempt to take as much land as possible with as few Palestinians as possible.”

Construction

Meanwhile, Israel's attorney-general approved the construction of the4 -km (2.5 mile) segment of its separation wall along a new route near the large Jewish settlement of Ariel after residents of the adjacent Palestinian village of Salfit petitioned a court against land expropriation, Reuters said.

An Israeli court had ordered construction of the separation barrier around the Ariel enclave halted last June after the appeal was filed and then asked the sides to resolve the issue through negotiations.

Changes were subsequently made to the route although Salfit's mayor denied Monday reaching any deal with Israeli authorities.

The Palestinian Authority said the Israeli court decision would undermine efforts of the Palestinian leader to broker a ceasefire between the Palestinian resistance factions and Israel.

“How we are going to convince our people and factions that we are trying to end Israeli occupation while Israel is imposing facts on the ground,” Erekat said.

“This will have a deep and negative impact on our efforts to reach a ceasefire.”

The new Palestinian leader has been engaged in talks with resistance factions’ leaders in Gaza on reaching a common ground to halt attacks against Israel.

The separation wall has been deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice and in July, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution calling on Israel to tear it down.

As usual, Israel, backed by Washington, defiantly refused to abide by the ruling or the resolution.

http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2005-01/25/article02.shtml

The anti-Zionists spread the lies made up by the Palestinian terrorists.

To call the security barrier "apartheid wall" was invented by the Palestinian terrorists.

There are many security barriers and true walls around the world. Why do some people only care about the Israeli security barrier?
____

This item is available on the Middle East Forum website, at http://www.meforum.org/article/652

Is Israel's Security Barrier Unique?
by Ben Thein
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2004

On July 9, 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel's security barrier was a violation of international humanitarian law and human rights law. Eleven days later, the United Nations General Assembly voted 150-6 to condemn Israel and demand removal of the barrier. All twenty-five members of the European Union supported the motion.[1] The EU position would not have been so offensive had it not then undertaken an act of stunning hypocrisy. In August 2004, the EU put out tenders for companies to construct a European separation fence to prevent migration into the EU from countries excluded from it.[2] European officials undertook to build a wall less than one month after condemning Israel's barrier at the United Nations.

EU countries are not the only ones to display hypocrisy. Several states voting to condemn Israel themselves have built barriers on disputed land, often as a response to terrorism. Israel's decisions rest on firm precedent. India, for example, has built a barrier along its line-of-control with Pakistan. Following a number of violent confrontations with Yemeni soldiers and tribesmen, the Saudi Arabian government unilaterally began constructing a barrier on land disputed by its southern neighbor. Morocco has built a barrier against Algerian infiltration in the disputed territory of Western Sahara. Ironically, while both British foreign minister Jack Straw and Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gül condemned Israel's security fence, both their countries have built their own barriers to combat terrorism. In Cyprus, it is the U.N. itself that, at significant hardship to the local populace, sponsored a security fence reinforcing the island's de facto partition.

The idea of physical separation between Israelis and Palestinians predates the current Palestinian intifada. A brutal 1992 terrorist murder of a teenage girl in Bat Yam helped motivate Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin to negotiate the Oslo accords. Physical separation was not yet on the table. But in 1994, in response to a suicide attack in Tel Aviv, Rabin declared, "We have to decide on separation as a philosophy."[3]

While Rabin's assassination sidetracked the barrier plan, Prime Minister Ehud Barak revived the idea. Shortly before the collapse of the July 2000 Camp David summit, Barak gave a speech arguing that separation would both guarantee security and preserve the Jewish identity of the state. Barak continued to state that "a physical separation" would be "essential to the Palestinian nation in order to foster its national identity and independence, without being dependent on the state of Israel."[4] However, it would be a Likud government that would actually bring the goal to fruition. On February 21, 2002, following a rash of suicide bombings, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared his support for the barrier. Whatever resistance there was in his government was swept aside the next month after Palestinian terrorists killed 80 Israelis and wounded 600 in twelve different suicide attacks. On April 14, 2002, Sharon's security cabinet approved a plan to build three "buffer zones" in areas where terrorists had frequently infiltrated Israel;[5] construction began two months later.[6] While the West Bank security fence is long by Israeli standards at about 500 miles when complete,[7] it is, nevertheless, small in comparison to other barriers in existence.

India and Pakistan
A case in point is the separation barrier between India and Pakistan. Upon their independence in 1947, a massive exchange of populations took place. Millions of Muslims streamed from India into Pakistan while millions of Hindus fled in the opposite direction. The two countries fiercely disputed possession of the provinces of Jammu and Kashmir, fighting three wars in subsequent decades. In 1989, the Indian government, frustrated at the continued infiltration of terrorists from Pakistan, constructed a security barrier along the frontier in the states of Punjab and Rajasthan. The barrier worked and infiltration subsided.[8] Five years later, India sought to extend the barrier 620 miles through Jammu and Kashmir. More than 80 percent of the barrier's planned route was on disputed land.[9]

The Pakistani government's reaction to India's barrier-building was harsh. Islamabad accused India of violating both the U.N. charter and the two countries' cease fire agreement. In July 2003, Pakistani military spokesman, Shaukat Sultan, declared,

the border in Jammu and Kashmir remains un-demarcated … any measure to alter the status of these and any attempt to erect a new impediment is a direct violation of international commitments, and Pakistan opposes it. Border fencing is not allowed.[10]

But the Indian government disagreed, citing its right to defend itself against terrorism. After all, since 1989 more than 40,000 people have perished in Jammu and Kashmir in terrorism and insurgency-related violence.[11] And, just as Israel has found its barrier to be a successful deterrent, so, too, has India. According to the chief-of-staff of the Indian army, Nirmal Chand Vij, the number of terrorists inside Jammu and Kashmir plummeted almost 50 percent in the year after the barrier's construction. The fence stopped almost 90 percent of infiltration attempts.[12] India's vote against Israel's West Bank barrier[13] may have undermined its own position, a fact that was not lost on at least one Pakistani senator. In a July debate in the Pakistani senate, Ishaq Dar suggested that Islamabad parlay the ICJ ruling into a move to condemn India's fence construction along its line-of-control.[14]

Saudi Arabia and Yemen
The kingdom of Saudi Arabia, one of Israel's most vociferous critics in the Middle East and a staunch financial supporter of groups such as Hamas, has also constructed a border fence on disputed land.[15] Saudi Arabia and Yemen have disputed their border for more than seventy years. Both countries dispute the demarcation laid out in the 1934 Taif treaty, and today, almost 1,000 miles of desert and mountains remain undefined. While both countries may initially have been content to live with the status quo, that changed with the 1990 discovery of oil in the disputed zone. The Saudi government moved to build a "military city" near the disputed border. Violence occasionally flared. In November 1997, for example, after a Yemeni soldier lowered a Saudi flag in the disputed area of Qarqa'i, several Saudi and Yemeni soldiers died in an exchange of fire.[16] Another bloody clash took place in January 2000 when Saudi troops occupied Jabal Jahfan, a mountain long controlled by Yemen.[17] A June 2000 attempt to resolve the dispute failed. While both Saudi and Yemeni leaders signed the resulting Jeddah treaty, the text left unresolved large tracts of the border.[18]

