Thoughts people...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4161952.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/4164530.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/4159354.stm
Printable View
I feel sorry for those who were born and raised in the settlements (especially the young), it must be very traumatic to be forced from the area where you grew up.
That said, this should have happened decades ago!
Israel had no right to be in Gaza (as they have no right to be in the West Bank) let alone build settlements there.
Dave.
They're being paid up to $400,000 to move from one illegal settlement to another illegal settlement.
They should have taken the weapons from the settlers and told them the IDF is pulling out on a particular day, stay if you want but you'll be under Palestinian control. I'd imagine they would have left pretty quickly and quietly then.
erm, exactly how is it an illegal settlement?
What makes them legal?Quote:
Originally Posted by MasterBlaster
Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip violate international law.Quote:
Originally Posted by MasterBlaster
- Article 49, paragraph 6 of the Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly stipulates "the occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies".
- Article 46 of the Hague Convention prohibits the confiscation of private property in occupied territory. The confiscation of land by the Israeli government for settlement construction is in violation of this article.
- Article 55 of the Hague Convention stipulates that "the occupying state shall be regarded only as administrator and usufructuary of public buildings, real estate, forests, and agricultural estates belonging to the hostile State, and situated in the occupied country. It must safeguard the capital of these properties, and administer them in accordance with the rules of usufruct." This means that the occupying power does not become the owner of the territories and properties of the occupied country and does not use them for serving the interests of its civilians. This rule applies to all of the occupied territory's natural resources.
- The United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 calls for "just and lasting peace". The confiscated territories on which the settlements are built were confiscated illegally and in war.
There's also no good reason for them to live there, it's not as if Israel is full.
Here is another point of view:
Very briefly: The Ottoman Empire was the sovereign in the entire area. In 1917, while World War I was still
raging, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration. It designated “Paleatine” — extending throughout what is
now Israel (including the “West Band”) and what is now the Kingdom of Jordan — as the homeland for the
Jewish people. In 1922, the League of Nations ratified the Balfour Declaration and designated Britain as
the mandatory power. Britain, separated 76 percent of the land — that lying beyond the Jordan River — to
create the kingdom of Trans-Jordan (now Jordan) and made it inaccessible to Jews. In 1947, tired of the
constant bloodletting between Arabs and Jews, the British threw in the towel and abandoned the Mandate. The
UN took over. It devised a plan by which the land west of the Jordan River would be split between the Jews
and the Arabs. The Jews accepted the plan. The Arabs rejected it and invaded the nascent Jewish state with
the armies of five countries, so as to destroy it at its birth. The Jews, however, prevailed and the State
of Israel was born. When the smoke of battle cleared, Jordan was in possession of the West Bank and Egypt
in possession of Gaza. They were the “occupiers” and they proceeded to kill many Jews and to drive out the
rest. They systematically destroyed all Jewish holy places and all vestiges of Jewish presence. The area
was “judenrein.”
In the Six-Day War of 1967, the Jews reconquered the territories. The concept that Jewish presence in
Judea/Samaria is illegal and that the Jews are occupiers is bizarre. It just has been repeated so often and
with such vigor that many people have come to accept it.
How about the “Palestinians,” whose patrimony this territory supposedly is and about whose olive trees and
orange groves we hear endlessly? There is no such people. They are Arabs — the same people as in Lebanon,
Syria, Jordan, and beyond. Most of them migrated into the territories and to “Israel proper,” attracted by
Jewish prosperity and industry. The concept of “Palestinians” as applied to Arabs and as a distinct
nationality urgently in need of their own twenty-third Arab state, is a fairly new one; it was not invented
until after 1948, when the State of Israel was founded.
I think the question is, if CountryA is attacked by CountryB, but CountryA wins some of CountryB's land, should CountryA return the land that it won, despite the fact that CountryB was the first to provoke?
I think they are both as bad (and prejudiced) as each other and no matter what happens, conflict will soon follow. :(
Thats all you had to say to let us know why everything is such a mess now.Quote:
Originally Posted by moeur
X
exactly!Quote:
Originally Posted by grilkip
So it's like the Macarena being lame, it's subjective, but everybody with half a brain agrees with that.
Wow... there's a word I haven't seen in a long, long time...
Quote:
A la tuhuelpa legria macarena
Que tuhuelce paralla legria cosabuena
A la tuhuelpa legria macarena Eeeh, macarena
Shouldn't that be ":ehh: macarena"?
Aaaayeh!