Forty years ago today Israel invaded the West Bank and Gaza regions of
Palestine, and invaded the Golan Heights, belonging to Syria.

This set off the longest existing military occupation existing today.
Characteristics of this occupation:

-- Brutal treatment of the Palestinians: vast illegal detention of
Palestinians, accompanied by torture; pauperization of the Palestinians;
continuous brutalization of the Palestinians to get them to flee their
homes; home demolitions; wide-spread destruction of Palestinian
hospitals, government offices, schools, land records, school records,
permits; deprivation of water to the Palestinians; destruction of
Palestinian sewage treatment facilities; construction of a wall that
further seizes Palestinian lands; ghettoization of Palestinian
communities; etc. etc.

-- Violation of international law of self-determination of peoples, on
the occupation of territories, the Geneva Convention, the Convention
against Torture, multiple UN Security Council and UNGA Resolutions

-- Distraction from other key issues, including Israel's illegal
construction of some 250-300 nuclear warheads; theft of water from the
Jordan river; multiple invasions of Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and Syria;
infiltration teams that have assassinated and bombed people in Lebanon,
Iraq (which led to much of the sectarian strife we now are dealing with
there), Iran, Yemen and Algeria.

As the world marks this sad anniversary, we must ask ourselves: what is
the cost of this occupation to the Palestinians? To the world?

What should we say about this? What should we do?

Oceans, I so wish I could say something, but at the end of the day I'm
"only" a german and therefore a "Nazi" in the eyes of those who want to
see it so.

Invisible,

Yesterday, I was the Nazi. When will you make up your mind?

Watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1oq7oGO_N8 if you want an eye
opening experiance.

Hi, Invisible....

You are not responsible for the horror of Hitler. Why stay silent in the
face of the horror that is being committed by others?

I am sure if anyone is so silly as to insult you that everyone here will
condemn the attacker. You have as much right to post here as anyone, and
perhaps your moral judgment will have particular importance given how
you still feel the moral weight of Hitler and the Nazi regime.

Two wrongs do not make a right, no? When the Zionists targeted
Palestine and removed the Palestinians, they did so on the grounds that
they were merely fleeing horror, and they ended up victimizing an
entirely innocent people, the Palestinians.

The Jews (and gypsies, homosexuals, slavs and mentally disabled) were
the innocent victims of Hitler. Now, the Palestinians are the innocent
victims of the Israelis. Surely we can all condemn both, no?



Oceans

Oceans, that is so true.
By acknowledging the past of my Country I have to take responsibility as
well. But there is always this nagging voice from Israel going to the
US: Look what they have done to us, how can they judge.
We have to pretend to be blind and deaf to the horrors that Israel is
doing in Palestine in order not to be called on our past, how long ago
it may be.

Correct me if I am wrong but did not the Arab states attempt to dam the
river and divert its assets away from Israel. An action that would have
decreased the available water in Israel by 11% (we are talking about a
desert region are we not). Israel responded by destroying the dam. I
might have done the same thing.

This in no way condones the terrorist activities from either side in
this conflict. Both sides have been committing atrocities since the
1930. i.e. the 1936 Arab revolt. The 1948 war in which when Israel
declared its independance it was immediately attacked Syrian, Iraqi,
Transjordanian, Lebanese and Egyptian armies.

I am still learning but I have learned that terrorisim is being used by
all sides. Each of course claiming that the actions of the other side
justify their own actions.

Spider, I watched the clip you posted. I assume you saw through it, and
realize what the intent of the producer was. But in case you thought it
has validity, I'll be happy to break it down for you. Let me know.

The casualty figures from Palestine are well known and have been
verified by many different independent sources, including the Israelis
themselves.

Roughly 8 Palestinians are being killed for every Israeli. The Israelis
have sohpisticated waeaponry, including weaponized drones, camouflaged
explosives, sniper assassinations.

There is within Israel quite a debate about the morality of Israel's
occupation, but one thing is clear: if the Israelis weren't occupying
Palestine, no one would have had to die.