Violence erupted in 2002. In the Saudi border town of Jizan, Saudi border guards confronted Islamists smuggling weapons from Yemen. Thirty-six Saudi soldiers died in the ensuing firefight.[19] Following additional violence along the border, the kingdom decided unilaterally to build a security barrier along their border with Yemen. Saudi officials claimed that this barrier would stem the weapons flow and almost daily attempts at infiltration by Islamist insurgents from Yemen.[20] Talal Anqawi, the head of Saudi Arabia's border guards, dismissed any parallels to Israel's security barrier, telling the Arabic daily Asharq al-Awsat,

What is being constructed inside our borders with Yemen is a sort of a screen … which aims to prevent infiltration and smuggling … it does not resemble a wall in any way.[21]

If Anqawi sought to create a litmus test for the permissibility of barriers, he failed. While the ICJ referred to Israel's security fence as a "wall" throughout its decision, less than 5 percent of the barrier is actually concrete slab. The rest is a network of fence and sensors. While the Saudi government presses the U.N. to sanction Israel to force compliance with the ICJ decision, the kingdom, through its own actions and statements, has actually created a precedent for Israel. Saudi statements labeling Israel's security barrier an "internationally wrongful act" and demanding its "destruction,"[22] illustrate the hypocrisy of both the Saudi and ICJ positions.

Turkey, Syria, and Cyprus
While Pakistani and Saudi criticism may not be anything new to Israel, some of the most vociferous criticism has come from an unexpected quarter. For much of the last decade, the strategic partnership between Turkey and Israel has grown although it recently has taken some hits at the hands of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Their bilateral relations were based not only on their common interests as the region's only democracies but also on the common threat posed to both by terrorists. Therefore, it came as a surprise when the Turkish prime minister so harshly condemned Israel's barrier.[23]

The Turkish stance is more surprising given its own positions vis-à-vis two other barriers, both of which are built on disputed land. In 1939, Turkey annexed Hatay, a province populated primarily by Turks but claimed by Syria. Syrian maps still depict Hatay as part of Syria.[24] Throughout the 1980s and through most of the 1990s, Syria supported the Kurdistan Workers Party (Partiya Karkaren Kurdistan, PKK) in their terrorist campaign for a Kurdish state in Turkey. The Turkish government responded by fortifying their frontier—including those portions around Hatay still hotly disputed by the Syrian government—and by constructing a high fence along the length of the border and laying over 500 miles of minefields.[25] While no serious international lawyer questions the status of Hatay—a 1937 League of Nations referendum recommended separation from Syria—the Turkish government's condemnation of Israel's barrier may provide the Syrian government with unwanted ammunition should they decide to pursue more seriously their complaint against Turkey.

Turkey's experience with barriers extends beyond the Syrian frontier. When Cyprus became independent in 1960, its constitution was intended to balance the interests of the Turkish minority with the Greek majority. In 1974, the Greek government supported a coup that installed an ardent Greek nationalist who promised to unite the island nation with Greece. Turkish troops intervened, enforcing a division of the island. In 1983, the Turkish sector formally proclaimed itself the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus but was recognized only by Turkey. The green line separating the two sides stretched 120 miles. The U.N.-monitored buffer zone varies in width from less than 20 meters to more than 4 miles. Five villages lie in the buffer zone, and approximately 8,000 people live or work in a no-man's land. Hardest hit was Nicosia, the capital, where some streets remain divided by cement partitions. Ironically, while the U.N. has condemned Israel's wall for inconveniencing Palestinians, in Cyprus, it was the U.N. itself that constructed the barrier in order to preserve peace and security.[26]

Morocco and the Western Sahara
The Israeli government chose not to argue its case before the ICJ, maintaining that the court did not have jurisdiction. The court's ruling was political; it blatantly ignored numerous precedents. However, while in the case of India and Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and Turkey with both Syria and Cyprus, disputes occurred between recognized states, in the case of Israel and the West Bank, an exact parallel does not exist. While the Palestinians claim the West Bank and Gaza, those territories are in fact disputed rather than formally occupied, for the Palestinians have never been independent nor do they have a precedent for their claim. Prior to the 1967 Six-Day War, Jordan controlled the West Bank, and Egypt managed Gaza. Before World War I, they were Ottoman territory.

A somewhat analogous case exists on the periphery of the Arab world. Until November 1975, Spain controlled a 100,000-square-mile stretch of desert on the northwest coast of Africa. Upon the Spanish withdrawal, both the governments of Morocco and Mauritania, as well as the indigenous (but Algerian-supported) Polisario Front (Popular Front for the Liberation of the Saguia el Hamra and Rio de Oro) laid claim to what became known as the Western Sahara. On October 16, 1975, the ICJ pushed aside Moroccan claims to the contrary and ruled that the local Sahrawi tribes had the right to self-determination without regard to Moroccan claims of traditional suzerainty.[27] The subsequent low-intensity conflict has been long and bitter. The Spanish government initially sought to supervise a joint Moroccan-Mauritanian administration but withdrew from the arrangement the next year. Mauritanian forces, bloodied by the Algerian-backed Polisario Front, gave up the fight in 1979, allowing Morocco to take almost complete control of the region. The Polisario Front launched attacks on both Moroccans and Sahrawis, causing a refugee exodus into Algeria.[28]

Amid the shadow of continued Polisario terrorism, in 1983, the Moroccan government began construction of a massive 1,500-mile, 3-meter high barrier of sand and stone. The Moroccan army laid more than one million land mines along the barrier, all of which was constructed on territory claimed by a non-state liberation movement. Approximately 120,000 Moroccan soldiers guard the line. The barrier has been remarkably effective at providing security for Moroccans once harried by Polisario terrorists.[29] Some Sahrawis have not been as fortunate. The barrier divides communities; Sahrawi accessibility and mobility is severely constrained. While the Israeli supreme court ruled on June 30, 2004, that Israeli planners needed to take not only security concerns but also Palestinian hardship into account when constructing the barrier, the Moroccan government has labored under no such constraints.

Despite having taken far more aggressive actions in response to a terrorist threat that is considerably less severe, the Moroccan government, nevertheless, filed a written statement to the ICJ objecting to Israel's security barrier. The Moroccans accused Israel of "annexation of Palestinian territory" and demanded the barrier's dismantling.[30]

Northern Ireland
Outside the Islamic world, one of the security barrier's fiercest critics has been Great Britain. British foreign secretary Jack Straw joined other European Union leaders calling for Israel to dismantle the barrier. According to Straw, "Whatever the claimed short-term advantages of the barrier, actions such as this are unlikely in the long term to deliver the peace and security Israel seeks."

