Doc's Talk: Land Reform and Land Politics

Monday, July 27, 2009

Land Reform and Land Politics

Steven Shamrak

1. Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin told a cabinet meeting recently that the Palestinian Authority is working secretly to prevent Jewish organisations from buying property in East Jerusalem.

2. An Egyptian sheikh living in Qatar has given Hamas $21 million to buy buildings in eastern Jerusalem where the outlawed terrorist organisation, as well as the Palestinian Authority, is trying to establish a power base Voting for the recent land reform bill had to be cancell ed in the Knesset on Wednesday as even seven government ministers refused to participate in the vote. Most of the Knesset felt this would hand the country over to private speculators and hostile-to-Israel elements. "Why do we want to sell the holy Land of Israel to become another piece of real estate?" said Zevulun Orlev, Jewish Home MK.

Jewish Land in Transjordan. The Israel Land Fund, which has bought land and dozens of houses for Jews in predominantly Arab parts of the Jerusalem area, is now eyeing property once owned by Jews in neighbouring Transjordan. Fund chairman Aryeh King told AFP, "There are thousands of Jewish properties in Jordan which were purchased during the Ottoman era and under the British mandate" adding, "We have records of the ownership." (Transjordan was a part of the Palestinian mandate, which was allocated for the Jewish state - Eretz Israel. After the British illegally ceded it to Bedouin refugees from the Saudi peninsula, Jews were forced out!)

Food for Thought. by Steven Shamrak

No news agency has reported that French President Nicolas Sarkozy supported PM Netanyahu's call that Israel is a state for the Jewish people, but most of them wrote that the French President called on Israel to shut down construction on West Bank settlements.

Discriminated against in Jordan without International Condemnation. Jordan has begun revoking the Jordanian citizenship of those people defined by officials as Arabs with roots in Judea and Samaria. The new policy robs thousands of residents of the kingdom of civil services. (Maybe it is also time for Israel to revoke the citizenship of Arabs and let them move to Sinai to build their own independent country!)

Enemy Recognised the Value of Israeli Self-hating Media. The Prince of Bahrain, Sheik Salman bi n Hamad Al-Khalifa, has called on Arab leaders to talk to the Israeli media to facilitate Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.

Iron Dom Failed - Iran Must be Stopped. Israeli defence officials say three tests in the US of a missile defence system meant to shield Israel from Iranian attack have been aborted over the past week. An upgraded version of the already-deployed Arrow 2 was being tested off the coast of California when communication glitches between the missile and the radar led US defence officials to abort the tests. (The US has been undermining Israel's determination to stop the Iranian nuclear program by promoting a defensive program!)

Iran-PA Meeting - Fraternization of the Enemies. The Palestinian Authority' s top negotiator Saeb Erekat said he had met Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki a week ago in Egypt. He rejected reports that these were the first such talks, saying the two had been meeting since 2006.

Short-sighted Appeasement Does not Work. Israel is planning to remove 23 " illegal outposts" from the West Bank in the course of a single day in response to mounting US demands that it halt all settlement activity. Some 1,200 people will be evacuated. (No international outcry against atrocities, which are committed against Jews!)

No Crisis. There is no crisis in relations between Israel and the United States, despite a lingering dispute - which will be settled " soon" - over settlement construction in the West Bank, Israel's new ambassador to Washington announced. (Just damaging to Israel's fake PR campaign, but who cares about the feeling s of Jews or the sovereignty of their country! And every little international piglet feels free to dictate to Israel what to do, without any diplomatic sensitivity or restraint!)

Lebanon Violating 1701 - UN is Silent. Israel accused Lebanon of violating United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 on Tuesday after the explosion of a Hizbullah arms cache hidden inside a southern Lebanese town. The blast occurred inside the village of Hirbet Selm, some 20 kilometres north of the Israel-Lebanon border. The cache contained dozens of 122mm Katyusha rockets as well as high-powered machine guns." This is a major violation of resolution 1701," one official said. "The weaponry was stored inside a village and is proof of our long-standing claim that Iizbullah uses civilian infrastructure to hide its weaponry."