Oceans

invisible...history has been an passion of mine since high school and
one thing I have learned quite well is that history is written by the
winners..truth is buried under layers of fact and propaganda...anyone
who takes the time to read & look will drop the stereotyping and see the
german people for what they are...
I value your opinion...

Invisible, it saddens me to see that you feel gagged by Germay's past.
Defenders of Israel have used many bizarre accusations to shut their
opponents up, the most notorious being that they are 'anti-Semitic.'
But the world is more knowledgeable than it was back in the 50s and 60s
when such insults were effective.

Slowly, Israel is being assessed for its behavior, and not its claim
that whatever it does is justified by Hitler and the holocaust, and not
its strange claim that God 'gave' them Palestine.

Israel has lost most of the moral advantage that these claims initially
gave it, and the reality of what Israel is is now being recognized.

Even American Jews, among the most fanatic supporters of Israel, are
beginning to raise basic moral, legal, and practical questions about
Israel. Even within Israel there is a robust debate going on about
these very issues. It seems that only the die-hard defenders of Israel
and their friends in the US congress still haven't got the message....

Invisible, you must of course do what you feel is best, and I respect
this deeply. But know also that there are many of us here who will cut
no slack anyone who criticizes you for your German background. You are a
human being; you have a RIGHT to speak out, and to be treated with
common courtesy.



Oceans

Hi, AB...

Are you talking about the Jordan or Litani Rivers? Or some other River?

Don't forget the acquifers. The West Bank aquifers are controlled by
Israel (in violation of the Geneva Conventions) through the water well
permitting process. Palestinians are not allowed permits to dig or
repair water wells, while the Jewish settlements receive an unlimited
amount of water. Their swimming pools are full and gardens well
irrigated, while neighboring Palestinian families go without and have to
carry water on their heads from miles away, and see their crops wither
for lack of water.

I can address the daming issue when you let me know which river you are
talking about....

Thanks.

Oceans

Invisible when I was stationed in Germany during my time in the army I
learned a thing I did not learn from american history books.

Hitler was not the only one exterminating jews.

I met a man with a tatto that said he was not in a German concentration
camp.

He was in a Russian concentration camp. And the Russians were doing the
same things the Nazi's were doing they just came out on the winning side
of the war so their part was not placed in the winners history books.

My very personal take of things is this:
Most of the people that survived the holocaust are dead. Israel though
is still claiming vast amounts of money from Germany for compensation.
These moneys are used to do to the palestinansians the same and worse
that was done to the Jews in concentration camps. They are left to die
horrible deaths dew to hunger and thirst in their very own lands. It has
happened before in other Countries and it will surely happen again, but
to use an excuse like that is even more horrible, it make the situation
unbearable for me.

Oceans5555,

Can you explain to me why it is that everytime the Israelis give land
back to the Palestinians (no such thing really, it's like saying East
Texan. It's an area, but not a state), the Palestinians use the land to
fire rockets into Israel? Can you explain why the fact that Israel has
been bombarded continuously by the Palestinians for several years isn't
news worthy? It's too bad that the Palestinians have worse weapons, but
that just makes it really stupid for them to be attacking the Israelis.
If we were talking about some drunk dude climbing into a bear cage,
poking the bear with a stick and getting mauled, would you blame the guy
who climbed into the cages? Or would you blame the zoo keepers or would
you blame the bystanders who didn't try to stop him. Whomever you
blame, you cannot logically believe that the bear is responsible. It's
territory was invaded and it was poked with a stick.

Hi, Spider,

Agreed, you cannot blame the bear....

In this case, the Palestinians are the bear. It was their land that was
invaded and seized by the Zionists who targetted Palestine as the place
where they would create a Jewish State.

So the bear is fighting back, defending its homes against the invader.

Good metaphor, man.

On the question of media: attacks on Israelis are far more reported than
those on Palestinians. Like, how many people in the US know about the
death ratio I cited above?

One of the reasons for this imbalance in reporting is that Western
journalists hole up in West Jerusalem, most in a hotel that is
conveniently located across the street from the Israeli office that
provides the media with news, interviews, stills, video, etc.

