Are some Israelis illegally taking land from the Arabs and restricting Arabs access to their own land?
“Illegally” according to whose law?
- (sits, back, makes some popcorn, and prepares to watch the train wreck ) *
Dude, in case you aren’t aware of it, the middle east is a very,very,very complicated place. 
The answer to your question is “yes”, “no”, and “maybe”.And there are plenty of scholary experts who can offer longwinded “proof” for any one of those answers.
(hmmm…I think I hear a train whistle getting louder already)
(with my appologies to the mods–we’re early in the thread, but I thought this was IMHO when I posted above . Please delete ))
I’m sure it will end up in Great Debates.
Moderator Action
This was my first thought as well. Answering this in GQ will be difficult as the answer often depends on whose laws and opinions you are basing it on.
Let’s give this a shot in GD. If it ends up being more of an opinion thread than a debate thread the mods there can move it to IMHO (or maybe the Pit, as sometimes this discussion gets a bit heated) depending on how the thread progresses.
Moving thread from General Questions to Great Debates.
It pretty pointless to even send it to Great Debates.
Both sides have made up their mind and neither one will ever change no matter how long the debate would last.
We can talk about this in a factual manner if we’re careful.
Probably the most well known example of something that might fall into this category is Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The United Nations and much of the international community holds such settlements illegal, while Israeli law generally considers the settlements to be in accordance with international (and national law).
There are a few settlements that the Israeli government also considers illegal. This usually happens when the government evacuates the settlement, but then the population attempts to return to the site, such as at Homesh and Amona
The only answer can be yes and there isn’t anything complicated about it from whatever angle you take. Whilst the Israeli government dispute their own part in the theft of land from Palestinians (it is very clear Israeli settlements breach international law), settlements have been built on privately-owned Palestinian land that are illegal under Israeli law, which was detailed in the Israeli-commissioned Sasson Report. The Israeli response (again covered by the Sasson report) is to usually turn a blind eye or to even retroactively legalize these settlements, though sometimes these settlements have been dismantled (usually under international pressure) because of their illegality under Israeli law.
“U.S. condemns Israeli expropriation of West Bank land”
-I guess since it was expropriated, technically it was not seized illegally unless one subscribes to the Geneva Convention.
I’m not religious, I don’t have a foot in either camp…
If you google, depending on the terms you will find no end of stories like this.
International law says a country can occupy another (and logically, the Israelis do it for defence purposes). It also says the occupier cannot “colonize” the occupied, i.e. move its own people in and displace the current owners. Hence, the recurring number of UN Resolutions condemning Israel, typically only blocked by a dwindling number of Big 5 vetoes.
The Israelis have a number of different laws, the typical result of which is that it is almost impossible for Arabs to buy and sell some land; and that they slowly are taking away the land that was “traditional” tribal land for wandering Bedouins.
Note that Palestinians who sell land of Arabs to Israelis face either official or unofficial sanctions which typically means death.
(When I was in Jerusalem a few years ago, I got a tour of the Kotel tunnels running alongside the Temple mount. The guide said the agency responsible wanted the tunnel exit to use the original Roman stairs, but the exit would have been in an Arab store in old Jerusalem; the owner refused to sell even for several million dollars, a store I understand to be about the size of a two-car garage)
Also, probably more to the original question, several more fanatical groups have established “illegal” settlements; basically plunked a few trailers or built houses where they were not allowed to on West Bank land that theoretically is owned by Palestinians. The army is often reluctant to move them, and things get tied up in court for years. (Whereas when Palestinians are in the way, delays are rare).
There is a faction of fundamentalist Jews who believe that since God promised them this land, they should do whatever they can to make it impossible for a future Israeli government to hand it back to Palestine. The current right-wing government follows this process, and new, modern Israeli settlements are slowly ringing the old city of Jerusalem and choking out the current Arab population.
And this differs from most other GD threads how?
Map of West Bank settlements and closures in January 2006: Yellow = Palestinian urban centers. Light pink = closed military areas or settlement boundary areas or areas isolated by the Israeli West Bank barrier; dark pink = settlements, outposts or military bases. The black line = route of the Barrier.
You will see that it is impossible to go from Hebron to Nablus without passing through an Israeli checkpoint.
I believe the answer is unequivocally yes, the Israelis are illegally taking land and unfairly restricting access. If anyone disagrees or is not sure one book you can read is Fast Times in Palestine.
Why would Israelis do this? It’s almost as if they don’t trust the Palestinians to be good neighbors. Weird, huh?
That makes it OK does it?
Yes, when you face suicide bombers trying to blow up the bus with your children, it IS okay to set up checkpoints on the borders with your enemy.
[And now, back to our previously scheduled train wreck…before I run out of popcorn… :)]
I thought we were discussing Israeli’s “illegally taking land and unfairly restricting access”.
And that’s the whole problem when discussing the Israeli\Palestinian issue.
Good, well-meaning people like you want to talk about “unfairness” and legal technicalities, while Israelis are worried about not being massacred by sucide bombers and missiles.
War is unfair.
Just, so. It’s war.
No matter that the people being stolen from are civilians, because some people who are of the same religious/ethnic group as those civilians are waging war against the homeland. So it’s OK to take the property of civilians of the same ethnic group and dictate that they all live together and carry identity papers if they want to travel outside.
Sounds eerily familiar, but I can’t think from where. :rolleyes:
Aww, they’re just “civilians”
No—they proudly (and rightfully) deny any connection with the democratic country of Israel.
They are residents, and citizens of a foreign entity (the Palestinian Authority). And citizens of countries which are at war are always under certain limitations when they travel. Berlin had a big wall, you remember?
Israelis are not allowed into Palestinian areas, either.
The situation is difficult…but try to understand that the terrorism doesnt originate in Israel.