Why... I think that doggone anti-Semite Jimmy Carter has a point.

[DSeid]

dropzone comments that we:

… must force-fit what vocabulary we have.

while John notes that

in an honest debate it behooves us to be as accurate as possible in the terms we choose

Maybe sometimes honesty requires using more than a single word rather than trying chop off toes to make a concept fit the shoe of the word that is so readily available. The use of the loaded, inaccuracte and dishonest word “apartheid” polarizes honest debate. Just as badly as labelling someone who calls Israel apartheid an antisemite does.

RTF I am sure you already are aware of the tradition of refering to ships and countries as female rather than as its. Deal with it.

bluethree, I’ll answer for John (I hope that such does not offend). 20% of Israeli citizens are Arab Israelis who ethnically self-identify as Palestinian. Israel can rightly be accused of not having some minority rights in practice issues visavis this population but not in law and not to any level worse than say America has with Black American civil rights. Certainly there are a few extreme right-wingers who would love to see Israel proper become apartheid and fear the birth rate of Israel’s Arab population and what that may mean eventually to Israel’s identity. But they are far outnumbered and powered by the secular nature of the State. Israel’s Arab citizens have full rights. The only difference is, as previously noted, that they are not required to serve in the army (except for the Druze who have requested no exemption be made.)

Arabs of the OT are not citizens and have no rights of citizenship. They are denizens of an occupied land and as such restrictions on them as required for the occupier’s security needs are legit. Those actions should also be balanced against the obligations that an occupier has to provide for the well being of the occupied. Israel has IMHO done poorly in that balance and failed in full consideration of the needs of the occupied. Settlements provided no security benefit, were in fact a security detriment, and interfered with proper stewardship for the needs of the occupied. They were a mistake.

[John_Mace]

[QUOTE=bluethree]
John Mace, you’ve confused me. Will you please explain how you can reconcile these two statements you made:

Thank you
[/QUOTE]

In the first statement I was referring to Arabs (Palesitinians, if you wish) who do not live in Israel, and in the second I was talking about those who do. If Isreal did deport it’s Arab citizens to the OT*, then I would be more open to the use of the term “apartheid”.

*When I first saw OT used in the post above, I read it as “Old Testament”, not “Occupied Territories”.

[Malthus]

[QUOTE=DSeid]
dropzone comments that we:while John notes that
Maybe sometimes honesty requires using more than a single word rather than trying chop off toes to make a concept fit the shoe of the word that is so readily available. The use of the loaded, inaccuracte and dishonest word “apartheid” polarizes honest debate. Just as badly as labelling someone who calls Israel apartheid an antisemite does.

.
[/QUOTE]

Heh, I guess we can look forward to a new book on the whole subject: “Carter: Antisemitism, not Aparthied”.

I haven’t actually seen anyone actually call Carter an anti-semite so far in this debate, at least here. I think most people simply assume from the title of his book that he has quite a bias (unless of course they share that bias). With such a title, only the converted are likely to actually read the thing - though I admit I’m very curious, and will give it a look-see when it comes to the library.

Needless to say, I agree with your analysis.

[FRDE]

Purely for Tagos

[QUOTE=tagos]
I don’t have to have gone there. I can read and an ex girlfirend
was from there and her family is still there suffering under the system.
[/QUOTE]

You are very trusting, you ought to get out and eyeball things.
What one reads is often cr/p, ever had lunch in a restaurant with a bunch of Israeli Arabs ? Nice guys. Ever been around during the first Intifada in 1991 ? Well it was interesting, you had to slip quietly into apparently locked tourist shops, but I was sharp eyed enough to spot my Jewish Israeli guide get his slice from the Arab shopkeeper - I bought a Star of David necklace/pendant for a UK-Jewish lass that I was infatuated with at the time.

‘Occupied’ Bethlehem was even more comical.

[QUOTE=tagos]
My post contained only facts that should be common knowledge for anyone who feels able to take part in a GD debate. No one, not even the Israeli’s call the West Bank and Gaza a palestinian state. Anyone arguing the point that there is a palestinian state is simply disqualifying themselves from being taken seriously.
[/QUOTE]

You are excluded from having ‘common knowledge’, you have not been out there and you do not know what is really going on. You have one Palestinian ex-girlfriend who probably never set foot in Jaffa. I however have been observing things with interest since 1991 - I’ve seen things ebb and flow, I have been through one heck of a lot of security checks in Israel - and know the form.

Before things got seriously nasty I wandered around the West Bank, people got on pretty well - they had a common objective - fleecing tourists.

