Okay, so a ruling came down from this world body claiming the barrier being set up is in contravention of international law. What statute I ask?
Read dramatic decline in loss of life.
Really? So fucking what! Lives are more important than convenience!
So you’d have no objections if someone decided arbitrarily that you couldn’t be proved not to be a terrorist and decided to build a wall around you? :rolleyes:
You’re implication suggests complete encapsulation Avenger, which just isn’t the case for the Palestinians whose territory borders both Egypt and Jordon as well.
I thought when the idea of a wall first came up there wasn’t much opposition from the palestinians, the US and the UN, it was only when the wall started cutting into palestinian lands that opposition grew. Had it just seperated the west bank and gaza from israel it would not be as controversial.
Basically you can have safety w/o cutting into palestinian land, its the annexation and excessive inconvenience the palestinians must put up with that is the problem, not the wall itself.
Good answer. So I take it that you agree with the court that Israel, which is taking farmland away from Palestinians by the arbitrary path they have used to erect that wall, threatening those Palestinians with starvation, is in the wrong?
I’m not sure that I agree with a complete ban on the barrier, but the wall, as it exists, has been used to steal farmland, prevent (not “inconvenience”) people from getting to their places of employment, and deny Palestinians medical care and access to food.
Israel would have garnered rather more sympathy if so much of the wall had simply separated Israelis from Palestinians rather than being a blatant land grab that destroyed Palestinian livelihood.
How ironic that a country created under a UN mandate now says that the UN has no word over what happens there. :rolleyes:
Lets be absolutely forthright here tom. As per your cite,
Do I need to remind you that the ruling occured prior to the International court ruling? Like June 30th? Is their a court, international or domestic that oversees Palistinian violence?
The Israeli court was ruling on a specific section of the barrier, rather than on the whole thing. Your claim of “inconvenience” is still invalid.
As to the red herring of your final sentence, I would point out that Israel prevented the Palestinians from having any say in any government (or the courts it would support) for over 30 years. I have already noted that I do not oppse the concept of the barrier. Its execution, however, has been a continuation of Israeli suppression of Palestinian human rights.
Is their anything to prevent challenges on other sections of the barrier before the Israeli court? Israel is a democratic state that respects the rule of law.
I guess I should say that I’m somewhat more than just inconvenienced because I as a Canadian do not have legal access to the American labour market or economic means to access your superior medical care and educational facilities in the USA.
Big deal.Most Palistinians are free now to develop their own destiny within the confines of their territory, unmolested by the Israeli government unless of course they insist on murdering Jews or act contrarily to Arafat.
Bullshit! Any curtailment of human rights in the Palistinian territory can be laid directly at the feet of Arafat.
And some Palestinians are completely encapsulated. Those living between the green line and the wall (since, as mentionned, the wall encroach on the West Bank). It has been mentionned in a thread currently appearing in GD.
I would personnally have had no issue with the wall if :
-It had been built along the green line. Essentially everywhere, except, if I remember correctly, on a 15 kilometers long part it extend into the occupied territories, sometimes deeply so. That’s the most serious issue, IMO.
-It had not been build systematically on Palestinian-owned land
-It had not been build withtout the slighiest concern for the consequences on the Palestianian (separating the villages from the land people cultivated, for instance)
And systematically the closest possible to Palestinian houses, villages, etc…(leaving more land on the Israeli side and of course aggravating the above mentionned consequences on people living there).
-It had not left people caught between the wall (the crossing of it being extremely restricted) and the green line (that they’re not anymore allowed to cross) cutting them from both Israel and the West Bank, hence severely restricting their ability to say, find a job or having access to medical care.
The concept might have been defensible, but the way it is actually implemented is completely outrageous.
They aren’t. The building of the wall does not result in any way in giving the Palestinians the freedom to develop their own destiny. It doesn’t change a thing for them. The West bank is still occupied, the settlements are still there, etc…It doesn’t grant any kind of freedom to them.
If you thought otherwise, you were seriously misleaded.
I hadn’t realized you were now freelancing as a propagandist for the Likud party. The notion that Arafat is 100% responsible for the current problems and that Sharon does not bear an enormous share of the responsibility is simply absurd.
Arafat is building Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory?
Arafat is building a barrier that takes Palestinian land and permanently separates Palestinian farmers from their own fields?
Arafat is imprisoning Palestinian moderates in Israeli jails?
I doubt it.
Would everyone just relax? We’ll have all of those Palestinians wrapped up into a ghetto in no time. After all, having your land stolen, your livelihood destroyed, your house bulldozed, being arbitrarily shot etc. isn’t a violation of your civil rights.
The further and further that Sharon et al progress in extreme reactions to Palestinians, the more and more apt the comparison between modern Israel and Nazi Germany becomes.
It does, indirectly. If the wall decreases terrorist attacks within Israel and makes the Israeli public feel more secure, then Israel will be more likely to negotiate with the Palestinians and withdraw further from the West Bank and Gaza. So, the wall will, or at least it may, contribute to Palestinian freedom.
I suppose we could drop all the talk about an independent Palestinian state and just go directly to The Great Palestinian Reservation.
On a perhaps related topic, looking at the map of the proposed barrier it seems to me that in at least one place the wall makes a strange shaped divergence to the east that looks like it puts a watershed to the east of the Green Line behind the wall. At first glance, if true, it would seem to be more directed toward securing a water source for Israel than to any considerations of Israeli security.
I have posted before that both sides in this fiasco and never-ending blood bath are likely irrational. I see no reason to chance that view now. We have all seen more civilized behavior out of four year olds in a sand box than we are seeing out of these people. Both the Israelis and the Palestinians have legitimate aspirations that can both be accommodated. Both sides, however, are poisoned by generations of hatred and fear. There will be no accommodation.
I tend to agree with you, but I pray that you’re wrong.
Trickle down civil rights! 
That might be a hope for the future, but it was completely misleading to state that “they are NOW free to…etc…”
Just so you know, the Israelis are planning on redrawing the whole barrier, or at least the section not yet built.