If one of these journalists wants to get the Palestinian side of things,
he gets no support from the Israeli occupation authorities. He has to
wait in usually long lines at a checkpoint to get into Palestinian
areas, has then to walk a distance to find a Palestinians taxi (they are
not allowed by the Israelis to park near the checkpoints, has then to
get through several other checkpoints and roadblocks (there are over 540
of these controlled by Israelis in the West Bank alone), and then hope
to get to where the action is in time. The journalist cannot set
interviews up before hand, because the Israelis have cut telephone
communications to the Palestinan areas.

So too often the jorunalists just don't have the time or the inclination
to put up with all this, and simply walk across the street and file
their stories with Israeli input alone.... It is hard to blame the
journalists for doing this, but it does lead to a very distorted
reporting from Israel.

Oceans

What does it matter which river.

The end result would have been to stop the flow of water into Israel.
Would you not defend your water supplies.

I am not in any way in agreement with the bloodshed and atrocities
committed by Israel against Arabs.

But I also see that the same types of things are committed by Arabs
against Israelies. What is the difference. Murder is Murder no matter
who commits it.

I have also noticed that Arabs commit the same atrocities against each
other. I read a report once from a Palestinian journalist in which he
spoke of the killing of families by one faction within the Palestinian
government against another faction within the Palestinian government.
He could not understand why they were killing whole families (yes women
and children) in their grasping for power when they had a mutual enemy
to fight.

AB, I'm very aware of the atrocities of Stalin, it's just that nobody
talks about them anymore, they just got buried somewhere.

OK< I'll discuss both rivers.

The Litani is entirely within Lebanon. Israel has mounted several
invasions of southern Lebanon. One goal, probably was to seixe the
Litani river and so put them in a position to take that water.

The Jordan is shared by Syria, Jordan, and Palestine.

Rivers that are shared fall under the law of what is called riparian
rights. That is, they are each entitled to a portion of the water, as
per agreements that they work out amongst themselves. Until such
agreement is reached, no single user is allowed to take more water than
they have traditionally used.

Israel is the result of an invasion and illegal occupation. They are not
party to any riparian agreements, but in illegally seizing the Golan
Heights they gained control of the Jordan at one point of its journey
from Syria to the Dead Sea.

Disregarding even the principles of riparian law, the Israelis
essentially have drained the Jordan, siphoning off its waters to supply
the Jewish people in Israel. Only a trickle makes it to Jordan, or the
West Bank, or the Dead Sea. This violates every law that is pertinent
to water distribution and usage.

Jordan has tried to bring this matter to the World Court, but the US has
blocked the matter from reaching adjudication.

The US generally protects Israel from all legal issues by blocking the
efforts of other countries to get legal relief, whether it is at the
World Court, the UN, or under any of the many legal Conventions that
Israel has signed but steadfastly ignores.

So it is little wonder that the Palestinians fight back as best they
can. By ignoring the rule of law, Israel leaves its opponents no
choice.

When King George imposed a far less brutal regime on the Americans, the
Americans fought back. The British called the American Revolutionaries
the equivalent of terrorists....

Oceans

Oceans,

There's some truth in what you said but there are victims and murderers
on both sides of this. And there are two equally valid sides to this
tragedy.

You ask some valid questions but I believe we need to ask ourselves a
lot of questions. Like why did Israel invade in the first place? What
would a normal country do after another country (Egypt) cut off their
shipping lanes and their President was calling for the destruction of
Israel? What would a country do when they had The armies of Egypt,
Jordan, Syria and Lebanon poised on their borders and at the same time
having the PLO Chairman talking about what a privilege it would be for
the PLO to strike the first blow and eliminate the state of Israel"?
Why should they give back land they won in a war? Why is it OK for a UN
Resolution (GA-181) to be accepted by the Jews and rejected by the Arabs
but it's not OK for Israel to disregard UN Resolution 1402? Of course
the same questions can be asked from the other side

This whole situation is so screwed up from back alley politics and BS
that it would be impossible to point a finger at either Israel or
Palestine. I tend to believe both are to blame and both are no more
than pawns in someone's perverse game of chess.

&*^%£$£^$££*()%*^


Am I allowed to sit on my hands, PLEASE??????????