The West Bank and Gaza are a state, they are also a failed state

[QUOTE=tagos]
Such a state is the goal of the peace process.

This isn’t arcane knowledge.
[/QUOTE]

Blair and Bush together would add up to an IQ of about 110

Mostly the ‘Palestinians’ would be a lot better off if they ignored those half wits.

‘Palestine’ is a bit similar to Northern Ireland prior to 9/11

As a little test, name the President of ‘Palestine’, then name the Prime Minister and explain in 500 words why they hate each others guts.

Don’t believe what you read, don’t believe what you see on the TV

Also don’t take this personally - I just get a bit narked occasionally.

[Sevastopol]

[QUOTE=DSeid]
Arabs of the OT are not citizens and have no rights of citizenship. They are denizens of an occupied land and as such restrictions on them as required for the occupier’s security needs are legit. Those actions should also be balanced against the obligations that an occupier has to provide for the well being of the occupied. Israel has IMHO done poorly in that balance and failed in full consideration of the needs of the occupied. Settlements provided no security benefit, were in fact a security detriment, and interfered with proper stewardship for the needs of the occupied. They were a mistake.
[/QUOTE]
‘Occupier’ and ‘citizens’ are just fig leaf words, used to evade the fact that the Israelis intend to ‘occupy’ the West Bank forever, but to exclude most of the people who live there from political participation.

Settlements are not apartheidt but worse, ethnic cleansing of desirable territories.

[FRDE]

[QUOTE=Sevastopol]
‘Occupier’ and ‘citizens’ are just fig leaf words, used to evade the fact that the Israelis intend to ‘occupy’ the West Bank forever, but to exclude most of the people who live there from political participation.

Settlements are not apartheidt but worse, ethnic cleansing of desirable territories.
[/QUOTE]

My bolding.

Charitably I assume, Sevastopol, that you were intoxicated when you wrote that.

[Chance_the_Gardener]

[QUOTE=Askia]
…and I’m going to try not to start hair-splitting precisely what “anti-Semitic” means, so let’s concede that Carter has problem with current Israeli heads of state, call that criticism “anti-Semitic” and let it go at that…
[/QUOTE]

Never in life will I concede that such criticism could be called “anti-Semitic.” Anti-Semitism is real, and calling something “anti-Semitism” when it really isn’t anti-Semitism diminishes the severity of genuine anti-Semitism.

[QUOTE=Askia]
… why isn’t it fair to call the Israeli policy towards Palestine analogous to apartheid in South afrIca?
[/quote]

I don’t think it’s unfair at all. Carter called it right: marginalizing a population and putting them on strictly-defined reservations of sorts is what South Africa did, and is what the current Israeli government is doing. And current Israeli apartheid is just as wrong as South Africa-style apartheid.

[RTFirefly]

[QUOTE=DSeid]
RTF I am sure you already are aware of the tradition of refering to ships and countries as female rather than as its. Deal with it.
[/quote]
Oh, I am. I’m dealing with it by noting that in the case of nations, it’s an archaic usage that one almost never sees anymore (for most countries, it’s incongruous to think of them as ‘she’), and that one has to wonder if there’s a subtext for using it in this context - e.g. trying to paint Israel as a damsel in distress, in need of rescue.

This would be a most odd impression to attempt to give of Israel, but I couldn’t help but notice you used the formulation of Israel as female in the context of Israel being attacked.

If my noticing these things and wondering about your motivations bothers you, deal with it.

[Apos]

[QUOTE=John Mace]
Ah, I forgot, this is Apos, kind of the ad hominem arguments.
[/quote]

You don’t seem to understand what ad hominem is. Ad hominem is using an attack on a person in lieu of attacking their arguments. Being snarky in the course of doing that isn’t ad hominem. Ironically, however, dismissing my response because you don’t like how I characterized how you argue IS a form of ad hominem.

So, list the similarities and differences and make your fucking case.

Apartheid is a system of systematic segregation within a territory or legal entity. as I already explained, that’s what’s going on in the areas in question: Israeli-only roads, Palestinian-only security rules and checkpoints and laws, and so forth.

[BrainGlutton]

[QUOTE=you with the face]
If the only thing preventing the situation in the territorities from meeting the criteria for apartheid is the fact that the territories are not officially a part of the Israel state . . .
[/QUOTE]

Then again, the bantustans were not officially part of the South African state (though no country other than SA recognized their independence).

[BrainGlutton]

[QUOTE=Ravenman]
In short, the whole article is a piece of crap with no merit. Seriously, you should know better than to get your history from a radio talk show host.
[/QUOTE]

For that better, Starving, you should know better than to get your history or anything else from a source with David Horowitz’ name on the masthead. Dude’s a crank.