Straw's statement ignores not only the success of the Indian, Turkish, and Moroccan barriers, but also the United Kingdom's own experience.[31]

The British government partitioned Ireland in 1921, largely along sectarian lines. While twenty-six counties gained independence as the Republic of Ireland, six other counties remained in Great Britain. Beginning in the late 1960s, the Provisional Irish Republican Army initiated a terrorist campaign to reunite Ireland, in the course of which more than 3,500 died and 30,000 were wounded.

The British government's response to the terrorist campaign was the creation of a "peace line" dividing Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods in Belfast. In some places, barriers traverse backyards and separate houses. Some of the barriers are more than thirty feet high. Exposing Straw's hypocrisy, Belfast's barriers have actually proliferated during Prime Minister Tony Blair's administration. In 1994, there were 15 of them; a decade later there are 37.[32] But, the "peace line" has been effective from a counterterrorism perspective. Prior to the barriers' construction, it might take a dozen policemen to secure any given neighborhood. After the British government erected the barriers, two policemen could do the same job.[33] The Daily Telegraph, generally the British broadsheet most sympathetic toward Israel, pointed out the hypocrisy of the British government's position toward Israel in a February 24, 2004 editorial:

Israel's fence exists to prevent suicide bombings. The Belfast peace lines exist to prevent large-scale intercommunal disorders … but a barrier is a barrier, whatever its name … their [British and Israeli] policies towards the nationalist areas of Belfast and the Palestinian areas of the Holy Land have one thing in common … to provide security."[34]

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
When the ICJ ruled on July 9 that Israel's security barrier was illegal, it based its decisions exclusively on interpretation of international humanitarian law. Fourteen of the fifteen judges ruled that Israel should raze its barrier. The one dissenting justice, Thomas Buergenthal, was American. He argued that the court failed to consider all relevant facts. He wrote, "The nature of these cross-Green Line attacks and their impact on Israel and its population are never really seriously examined by the court." While the ICJ claimed that Israel could not invoke "the right of legitimate or inherent self-defense," Buergenthal disagreed. After all, in resolutions 1368 and 1373, the U.N. Security Council reaffirmed the right to combat terrorism without limitation to "state actors only."[35]

And there is little doubt that the security barriers work. Suicide attacks in Israel declined 75 percent in the first six months of 2004 compared to an equivalent period in 2003.[36] The Israeli government is not alone in this conclusion. Many of the most vocal critics of Israel's security barrier have employed the same defense. Their immunity from ICJ and U.N. criticism illustrates both the politicization of the International Court of Justice and the inherent bias of the United Nations. U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan's criticism of Israel's security barrier,[37] especially when juxtaposed with his silence regarding the region's other security barriers, illustrates the double standard.[38]

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of the ICJ decision, however, is that it creates a precedent that allows terrorism to trump security. Israel will not be the only victim. The Turkish government, which vociferously condemned Israel, unwittingly undermined its own security with regard to Syria. Some Pakistani politicians already seek to use the ICJ's decision on Israel to undermine India's self-defense. While separate peace processes proceed in Cyprus, Western Sahara, and Northern Ireland, it was the dampening of terrorism made possible by the security barriers that allowed the space for diplomats to resume negotiations. On a number of levels, the ICJ decision was a ruling against peace and security, not only in Israel but also across the region and elsewhere.

Ben Thein, a student in international relations, economics, and business management at Clark University, was an intern at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

[1] The New York Times, July 21, 2004.
[2] Israel Business Arena, Aug. 12, 2004.
[3] David Makovsky, "How to Build a Fence," Foreign Affairs, Mar./Apr. 2004, p. 52.
[4] Ehud Barak, "Peace as My Paramount Objective," Mideast Mirror (London), June 28, 2000.
[5] The Jerusalem Post, Apr. 15, 2002.
[6] Ibid., June 12, 2002.
[7] "Concept and Guidelines: A Fence, Not a Wall," Israel Diplomatic Network, at http://securityfence.mfa.gov.il/mfm/web/main/document.asp?SubjectID=45874&MissionID=45187&LanguageID=0&StatusID=0&DocumentID=-1.
[8] Frontline (Chennai, India), Sept. 15-28, 2001, at http://www.flonnet.com/fl1819/18191290.htm.
[9] PakTribune, Mar. 26, 2004, at http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=59496.
[10] The Washington Post, July 30, 2003.
[11] BBC News, Nov. 25, 2002, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/353352.stm.
[12] The Peninsula On-line (Doha), May 22, 2004, at http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=world_news&month=may2004&file=world_news20040522749.xml.
[13] "General Assembly Emergency Session Overwhelmingly Demands Israel's Compliance with International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion," U.N. press release, July 20, 2004, at http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/ga10248.doc.htm.
[14] PakTribune, July 23, 2004.
[15] Dore Gold, Hatred's Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2003), pp. 126-7.
[16] BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, Dec. 12, 1997.
[17] Ibid., Jan. 27, 2000.
[18] Brian Whitaker, "Commentary on the Border Treaty," Yemen Gateway, July 1, 2000, at http://www.al-bab.com/yemen/pol/border000629.htm.
[19] The Independent (London), Feb. 11, 2004
[20] The Guardian (London), Feb. 19, 2004.
[21] Asharq al-Aswat (London), Feb. 9, 2004, quoted in ibid.
[22] "Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories," written statements to the ICJ, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Jan. 30, 2004, at http://www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/idocket/imwp/imwpframe.htm.
[23] The Guardian, June 4, 2004.
[24] E. Melhem, "The Sanjak of Alexandretta: A Forgotten Syrian Territory," Az-Zawba'ah, Nov. 1998, at http://home.iprimus.com.au/fidamelhem/ssnp/.
[25] Interview with Turkish military official, July 2004.
[26] "Facts and Figures," U.N. Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, at http://www.unficyp.org/Facts+figures/facts+fig.htm.
[27] "Western Sahara, Advisory Opinion of October 16, 1975," ICJ, at http://www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/idecisions/isummaries/isasummary751016.htm.
[28] "Western Sahara," Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, 2001, U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Mar. 4, 2002, at http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/nea/8281.htm.
[29] The Guardian, Dec. 19, 2003.
[30] "Legal Consequences," written statements to the ICJ, Kingdom of Morocco, Jan. 30, 2004, at http://www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/idocket/imwp/imwpframe.htm.
[31] The Birmingham Post, July 22, 2004.
[32] Associated Press, July 11, 2004.
[33] The Irish Times (Dublin), Mar. 5, 2003.
[34] "Our Very Own Berlin Wall," The Daily Telegraph (London), Feb. 24, 2004.
[35] "Legal Consequences," declaration of Judge Buergenthal, ICJ, July 9, 2004, at http://www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/idocket/imwp/imwpframe.htm.
[36] Ma'ariv (Tel Aviv), June 23, 2004.
[37] Los Angeles Times, Nov. 30, 2003.
[38] Kofi Annan, news release, U.N. headquarters, New York, July 21, 2004, at http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/sgsm9427.doc.htm.