What Economic Crisis? The United States has promised $30 million to rebuild the Palestinian camp of Nahr el-Bared in the north of Lebanon. And the United States will transfer $200 million to the PA to help it cover its budget crisis . (The US has no funds to fix its own infrastructure and health system, but money is always available for sustaining the fake refugees. Why aren't the US tax-payers asking why?)

What Peace Process? Almost 50% of Palestinians believe that neither the Fatah nor Hamas is interested in signing a reconciliation accord, according to a study done by the university of Nablus, published by the PA.

Quote of the Week: "There is conclusive historical and archaeological evidence that there has been an unbroken Jewish presence in Jerusalem since 438 CE, 200 years before the Arab conquest in 638 C E. The Jewish claim, therefore, is not based on biblical and historical rights alone. Jews have always been permanent residents of the Old City, and since 1820, the Jews constituted the largest single community there." - Rev. Douglas Young, statement by Evangelical Christians in 1971 - Before the age of phony political correctness even the adversaries of Jews admitted the truth. Today they are all silent!

International Law and IDF's Military Practice.

Col. Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, told a conference in Jerusalem on June 18, 2009:

The battlefield - in any kind of war - is a place of confusion and chaos, of fast-moving action. In the type of conflict that the Israeli Defense Forces recently fought in Gaza and in Lebanon, and Britain and America are still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, these age-old confusions and complexities are made one hundred times worse by the fighting policies and techniques of the enemy.

Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy 's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law.

Civilians and their property are routinely exploited by these groups, in deliberate and flagrant violation of international laws or reasonable norms of civilised behaviour . Protected buildings, mosques, schools, and hospitals are used as strongholds. Legal and proportional responses by a Western army will be deliberately exploited and manipulated in order to produce international outcry and condemnation.

Hamas' military capability was deliberately positioned behind the human shield of the civilian population. They also ordered, forced when necessary, men, women and children from their own population to stay put in places they knew were about to be attacked by the IDF. Israel was fighting an enemy that is deliberately trying to sacrifice their own people, deliberately trying to lure you into killing their own innocent civilians.

And Hamas, like Hizbullah, is also highly expert at driving the media agenda. They will always have people ready to give interviews condemning Israeli forces for war crimes. They are adept at staging and distorting incidents.

When possible the IDF gave at least four hours' notice to civilians to leave areas targeted for attack. The IDF dropped over 900,000 leaflets warning the population of impending attacks to allow them to leave designated areas. The IDF phoned over 30,000 Palestinian households in Gaza, urging them in Arabic to leave homes where Hamas might have stashed weapons or be preparing to fight.

Many attack helicopter missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were cancelled if there was too great a risk of civilian casualties in the area. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza, even though delivering aid virtually into your enemy 's hands is to the military tactician normally quite unthinkable.

By taking these actions the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.

No comments:

The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

Bedouins:

Bedouins are nomadic Muslims who were in Israel when modern borders were set in place and are now considered Israeli citizens. They are not required to draft but a growing number choose to enlist. In 2012, there were over 1,400 Bedouin Muslim soldiers doing regular IDF service and almost 1,500 in the reserves.

Read more:http://www.idfblog.com/2014/02/27/truth-idf-numbers-pictures/#more-34027

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.
More...

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’
-- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.
Clare M. Lopez

Who is being discriminated-facts tell the truth

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,409 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

65.4 percent were anti-Jewish.
13.2 percent were anti-Islamic.
9.5 percent were anti-other religion, i.e., those not specified.
4.3 percent were anti-Catholic.
3.8 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
3.3 percent were anti-Protestant.
0.5 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/narratives/hate-crime-2010-incidents-and-offenses.

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror Yemini
In 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").
Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state.
Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."
Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

Doc's Talk