[BrainGlutton]

[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
Who’s this ‘she’ you refer to? Golda Meir’s been dead awhile now.
[/QUOTE]

It’s a traditional (but fading) usage to refer to a country as “she” rather than “it.”

[Sevastopol]

[QUOTE=FRDE]
My bolding.

Charitably I assume, Sevastopol, that you were intoxicated when you wrote that.
[/QUOTE]
High on life honeypie. Correct me if I wrong here, but do not settlements involve displacing the indigenous population to make way for a preferred group? Aren’t the locals driven out first?

[DSeid]

Sev Nope, no locals driven out, to the best of my knowledge anyway. Happy to see a cite that educates me otherwise. Settlements were built where there were not Arabs currently living. Lots of unused space there. The only area that one could argue about is in Hebron, which is an interesting case. Hebron historically had a large Jewish population until they were mostly murdered by Arabs in 1929 and the survivors then forcibly removed by the Brits. Later Jewish buildings and cemeteries were destroyed. That I would call ethnic cleansing. Now there is a settler community outside of Hebron and a small section of Hebron itself that is under Israeli control and from which Arabs have left in the main, apparently because of harrassment by IDF and settlers. A “there goes the neighborhood” kind of thing. Hard to call that “ethnic cleansing.” Stupid, yes. An impediment to security and to peace, yes.

Again, settlements have been the wrong thing to do because it has not been Israeli land to use other than as needed for security purposes and to provide for the needs of the occupied. Settlements served neither of those goals. They were a bone to throw to subgroups in the Israeli political universe that grew into a T-Rex. Would there be more than enough space for both groups to coexist and have plenty extra? Yes. The problem isn’t space or physical resources even, it is percieved wrongs and percieved threats.

Apos you continue to define apartheid as it pleases you but in a way that devoids the term of any significant meaning. Again, the territory of North America has systemic segregation of populations (Mexican citizens on one side, Canadians on another); is it apartheid? The legal entity of the EU similarly segregates, is it apartheid? Or to approach it another way, please provide me a list of examples of occupied areas in which the occupied have not been subject to restrictions and are give full rights of citizenship in the occupier country without annexation.

As to my use of the feminine form in referring to countries. No, I do not imply that Israel is “a damsal in distress.” Israel is far from helpless or weak or in “need of rescue.” (And I find your association of female with weakness to be quite archiac and chauvinistic really.) If I wanted to anthropomorphize Israel I’d prefer an image of the former 98 pound weakling who had sand kicked in his face, back on the beach after having become a gym rat and ready to respond if someone wants mess with him now. Or the woman who everyone thinks is weak but who will kick your ass if called for. But who keeps getting harrassed anyway just because of her gender. And is really tired of having to kick your ass. Nah, I just like the old-fashoined sound of it. I particularly tend to use that form when discussing a country’s motivations or goals, since an “it” really doesn’t have goals or motivations (to me). Next just ask though. Your sarcasm doesn’t work. Deal with that.

BG no country believes that the OTs are part of Israel and that the Arabs there are Issraeli citizens. Most recognize that someday a true Palestinian state must be set up within that area and any pragmatist understands that such a state will not exactly follow the arbitrary Green Line but will instead include a package of land and resources and investments such that a nascant Palastine could prosper. Pragmatists understand that such an outcome is in informed self-interest for both groups’ long-term futures. The problems are in how to get there, in how to get past what are short-term vested interests of various subgroups. The Israelis have suceeded in marginalizing the subgroups that have a vested interest in promoting either “a Greater Israel” or conflict without end. For now. Even in face of attacks from Gaza and the continuation of threats by Hamas and Hezbelloh, Israel is committed to substantial withdrawl in return for security. But she (yes “she”, “it” just doesn’t sound right to me) must get security in return. The Palestinians have not yet been able to marginalize the equivilant vested interests on their side. To be fair, Israel’s actions often do not help those forces of potential moderation reach ascendency.

The Arabs don’t have a lock on stupidity, plenty to go around it seems.

[FRDE]

[QUOTE=Sevastopol]
High on life honeypie. Correct me if I wrong here, but do not settlements involve displacing the indigenous population to make way for a preferred group? Aren’t the locals driven out first?
[/QUOTE]

Well as DSeid pointed out, the settlements did not involve much displacement, although I have heard of cases where locals were seriously inconvenienced.

I too, hold the view that the settlements were a stupid idea, and that they will disappear.