This item is available on the Middle East Forum website, at http://www.meforum.org/article/652

Hilary Leila Krieger, THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 25, 2005

At a press conference timed to coincide with events marking the 60th
anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Diaspora Affairs Minister
Natan Sharansky will on Tuesday assert that the Palestinian Authority,
even under new chairman Mahmoud Abbas, is engaged in the "promotion of
genocide" against the Jewish people.

The "Kill a Jew Go to Heaven" presentation, compiled by Palestinian
Media Watch, an Israel-based organization that monitors incitement in
Palestinian society, and distributed under Sharansky's auspices,
accuses the Palestinian media of dehumanizing Jews similar to ways the
Nazis did.

A fundamental message broadcast in sermons, academic discourse and
even children's shows, according to report co-author Itamar Marcus, is
that "the Jews are an evil force, and it's inherent to the Jews, and
therefore they have to be killed."

In the run-up to the PA election on January 9, Abbas met with the head
of the Palestinian Broadcasting Authority and asked him to check all
programs aired on PA television to prevent the broadcast of inciting
material. Since then, Marcus said that nationalistic programming
calling for violence against Israel has decreased somewhat, but that
anti-Semitic rhetoric has remained unabated.

He pointed to January 14, when he said an imam gave a sermon
declaring, "The days of the pilgrimage to Mecca remind the Muslim of
the connection to his history and remind him of his past glory and the
lowliness of the Jews, who today rule the world; how Muhammad expelled
them from Medina in retribution for their actions and their hostility
and their corruption, and not on false charges, not unjustly. No, it
was retribution for their hostility toward Islam."

It is important to document this phenomenon, he said, because many
people view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as centered on political
issues, when the Palestinians have tied redemption to killing Jews.
"It's not connected to borders, it's not connected to compromise, and
no compromise will be reached [once] it's a battle of God against the
Jews."

"As in Nazi Germany, there is an entire 'culture of hatred' in
Palestinian society today, from textbooks to crossword puzzles, from
day camps to TV music videos," Sharansky charged in a statement issued
by his office ahead of the press conference. "Calling for the murder
of Jews, as Jews, is the end result."

The presentation comes ahead of Israel's National Day Against
Anti-Semitism on Thursday and the same day's ceremonies at Auschwitz.
It will be made available in English as well as Hebrew to engage the
international community.

"The whole world has to be aware of anti-Semitism, because it isn't
just the problem of the Jews. It's the problem of any democratic
society," a Sharansky aide said. "The world has to understand what we
are dealing with. It's not only whether there was a bombing yesterday
or not. If you don't change the atmosphere in books or on TV, it
won't be enough."


Ms. G. Goldwater
Switzerland, Geneva
iii44 [at] aol.com
Skype: gabrielle-g
Internet Correspondent and Commentator
http://goldwater.mideastreality.com/
Member of "Funding for Peace Coalition" [FPC]
[http://www.euFunding.org ]
FPC REPORT EXPOSES MASSIVE CONTRADICTIONS IN EUROPEAN AID TO PALESTINIANS http://eufunding.org/FPC2004Report.pdf

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The Arab claim that they were the "aborigines" - that Arab Palestinians are the equivalent of the ancient Philistines.
This is totally incorrect.
The latter were a non-Semitic sea people from the Eastern Medit. or Aegean Sea area (of David and Goliath fame).
Arab Palestinians are, for most part--despite the blending of populations over the millennia--mostly newcomers themselves from other Arab lands in the 20th century, and at most descendants from the 7th century C.E. Arab conquests by the Caliphal successors to Muhammad.

With all the bally-hooed talk of the " RIGHTS OF RETURN " for the "Palestinians" this thought occurs to me : We do remember the posters and placards ubiqitously displayed in Vienna after the Anschluß proclaiming: "JUDEN NACH PALÄSTINA." And the philosopher Emanuel Kant, in his frequent anti-jewish vituperations, suggested to " send these Palestinians " back to where they came from.

Question: Who are the real "Palestinians?"
The History And Meaning Of Palestine And Palestinians1
http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~jkatz/meaning.html


For a brief history of "Palestine" and sovereignty over it
http://www.eylerz.net/brief_history.htm

History in a Nutshell
http://www.conceptwizard.com/conen/conflict_2.html

Nutshell Too
http://www.conceptwizard.com/nutoo/nutshell3.html

Israel on Trial
http://www.conceptwizard.com/trial/trial.html

That's true. In France there are several lawsuits against the PA for genocide.

Hamas and Fatah's covenants state that their aim is to destroy Israel.

According to the "Palestinians", the history of their "Palestine" starts in 1400, under the Otomans.

And what about the true Palestinians, the Jews? When and where was Jesus born?

Have the Arab and Muslim countries given aid to those countries struck by the tsunami?

"According to the "Palestinians", the history of their "Palestine" starts in 1400, under the Otomans.And what about the true Palestinians, the Jews? When and where was Jesus born?"

Trying to argue history as if its that simple is pretty dangerous and leads to things like the ethnic hatreds one saw in the former Yugoslavia where modern day Serbians blamed modern day Muslims for the actions of the Ottomans hundreds of years ago. Using history in this manner is not only a form of blaming a people for being genetically guilty due soley due to the actions of ancestors but its also wrong. The modern day Bosnian muslims are a historical result of the Ottoman invasion and some could even have ancestors who were Turks but most Bosnian muslims have more ancestors who had lived in the area prior to the Turkish invasion.

When Islam spread to what is now Israel/Palestine many of the local population converted (in many cases by force) to Islam. It wouldnt be too surprising to conclude from that that most of those now living in Palestine have some ancestors who were other religions before the invasion. Its likely that most Palestinians have as much of a right to think of themselves as ancestors of the biblical Jews as those who did not change religion or were forced into exile hundreds of years earlier by the Romans or at later times. I'm not trying to argue that European Jews are really converts (as some antiSemities try to argue) since studies have shown this is not the case. But ancestry does not make sense when one talks about a time period like 2000 years (since with even a 10% rate of mixing with other populations per generation one ends up with no group bring able to claim any single group as their ancestors)

When one reads history one may hear of a time when Jews were kicked out of what is now Israel by the Romans, one may read about an immigration of people who are now Palestinians from Yemen, and one may hear about many other forms of population movements but when you start to dig the movements described are never universal and are usually more related to leaders and armies than the population itself. Are the modern day English related to the pre-Celt groups that build Stonehinge, Celts, Saxons, ...? Are the modern day French related to the Gauls of Roman times, the Germanic tribe of Franks, remnants of Roman and Greek colonies...? Such qustions really dont make sense since the populations mixed and so did the cultures.

Palestinians today are mainly those people living under extremely oppressive conditions in the West Bank and Gaza as well as those stuck in refugee camps in neighboring countries. Some Palestinians have ancestors who were from Yemen just several hundred years ago, some have ancestors who were Arabs involved in the invasion 1000+ years ago, some have ancestors who were Christians who took part in the Crusades, some have ancestors who were Jews prior to the spread of Islam, some have ancestors who were nonJewish groups that have lived in the area for thousands of years.... most are a mixture of all these groups and many others.

