onegoodmove

----So there you go Israel, tear down those walls. It will make it easier to leave the territory you've been illegally occupying for years.----

What?

Okay, at the risk of initiating another firestorm... I thought the Hamas announcement was good news and I would personally take them up on the offer. Period.

But I'm curious what has made Israel's occupation "illegal for years"? I agree for the sake of peace for all involved, Israel should vacate the 1967 territories, but what's illegal about it? Was there not a war by the Arabs to wipe out Israel and did Israel not win that war decisively and conquer the land occupied by the Kingdom of Jordan for 19 years prior?

I hope this doesn't wake up the loons. I just would like a clear (concise!) answer to the illegality of keeping territory you gain in a war against you. I haven't noticed anyone asking Poland to give back the territory it kept from Germany, for example.

Thanks.

(If you prefer to delete this point and email me directly, feel free.)

I haven't noticed anyone asking Poland to give back the territory it kept from Germany, for example.

Poland won a war?

Here is an article about what makes it illegal

http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/2411.htm

Wikipedia represents both sides. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_law_and_the_Arab-Israeli_conflict

Actually Norm, it's not quite that simple - Hamas has said that it will accept a Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders, not they haven't yet gone so far as to say that they would accept the state of Israel. They'd have to alter their constitution to do that, as the PLO did in 1988. Hopefully they will, but until then Israel will refuse to negotiate.

RedSeven, the wikipedia article was excellent. thanks.

On Poland, I was referring to the movement of Poland's borders after WWII to include territory in the west that was formerly Germany's. (I don't think Poland has won many wars :) but I'm not sure why other countries seem to be able to hold on to land and people within that land that was not priorly part of their state (the US and Indian land or Mexican land might be another example) but the rules apply differently to the Israel situation.

terry levine,

Check out Poland 1031-1945 for territory shifts in the Polish domain.

Here's Wikipedia on Poland; scroll down to WWII and the Tehran Conference of 1943.

The link the Red provided is pretty good at talking about the Arab-Israeli dispute, which is different than the disputes over Polish territories over the years. If you link to the 1948 war you'll get even more for your time.

link for 1948 doesn't work but you can get there from Wiki.

(This is going to be my last statement on this post, because I don't want this to go where similar posts have gone before. After this you can talk amonst yourselves. :)

I think my point, gypsy, is there seems to always be a reason why other occupations or land grabs or ethnic laws of return are acceptable to the same people who find Israel's wholly unacceptable.

Again, I think Israel should get out of the land they won in 1967. But you can't ask one country to follow the rules then gloss over all the other countries who have done equivalent things in the past. (Actually, apparently you can.)

I just wonder where the fight for Tibet or Kurdish or Native American independence would be right now if the same indignant people who decry the plight of the Arabs in West Bank and Gaza spread their outrage a little. I think the difference is, in all those other cases, those movements have been thrown under the bus of international law because the perpetrators can't be bulled as easily as Israel. No one's seriously going to ask China or the US to cede territory back to anyone, are they?

I just wonder where the fight for Tibet or Kurdish or Native American independence would be right now if the same indignant people who decry the plight of the Arabs in West Bank and Gaza spread their outrage a little.

You just don't pay attention. There has been plenty of talk of Tibet recently for example. It's true that Israel gets more than its fair share of criticism, but that isn't the question. Raising it simply distracts attention from a legitimate concern. The question should be is the criticism justified. The failure to criticize others doesn't make Israel's occupation right. Didn't your mother ever tell you two wrongs don't make a right.

No, Norm, I do pay attention. That's the problem. You're correct, there has been plenty of talk on Tibet "recently." (Wow, 3 days of coverage on CNN!) Compare the attention Israel's occupation gets any given year, or for the last 60 years to China's equally long, arguably bloodier occupation. There is no comparison. To suggest otherwise is you not paying attention. One difference in the morally of the two examples is perhaps that Israel acquired the 1967 territories as a direct result of Arab threats of aggression and buildup of their armies, whereas Tibet wasn't planning on invading or obliterating China, as far as I know.

Yes, my mother told me two wrongs don't make a right, which is why I repeatedly say that Israel should withdraw from the territories in spite of continued calls for its destruction. But she also told me to stand up for myself and not be taken advantage of.

The question is not whether the criticism is justified. It is entirely justified, as I've said ad nauseum. However that criticism never reaches a tenth of the level it does for any other, often more blatantly egregious examples.

My point is Israel is an easy target, so it bares the brunt of these attacks. Just as Iraq, rather than Saudi Arabia unjustly bore the brunt of US anger and military might after 9/11. It wasnt that the US was "distracted" from the true culprits. It's that they didn't want to deal with the real culprit. Better to attack the easier target.

Sometimes, perhaps most of the time, politics and agendas drive which issues get to the front burner. Ignoring that simply distracts attention from the concerns of others who are way more legitimate.

Anyway, over and out. I'm not going to convince you. I just wanted to say my piece -- it's been a while.

However that criticism never reaches a tenth of the level it does for any other, often more blatantly egregious examples.

Terry, you make some valid points, but I think you are missing a few key facts.

First, Americans should care more about Israeli-Palestinian relations because we give large amounts of military funding to Israel. Those are our bullets and Helicopters so we are responsible for how they are or are not used.

Furthermore Israel is a western nation and generally not condemned for human rights violations by the UN or other American dominated organizations. This isn't me saying they should be, but only that we also have a say in how those organizations respond to Israeli actions.

Also, Palestinians have elections. Tibet on the other hand was a theocracy before China was formed and Tibet was claimed as part of it.(there was no nation of china before the revolution, only loosely affiliated kingdoms). The revolution saw any Monarchy or theocracy in their general vicinity as their manifest destiny, to liberate.

I have mixed feeling about Tibet. What exactly does a free tibet look like? When China took tibet it liberated its people from a religious oppression and replaces it with a totalitarian oppression. That isn't progress. Nor do I think returning to a theocracy where individuals are denied nutrician and medical care because they lack the standing in the eyes of their religious leaders to be worthy.

Some of China's acts of violence in Tibet are the result of some CIA backed attempts at starting counter-revolutions, not that that really makes it any better to be a Tibetan.

"I have mixed feeling about Tibet. "

Tibet Bon-buddhism, whatever, with its history of slavery and, well, cannibalism, its dark nigh Transylvanian past (associations? rumors? maybe (not)), is indeed at odds with the Shangri L.A. L.A. -land image and the current Nelson Mandela-like Dolly Lama (love those swastikas)fad/fairy tale. I will be the first to admit the power of meditation in overcoming, alcoho-..., as a panacea, actually, but Red 7 is right on, about the danger(s) of ...religion(s) I mean. All of 'em. Scientology and other movie star fads too. Also Astrology. At its best the "harmless" parasite can rise to the status of cost-effective self-help, inner insight, but once ya' climb up, throw away the ladder. Let 'em find their own way, bodhi satvas.

I'm gonna try Greek God worship,..oh oh, today's paper says it's bad for one's (physical) heart.

Oh well...