Personally I consider the use of words like ‘apartheid’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ completely inaccurate and inappropriate - they don’t describe the past or present situation.

I would agree that to some extent, the West Bank is ‘occupied territory’ but that is what happens to people who lose wars.

[DSeid]

I notice that I did not address the paragraph on my use of the female form to RTF and in so doing made it seem like it was to Apos. Sorry for that.

[BrainGlutton]

WRT the settlements, my WAG is the settlers hoped to achieve a Jewish West Bank, not by ethnic cleansing, but by what might be better labeled ethnic swamping. (You know, like what the Chinese have been trying to do in Tibet and Xinjiang.) If the settlements were successful more and more would be planted . . . until finally most of the Arabs would get so discouraged/disgusted they would pack up and move to Jordan or Egypt or someplace.

As a root cause of human suffering, optimism runs a close second to malice.

But you knew that.

[tagos]

[QUOTE=DSeid]
Sev Nope, no locals driven out, to the best of my knowledge anyway. Happy to see a cite that educates me otherwise.
[/QUOTE]

Depends what you mean by driven out. Not in the ethnic cleansing sense but in the ‘robbing people with a fountain pen sense’ settlements are based on stolen land. Land stolen using seperate systems of planning law. My ex-gf’s family had personal experience of finding land they owned ‘legally’ stolen from them. Fortunately they were relatively wealthy and could afford to fight it for years until their legal claim was recognised. Empty land does not mean un-owned land.
Settlements built on seized land

Almost 40 per cent of land used by Israel for its settlements in the occupied West Bank is the private property of Palestinians, the Israeli organisation Peace Now said yesterday on the basis of leaked official maps and other data.

For example, Peace Now say the leaked data for the largest settlement built on territory occupied in the 1967 Six Day War, Ma’ale Adumim, to the east of Jerusalem, indicates the amount of privately owned Palestinian land accounts for 86.4 per cent.

The administration is resisting a case brought by Peace Now to release information under the Israeli Freedom of Information Act, arguing that “security considerations and foreign relations aspects” are involved.

The private land was either registered by Palestinians under British rule before 1948, or Jordanian rule before 1968, or recognized under Ottoman law, which has never been revoked.

Anyway - whatever the legalities they are beyond Israel’s legitimate border and have no right to exist except as part of a palestinian state under palestinian authority. If I built a housing estate for Brits in NY it doesn’t become british territory no matter who owns or owned the land.

Settlements illegal under 4th Geneva Convention

12. The participating High Contracting Parties call upon the Occupying Power to fully and effectively respect the Fourth Geneva Convention in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and to refrain from perpetrating any violation of the Convention. They reaffirm the illegality of the settlements in the said territories and of the extension thereof. They recall the need to safeguard and guarantee the rights and access of all inhabitants to the Holy Places.

Alleged mechanisms used to land grab laid out in the following long article (hence long extracts).

How land grabbing is done

Israel has used a complex legal and bureaucratic mechanism to take control of more than fifty percent of the land in the West Bank. This land was used mainly to establish settlements and create reserves of land for the future expansion of the settlements.

The principal tool used to take control of land is to declare it "state land.” This process began in 1979, and is based on a manipulative implementation of the Ottoman Lands Law of 1858, which applied in the area at the time of occupation. Other methods employed by Israel to take control of land include seizure for military needs, declaration of land as "abandoned assets,” and the expropriation of land for public needs. Each of these are based on a different legal foundation. In addition, Israel has assisted private citizens purchasing land on the "free market.”

The process employed in taking control of land breaches the basic principles of due procedure and natural justice. In many cases, Palestinian residents were unaware that their land was registered in the name of the state, and by the time they discovered this fact, it was too late to appeal. The burden of proof always rests with the Palestinian claiming ownership of the land. Even if he meets this burden, the land may still be registered in the name of the state on the grounds that it was transferred to the settlement "in good faith.”

The planning system on the West Bank, implemented by the Civil Administration, is one of the most powerful mechanisms of the Israeli occupation. As with the other bureaucratic systems, the planning system operates on two distinct tracks: one for Jews and the other for Palestinians.

This system is responsible for transforming the map of the West Bank because it is the planning system that approves the outline plans for the settlements and issues building permits for the establishment and expansion of settlements and for the construction of by-pass roads. Israel changed the composition of the planning institutions on the West Bank and transferred numerous planning powers to the Jewish local authorities, while expropriating these powers from Palestinian planning institutions.