When anyone resorts to the use of ancient history (be it the Aryan myths of the Nazis or upper caste Hindus, the myths about Palestinians put forward by supporters of Israel, the myths about Serbian history by those that carried out the Bosnian genocide, or modern neonazi myths about Jews and Khazars ) one should take a look at the agendas of those putting forth these myths. Ascribing guilt to a whole population based off myths about events that took place hundreds of years ago is leading cause of genocide.

>>>"According to the "Palestinians", the history of their "Palestine" starts in 1400, under the Otomans. "<<<

Which website is that from? Ottoman rule on the Land of Israel began only in 1517.


I've learned that some of the richest Arab states have allocated some money to the predominantly Muslim states ravaged by the tsunami:

1) Qaeter: $25 milliom

2) Saudi Arabia: $10 million

3) Kuwait: $2 million

Compare these sums to how much some Western countries spent:

1) Japan: $500 milliom

2) The US: $250 milliom

3) The UK: $98 million

4) Italy: $96 million.


Just awesome...

That history by the "Palestinians" states that Palestine history starts in 1400, and not before.

"Trying to argue history as if its that simple is pretty dangerous and leads to things like the ethnic hatreds one saw in the former Yugoslavia where modern day Serbians blamed modern day Muslims for the actions of the Ottomans hundreds of years ago. "

It is not trying to argue history: facts cannot be argued.

Ethnic hatreds are usually stirred by falsification of history, and that's what the Palestinians are doing.

It is true that there is oppression: some "Palestinians" are being oppressed by the Palestinian terrorists, who also want to oppress the Israelis.

And it is funny how anti-Zionists try to base their support to the Palestinians upon "history", but history doesn't matter when real facts are in favor of Israel.

A true fact is also that the Palestinian terrorists are committing terrorist attacks against the Israelis. However, anti-Zionists always find reasons to justify those acts of terror.

>>>"According to the "Palestinians", the history of their "Palestine" starts in 1400, under the Otomans. "<<<

Which website is that from? Ottoman rule on the Land of Israel began only in 1517.



I was looking at the Hamas website.

I don't know why you made the peculiar remark that "Palestinians have as much of a right to think of themselves as ancestors of the biblical Jews as those who did not change religion or were forced into exile hundreds of years earlier by the Romans or at later times.". It doesn't stand up to scrutiny, since Cana'anites -- from which probably most Israelites originated -- became extinct in the Land of Israel before 586BCE and no serious academic in their right mind would claim Cana'anites were Arabs.

Important facts about the competing Jewish and Palestinian claims to historical Israel that often get overlooked are that the overwhelming majority of Jews worldwide descend from Jews that actually lived in the Land of Israel at one point in time, whereas very few of the Palestinians descend from pagan individuals who once were members of non-Jewish groups who lived in the land during the first centuries AD. A greater number of them descend from non-Arab Christians who lived there during those centuries, but not too greater. When speaking of this, we must also bear in mind the mass emigration of Christians from the Land of Israel over the last few decades which has more than likely decreased the percentage of Palestinian Christians descended from long-time inhabitants of the land before the 7th century Muslim invasion.

? "When anyone resorts to the use of ancient history (be it the Aryan myths of the Nazis or upper caste Hindus, the myths about Palestinians put forward by supporters of Israel, the myths about Serbian history by those that carried out the Bosnian genocide, or modern neonazi myths about Jews and Khazars ) one should take a look at the agendas of those putting forth these myths."

But not all history is myth. Archaelogical evidence makes a it quite, quite clear that there was an Israelite presence in ancient Israel before the conquering Romans renamed it Palestina, and cultural and biological evidence also makes it quite clear that today's Jews are descended from the Israelites. Neither of those is a myth.

@%<

"Important facts about the competing Jewish and Palestinian claims to historical Israel that often get overlooked are that the overwhelming majority of Jews worldwide descend from Jews that actually lived in the Land of Israel at one point in tim"

You seem to be ignoring inter-marriage and the tendency for religion to only get passed down on one side of a familly. The fact of intermarriage making ancestry irrelevance can be seen in the clear difference in appearance between Jewish populatioins in Northern Europe, the Middle East and even China. I really doubt that one can conclude much about any group's ancestry over 2000 years since history records little about movements of normal people and mainly records changes in government and culture. I was recently reading a history book by a Middle Eastern scholar form the late 1300s and he makes repeated reference to large numbers of Syrian Jews (which I guess included what is now Israel) forcably converted to Islam so I am curious to know what became of this population. My guess would be that one cant know since populations merge through intermarriage and the like enough that the whole population of the Middle East is pretty well mixed with no group able to make claims to any real population even 700 years ago.

2000-1300 / 30 > 23 and 2^23=8,388,608 so assuming an average of two children per person with a 30 year average age at which people have children one ends up over 8 million descendents per person living in 1300. If the population described was even as small as 100 one ends up with a 800 million if no descendents married other descendents so with even a relatively high level of intermarriage within such a group one would have almost a complete mixing of the population into the overall population. This is not in any way contradicted by the continuation of familly names or minority religions as long at those pass down on one side of the familly since with 100% marriage outside of one's group but with religion passing down on just one side one would have someone just 11 millionth of a percent related to those from the initial group (just 700 years ago) claiming more ancestry from the group than someone with more ancestors but not a coninuation on that one side. Most studies that trace ancestry are based on mitochondrial DNA of an individual that derives exclusively from the mother so one can end up with a "proof" of ancestry that really can mean little in terms of overall ancestry buit can explain a lot if religion and culture tend to also pass down on that side of the familly.

"biological evidence also makes it quite clear that today's Jews are descended from the Israelites"

Logic also makes it clear that after 2000+ years and even a low rate of intermarriage just about everyone on the planet has at least one ancestor who was an Israelite or a member of any other group from that long ago.

Many thanks for the information. I was already suspicious that I might have some Jews ancestors.

And I presume that the people against Israel and the Jews are against themselves.

Those psychiatrists stating that hatred for Jews is a serious psychopathology are absolutely right.

Hahaha

Just about everyone has King Solomon, Augustus Ceasar and Ghengis Khan (and perhaps even Jesus if he had kids) as ancestors, but that doesnt mean one has to like those people let alone support a modern state that might identify itself with them. Ancestry means little unless you like to collectively like or dislike people based on their genetics.

One's views on the actions of the government of Israel seems like it should have nothing to do with ones ancestry; many people who are Jewish and live in Israel hate Sharon. How is disliking Sharon disliking one's self if one is Jewish or had Jewish ancestry? Areyou trying to claim that whole groups can be blamed for the actions of individual members of that group so hating Sharon is hating one's self if one is Jewish or has Jewish ancestry?

"Just about everyone has King Solomon, Augustus Ceasar and Ghengis Khan (and perhaps even Jesus if he had kids) as ancestors, but that doesnt mean one has to like those people let alone support a modern state that might identify itself with them. Ancestry means little unless you like to collectively like or dislike people based on their genetics."

That doesn't mean you have to hate them either, unless you collectively dislike people based on their genetics.

"One's views on the actions of the government of Israel seems like it should have nothing to do with ones ancestry; many people who are Jewish and live in Israel hate Sharon. How is disliking Sharon disliking one's self if one is Jewish or had Jewish ancestry? Areyou trying to claim that whole groups can be blamed for the actions of individual members of that group so hating Sharon is hating one's self if one is Jewish or has Jewish ancestry?"

That happens everywhere: many Americans don't like Bush. However, it would be unfair to support that the USA should be destroyed.

I am trying to claim nothing. I am lucky: I hate nobody up to the point of wanting their destruction.

As for Sharon, it is the Israelis who have to decide if they want him to be their president or not.

>>>"You seem to be ignoring inter-marriage and the tendency for religion to only get passed down on one side of a familly. The fact of intermarriage making ancestry irrelevance can be seen in the clear difference in appearance between Jewish populatioins in Northern Europe, the Middle East and even China."<<<

Until the late 1700s, when Jews in Western Europe opened up to Christendom through the Emacipation, intermarriage rates among world Jewry were very small. Most intermarriages probably occurred when some from German Ashkenazis married local Slav females, who has converted to Judaism as a precondition for the marriage, when they were aclimating to their new Eastern European surrounding.
Second of all, the biblical reference to King David as being red-headed demonstrates that some of the Israelis' ancestors either arrived over the millennia preceding 1000CBE from lands other than historical Israel or were racially mixed since homo-sapiens-sapiens set foot in ancient Israel.
Thirdly, not only are the Jews of northern Europe decendents of Eastern European Jews who arrived there during the first part of last century, but many Middle Eastern Jews sport "light-skinned" physical characteristics that got passed down through the millennia by at least one side of the family (equivalent to the parallel phenomenon where dark-skinned Ashkenazi Jews had theirs handed down consecutively for thousands of years). A case in point are the many light-skinned Iraqi Jews. The Iraqi Jewish diaspora is at least 2500 years old -- the oldest one worldwide, with the possible exception of the Jewish Egyptian diaspora which can also lay a claim to that title.

>>>"I was recently reading a history book by a Middle Eastern scholar form the late 1300s and he makes repeated reference to large numbers of Syrian Jews (which I guess included what is now Israel) forcably converted to Islam"<<<

Perhaps the territory now known as the Golan Heights could be considered Syrian territory rather than a part of Palestine that time notwithstanding the Mameluk rule, but I'm not sure either way.

>>>"My guess would be that one cant know since populations merge through intermarriage and the like enough that the whole population of the Middle East is pretty well mixed with no group able to make claims to any real population even 700 years ago."<<<

There have indeed been some instances of Jewish conversion to Islam, most of which under coercion, but very little intermarriage if at all. It is known, for example, that many disillusioned followers of the false messish Shabtai Zvi voluntarily converted to Islam in the 17th century.

>>>"2000-1300 / 30 > 23 and 2^23=8,388,608 so assuming an average of two children per person with a 30 year average age at which people have children one ends up over 8 million descendents per person living in 1300."<<<

Pardon me, what does the figure 23 pertain to?

It's probable -- not just possible -- that many Jewish couples over the millennia were descended from an uninterrupted line of ancestry by both parents all the way back to Second Temple era Jews in the Land of Israel. I haven't yet seen evidence refuting this probability.

>>>"Most studies that trace ancestry are based on mitochondrial DNA of an individual that derives exclusively from the mother so one can end up with a "proof" of ancestry that really can mean little in terms of overall ancestry buit can explain a lot if religion and culture tend to also pass down on that side of the familly."<<<

But have you heard of the studies based on the *y chromosome* about the Kohen, or the priestly caste of Judaism, proving the vast majority of Jews identifying as priests descend from the priests who served in the First and Second Temples? These studies have shown intermarriage with non-Jews throughout the millennia by Kohanim almost never happened.

>>>"Logic also makes it clear that after 2000+ years and even a low rate of intermarriage just about everyone on the planet has at least one ancestor who was an Israelite "<<<

That's absurd!
I'm surprised you would say that.

?: "Logic also makes it clear that after 2000+ years and even a low rate of intermarriage just about everyone on the planet has at least one ancestor who was an Israelite or a member of any other group from that long ago."

But logic also dictates that having one Jewish ancestor some time in the last sixty-six generations isn't enough to pass on a cultural identity, and certainly not enough to keep a language alive. It wasn't the science of genetics that kept Jewish identity from fading away; the fact that molecular biology now demonstrates a common genetic link among many Jews around the world only proves what didn't need proving in the first place, that Jewish heritage was passed from Jews to Jews since the exile from Israel began two thousand years ago.

Your mathematical arguments ignore both the questions of geographic distribution and the issue cultural norms that make partner-selection considerably less random than your math presupposes. There were strong cultural sanctions between intermarriage, and those sanctions were strong on both the Jewish side and the non-Jewish side throughout almost all of the past two millenia. But the sanctions weren't about genetics; they were about the Jewish culture, and it was always possible for a non-Jew to convert to Judaism and be fully accepted in a way that those of Jewish descent very rarely were among gentiles.

@%<

>there was an Israelite presence in ancient Israel before the conquering Romans renamed it Palestina

Before the Israelite presence in ancient Palestine, there was the Canaanite presence. The Canaanites were ethnically cleansed from the land by the Israelites, who "fell on" them, "smote" them and "rent them asunder."

"There were strong cultural sanctions between intermarriage, and those sanctions were strong on both the Jewish side and the non-Jewish side"

Over 2000 years even an almost nonexistant rate of intermarriage could easilly result in everyone having at least one ancestor form a given group. Asuming a rate .01% the expected number of ancestors who identify in another closed group is quite large since once you get one crossover that persn then has a 99.99% chance of having all descendents in the other group. Assuming the Romans only pushed 50% of the Jewish population into exile and the rest of the population escaped I would guess that most of those with distant ancestors in ancient Israel would still be living in the region. The Islamic conquest was one of mass conversion so one would expect most of the descendents of the Jews from biblical times to be Muslims living in the region (afterall the Islamic historians describe a large number of Jewish people living near Jerusalem at the time). And because the Jewish diaspora is much more sparse than the communities that stayed wouldnt you guess that in terms of total numbers of ancestors who were "biblical jews" one should look at populations in the Middle East? Small Jewish communities in the Middle East most likely would have the most ancstors who were Jews in Biblical times and that would probably be followed by Muslim Palestinian communities. But one never knows ... if a small group of Jews who got pushed out by Romans went to Persia and became Zoroastrians and lived in a community that rarely married outside the group, the group with the most ancestral claim to the land of Israel (based on a view that a claim to the land is based on a very very short period when a greater Israel existed) could be living in Iran... who knows

Of course morally none of this should matter and its always troubling to see people try to use ancestry to claim rights over others or assign guilt, but one hears the argument that Israelis have some sort of right over Palestinians since Palestinians have some collective guilt and one has to respond. You can go off on how the number of ones ancestors who lived in ancent Israel 2000 years ago determines one's current right to the land now, but even if you could determine such a thing for any population (which you cant) why would it matter? Does the existance of a greater Serbia several hundred years ago and the "horrible" Turkish invastion make all Bosnian Muslims today somehow guilty today? Or perhaps the fact that many of those who converted to Islam under the Turks were from the preSlavic people whp lived in the region gives them more claim due to all the attrocities committed when the Slavic groups invaded centuries before. The attribution of historical guilt to a people one sees all the time when supporters of Israel describe Palestinians is very similar to views in other regions that have lead to genocides (how many time have you seen supporters of Israel post to this board that "Palestinians hate pace" or the like ascrbing guilt to a people in a way that would be clearly antiSemitic if one were to say the same about Jews or even Israelis).