While facilitating Jewish settlement, the planning system works vigorously to restrict the development of Palestinian communities. The main tool used to this end is to reject requests for building permits filed by Palestinians. In most cases, the requests are rejected on the grounds that the regional outline plans - approved in the 1940s during the British Mandate - prohibit construction in the relevant area of land. These plans do not reflect the development needs of the Palestinian population, and the planning system deliberately refrains from preparing revised plans. Houses built by Palestinians without building permits are demolished by the Civil Administration, even in cases when the construction took place on private land.

After the signing of the interim accord in 1995, planning powers in areas A and B - which account for approximately forty percent of the area of the West Bank - were transferred to the Palestinian Authority. While the vast majority of the Palestinian population lives in these areas, the vacant land available for construction in dozens of villages and towns across the West Bank is situated on the margins of the communities and defined as area C. The Israeli planning authorities continue to control planning and construction in these areas.

Israel has created in the Occupied Territories a regime of separation based on discrimination, applying two separate systems of law in the same area and basing the rights of individuals on their nationality. This regime is the only one of its kind in the world, and is reminiscent of distasteful regimes from the past, such as the Apartheid regime in South Africa.

Under this regime, Israel has stolen hundreds of thousands of dunam of land from the Palestinians. Israel has used this land to establish dozens of settlements in the West Bank and to populate them with hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens. Israel prohibits the Palestinians as a group from entering and using these lands, and uses the settlements to justify numerous violations of the Palestinians’ human rights, such as the right to housing, to earn a livelihood, and the right to freedom of movement. The drastic change that Israel has made in the map of the West Bank prevents any real possibility for the establishment of an independent, viable Palestinian state as part of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

The settlers, on the contrary, benefit from all the rights available to Israeli citizens living within the Green Line, and in some cases are even granted additional rights. The great effort that Israel has invested in the settlement enterprise - in financial, legal and bureaucratic terms – has turned the settlements into civilian enclaves in an area under military rule, with the settlers being given priority status. To perpetuate this situation, which is a priori illegal, Israel has continuously breached the rights of the Palestinians.

Looks like theft and apartheid to me. I find any claim that unowned land was just hanging around waiting to be built on incredibly unlikely.

[tagos]

Isreal uses barrier & 55 year old law to steal more land

Immediately after occupying east Jerusalem in 1967, Israel redrew the city’s boundaries to run deep into the West Bank. Swaths of land that had fallen within the municipality of Arab towns such as Bethlehem - including Mr Atik’s - were suddenly defined as part of “greater Jerusalem” and therefore within the borders of the Jewish state. But the landowners were classified as residents of the occupied territories and therefore outside the country.

However, successive Israeli governments decided not to apply the absentee property law to Jerusalem because many Arabs who owned land within the area claimed by Israel lived only a short distance away in other parts of the West Bank.

But over the past two years, the invisible city boundary that Mr Atik walked across to reach his land each day was transformed into a border marked out in concrete and steel.

In July, Mr Sharon’s government decided to reverse the absentee law policy on east Jerusalem, but the cabinet’s decision has only now become public after the army told lawyers for some affected Palestinians. The army had promised Mr Atik a permit to cross through a military checkpoint to get to his olive trees, but his lawyer, Mr Seidemann, spent a year trying to get the pass out of the military.

“Eventually, I was told that the reason Johnny Atik couldn’t go to his land was that it was no longer his, it belonged to the government,” he said.

The West Bank town of Beit Jala, near the Jewish settlement of Gilo, asked the Israeli government to route the barrier so that residents could still reach their land without passing through a checkpoint. The authorities refused and the army now says that everything on the Jerusalem side of the barrier - about 1,000 acres, which provide an income for 200 families - has been seized.

Some of the land is already being levelled in preparation for construction linked to a nearby Jewish settlement.

The village of Walaja, which straddles the greater Jerusalem border, is losing about 2,500 acres. An Israeli development firm already claims to have bought part of the land to build new homes for Jewish settlers.

The state has also appropriated a once thriving hotel, the Cliff, on the edge of east Jerusalem even though the owners live nearby. When the army started building the eight-metre-high concrete wall that bisects the area, it seized the hotel for “security needs”. But under the regulations for constructing the barrier, the government would have had to pay more than £1m in compensation. Then the owners were told their hotel had been confiscated under the absentee property law without recompense.

[ralph124c]

the fact that nobody in the USA can question anything about the actions of the israeli government, and not be labelled an “anti semite”. The fact is, this area has been in a state of continual unrest since 1948. if there is to be any resolution, there has to be an open, and honest debate. carter was quite right to refuse to debate Dershowitz-Dershowitz is NOT interested in discussing the situation. he is just trying to discredit carter 9in any way he can).