Assume you have two populations of 1000 individuals (500 male and 500 female) and each generation two people pair up and have 2 children (one male and one female). Now assume that there is a 99% chance that pairing will occur within a group and a 1% chance that pairing with be between members of different groups. Now assume that identity is based off the mothers side of the familly so the child is assigned to the group the mother came from when pairing is between two peopel form different groups. Assuming an average generation is 30 years. What percent of the ancestors of any member of one group (counted once for members of the original population in ones ancestry tree) will be from the other group after 500 years? After 1000 years? After 2000 years? While the percentage of ones ancestors counting each ancestor multiple time (if they appear more than once as you trace your ancestry back) converges to the rate of inetrmarriage if you ask how many members of the original group each person is related to, it moves very quickly to all members of both groups.

With real life groups one also had events like mass conversions, a higher rate of population growth and blurred group boundaries where many have a lot higher than 1% chance of having children outside of their given identity grouping. Bust just calculate the question listed above and you will see it makes little sense to talk about ancestry over 2000 years even for communities that consider themselves ethnically pure and untainted by the blood of those they look down on.

"rent them asunder"

I rented a sunder. Why buy, when you can rent?

nessie: "Before the Israelite presence in ancient Palestine, there was the Canaanite presence."

And when the Canaanites bring their case before the world court, then I will be among the people listening with great interest, because they'll have a case. I will be particularly curious to hear why they were unable to maintain a cultural identity in exile the way the Jews did, unable to maintain a common language the way the Jews did, pass on their cultural heritage the way the Jews did, and so on, after the Romans smote _them_ and rent _them_ asunder. It surely can't be because the Israelites eradicated them, or even eradicated them from the lands of Israel, because they're all over e.g. Judges 3.

But nessie knows all this; he isn't satisfied to dismiss the Israeli claim to Israel, and he wants to also dismiss the Israelite claim to Israel. He's like that. Oversimplify, oversimplify, oversimplify is all the man does. That's why he has to write such short sentences; if he made them any longer, then you'd see how little thought actually goes into each one. Actually, you can do that with the short sentences too.

When was the last time you met someone who was conscious of his or her Canaanite lineage, nessie? Point one out to me. Is it more or less frequent than your meeting someone who is conscious of his or her Israelite lineage? Note that you can't claim that it's Thuh Israelites' fault that it's impossible, because we know (Judges 3) that the Israelites didn't wipe the Canaanites out.

?: "Assume you have two populations ..."

Your question continues to be irrelevant, because you continue to miss the central point. Jewish identity isn't about percentages of genes, it's about the passing on of Jewish culture from one generation to the next. So the ancient Israelites weren't as sociologically sophisticated as we are when it comes to what it means to transmit a culture -- does that mean that no culture was transmitted? My son, at his bar mitzvah, read from the Torah in Hebrew. At no point in the service did anybody demand any genetic tests. The only "test" was to demonstrate his acculturation as part of the Jewish people, and he did that by reading a text written in ancient Israel in the language and alphabet of the ancient Israelites. He was able to do that, not because some anthropologists somewhere dug up old stones and deciphered the script the way they did with the Canaanites, but because that script and that language had been passed on, generation by generation, from Jew to Jew, and never died out. To try to reduce that remarkable act of cultural transmission -- unique in its length -- to some combinatorical argument about gene percentages is to miss the point completely.

@%<

Militant Hindus demolished the 16th-century Babri mosque in 1992, vowing to replace it with a Hindu temple to Rama.

They say they were justified in destroying the mosque because there used to be a Hindu temple marking Rama's birthplace on that spot before.

The mosque was torn down by supporters of the hardline Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Council), the Shiv Sena party and then-opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The destruction prompted one of India's worst bouts of nationwide religious rioting between Hindus and the country's Muslim minority, which left 2,000 people dead.

The bloodshed was viewed as the most serious threat to India's secular identity since independence in 1947.

Why is Ayodhya so politically sensitive?

India's main opposition BJP and its Hindu hardline associates were closely involved in the destruction of the mosque.

Between 1998 and 2004 when a BJP-led coalition governed India, the party had to maintain a delicate balance between Hindu hardline organisations such as the VHP and its coalition partners who favour a negotiated settlement between Hindus and Muslims.

The VHP say the construction of a temple is a matter of conscience and they will ignore any court decision against them.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1843879.stm

It doesnt have a direct relationship to Israel but the history to justify a current attrocity in this manner is quite similar. I think I have a reasonable arguemnt about why one cant (and morally shouldnt) use claims that ones ancestors olived ina a place in a current land disput in my previoius comment but its worth noting that using a claim of cultural connection to a place is no better. You cant kick someone off land and expect others to see it as just just becasue you claim that your had ancestors or a cultral connection to the land thousands of years ago. Ayodhya is one of the few the disputes I can think of where land is claimed based off a claim of a cultural injustice having taken place hundreds of years ago. But in teh case ofd Israel it was thousands of years ago which makes it eeven stranger to think that anyone can fall for it as an argument.

I have no problems with the modern state of Israel existing (as long as the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza ends) but just because one cant go back doesnt mean the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians was just. The current population that didnt take part oin the ethnic cleansing does not bear anyt blame for what happened any more than the youth of Germany today dont bear responsibility for the acts of the Nazis and those in the US cant be blamed for the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans.

My fear in the use of the use of the argument that the creation of Israel was just due to a 2000+ year old land claim is that the same argument applies better to the West Bank and it coudl be used against as an argument for a new wave of ethnic cleansing by the Israelis.

The modern state of Israel was created as a consequence of the Holocaust. Hadn't the European Jews been massacred, they would still be living in Europe.
___________________________



Wed., January 26, 2005 Shvat 16, 5765 Israel Time: 01:28 (GMT+2)


Combating anti-Semitism



On Monday, the UN held for the first time in its history a special memorial session to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. For the first time, the prayer El Maleh Rahamim and the Hatikva were heard at the UN at the opening of an exhibit in memory of the victims. Tomorrow there will be an official ceremony at the site of the concentration camp, with the participation of President Moshe Katsav and delegations from some 40 countries, to mark the liberation of the camp by the Red Army.




The main message of the memorial session at the UN was delivered by Secretary General Kofi Annan: "The evil that destroyed 6 million Jews and others in those camps is one that still threatens all of us today. ... Every generation must be on its guard to make sure that such a thing never happens again."

Yet despite the importance of the ceremonies, it is much easier to give speeches condemning anti-Semitism and its horrors than to take action to eliminate the phenomenon. The mission now facing the world's leaders is actually to fight anti-Semitism and other crimes against humanity. The spirit that imbued the UN session must be translated into action, meaning effective legislation against anti-Semitism and enforcement of that legislation.

The secretary general mentioned the other nations who fell victim to the Nazis, "but the tragedy of the Jewish people was unique," he said, noting that "two-thirds of European Jewry was destroyed, an entire culture lost forever."

Indeed, there is nothing in the history of humankind comparable to the murder of European Jewry. The world has experienced cases of genocide, of horrific deeds in the tempest of battle and world wars in which tens of millions died. But the murder of European Jewry was not done in the heat of battle, nor was it a spontaneous act of violence. It was premeditated, thought-out, well-planned - and it was meant to wipe the memory of the children of Israel from the face of the planet.

The systematic murder was the climax of a process that began with Jew-hatred in earliest times. Afterward, in the Middle Ages, Jews suffered from anti-Semitism: persecution, pogroms, expulsions. The next stage came in the modern era, when one of the most developed countries in the world constructed a supposedly scientific theory about the purity of the Aryan race and the inferiority of the Jewish race.

Therefore, when the latest report on the state of anti-Semitism in the world shows there was a sharp increase in the number of anti-Semitic incidents in the world in 2004, the data should not be taken lightly. In Britain, for example, the number of incidents doubled. In Russia this week a particularly virulent anti-Semitic statement was signed by hundreds of intellectuals calling for the motherland to be protected from the Jews - or as they referred to them, "reincarnations of the devil."

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said at the UN assembly that "for the 6 million, the establishment of Israel came too late." He ended his speech with the Hebrew sentence, "In the name of Israel and the Jewish people, I stand before you and swear in the name of all the victims, never again."

We, who have won an independent state, must always remember that the 6 million who were murdered with unimaginable brutality played a part in the establishment of the state. Its very existence is a message to the world that despite the hatred, despite the anti-Semitism, despite the terrible machinery of murder - we are here.

>>>“How we are going to convince our people and factions that we are trying to end Israeli occupation while Israel is imposing facts on the ground,” Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said.<<<from above article>

Here we are again, back to provocation….Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is trying to get a cease fire and he gets rewarded by the Israelis by the building of the wall inside the West Bank. Of course Israel could build this Wall on the Green Line, that way the Palestinian People could look forward to their Viable Palestinian State called for in the Road Map to Peace. How can the Cease Fire Hold if the Freedom Fighters are rewarded by having more Palestinian land taken from them.

This is the Perfect time for the U.S. and U.N. to step in and say enough is enough......and show the world that they really are for freedom for all and equal justice.

Tit for Tat is getting us nowhere, as proof you can see there is still conflict after thirty six years. So you have to look at the problem as it stands today, and do the right thing so both people can live in peace and with freedom.
If only one side has freedom, the other side will always be seeking it, in anyway they can. That is why there have been wars as far back as we can remember.
Thirty-six years of war should be enough for such a small number of people, when you consider the World Population.
Allowing the Palestinian People to have their small state in the Whole of the West Bank and Gaza can solve this conflict.
There are 1,200,000 or so Arabs living inside Israel Proper.
There are 400,000 or so Jews living inside the West Bank and Gaza.
Trying to remove all the settlement can be an almost undoable task.
So Set the Borders for Israel to it Pre 1967 Border (Green Line) and have the State of Palestine inside the West Bank and Gaza.
If the U.N. can decide the Borders of Israel in 1948,
The U.N. can decide the Borders of Palestine in 2004.
You would end up with Israel with a majority Jewish Population and Palestine with a majority Muslim Population.
This would allow for the Israeli Military to Guard and Control the Israeli pre 1967 borders instead of confiscating Palestinian Land and Demolishing Palestinian Homes in the West Bank and Gaza that only goes to fuel the need for the Palestinian People to fight for their Freedom.
The Jews who do not like living in the new Palestinian State can feel free to move to Israel if they so choose.
The Arabs living inside Israel can feel free to move to the new Palestinian State if they so choose.
Almost every nation on earth has more then one ethnic group or religious group, so why not Israel and Palestine?
It would sure be better then the never-ending conflict we have right now.

Michael Jackson; that angel dude is starting to creep me out!

That doesn't give them the excuse to steal Palestine at the point of a gun. Two wrongs don't make a right.

First off, At the risk of repeating myself, conversions of Jews to Islam were far and few between. Nearly all Jews, even under duress and various forms of hardship, opted to remain Jewish, even if they couldn't escape certain death. So, there's no proof or conclusive evidence showing most Jews with direct uninterrupted lineage from Old Testament times have been Islamicized.

As for ethnic cleansing, we're always hearing complaints about the Zionist induced one, but never about the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the disputed territories in 1948 and before (Hebron). What can possibly justify this ethnic cleansing?

As for the current Palestinian population, surely you're aware that most of it has taken part in one way or another in the intifada. That's the problem here. While I'm not arguing they must be ethnically cleansed from Judea-Samaria, you can't credibly claim those people shoulder no blame for what they've done over the last 4 years and even beyond. We're talking recent history.

I'm puzzled as to why you've failed to reply to my question about the figure of 23 in your mathematical calculation above. Is your refusal a consequence of being unable to defend your use of that figure, presumably since it was picked arbitrarily and doesn't represent anything meaningful? My question is legitimate, you know.


P.S.:

1. Someone should tell ANGEL we're now already in 2005.

2. nessie is trolling like a kindergarten boy. His most recent simplistic bull isn't of better quality than his historical tripe from yesterday under his 'history bluff' persona.

C.T.
Thank you for the correction, I will need to be more careful.
Yes we are already into 2005!!!
You would think we would have Peace in Israel and Palestine by Now.

Dear Michael Jackson, Don't you think it would be nice if there was Peace for the Israelis and Palestinians?
Or are you somehow enjoying this conflict that is costing so many lives?

?: "My fear in the use of the use of the argument that the creation of Israel was just due to a 2000+ year old land claim is that the same argument applies better to the West Bank and it coudl be used against as an argument for a new wave of ethnic cleansing by the Israelis."

The moral justification for Israel's existence doesn't rest solely on "a 2000+ year old land claim." Again, you're oversimplifying. You also ignore the awkward fact that Israel made the case for its own existence in the court of world opinion in 1948, and was accepted, as demonstrated by its acceptance in to the United Nations. If it were really a state based solely on criminal "ethnic cleansing" -- an allegation I reject -- then why would the UN welcome it with open arms in 1948?

And your other historical analogy is so inappropriate on so many levels it doesn't merit discussing.

@%<