The ethnic cleansing smoking gun: Israel barring
Palestinians from returning to the 22% of their homeland supposedly left to
them (pre-nibbling) by the Israelis in 1949 – the West Bank and Gaza.
For years I’ve wondered whatever could anyone do for Palestinians in refugee camps around the Middle East -- the plight of Lebanese based refugees seemed particularly bleak – deprived of a chance for Lebanese citizenship, short changed on participation in that economy as well as in schooling and medical care for fear their inclusion might upset Lebanon’s (many) ethic partisan power balances – and as likely to return to today’s Israel as to move to Mars.
It took me all this time to think: why shouldn’t refugees in Lebanese camps very simply be allowed to move over the border to their own gradually more internationally recognized Palestinian homeland -- the West Bank and Gaza? Who could argue in the international forum against the right of a people to return to their own country – that exists waiting for them right now – least of all the Israelis who waited 2000 years to assert their claim to a country they assert remained theirs all along?
Especially when the 400,000 desperate Palestinian refugees in Lebanon make such a neat numerical match for the 400,000 land nibbling Israelis. (If 1492 American Indians had been as densely packed as West Bank Palestinians there would have been 10 billion waiting for Columbus at the water’s edge – 1000 per square mile – if we leave out the colder reaches above the 48 states.)
“Security” the Israelis will scream – adding 10% to the Palestinian population of the West Bank will pose a fatal threat to Israel. Palestinians will add a lot more than that over the next ten years by births over deaths.
Security – for what? When 10,000 Israeli nibblers tried to settle in Gaza it tied down half an army division to protect them. Sharon, and admitted ethnic cleanser (“Jordan is a Palestinian state; Syria is a Palestinian state”) reached the conclusion the game wasn’t worth the candle and pulled out. Not before 20,000 Palestinian family members were bulldozed out of their homes to make way for “security” roads for the army and nibblers to travel on back and forth from Israel.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/history-destruction/1665
http://article.wn.com/view/2012/08/30/Infographic_Palestinian_homes_demolished/
Now, no more settlers, no more army in Gaza – even though artillery rockets periodically rain down from Gaza, even on Israel’s capital. Now, hundreds of checkpoints riddle the West Bank and security roads have been take to a new level with a Jew-only road system criss-crossing between nibblements and Israel – that Palestinians may not even cross over. All so Jews may never have to see a Palestinian.
Palestinian terror rockets and bus bombings are never expected to make Jews pack up and leave Israel – to drive Israel into the sea. They are pathetically desperate attempts to force Israelis to give up nibbling away on what is left of their homeland and withdraw the security that enables the nibbling to proceed on and on.
Is the world going to be appeased that Palestinians returning to their own homeland will require more security to protect Israeli ethnic cleansing? Because to move Jews in they have to keep Palestinians out? I am especially thinking of the American world.
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New stuff to work in:
95% of suicide bombers are trying to force foreign troops from what they see as their soil. (Robert Pape's Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism)
Menachem Begin began his terrorist career blowing up the King David Hotel during WWII -- becoming inventor of the car bomb -- killing 98 British soldiers trying to force end the British mandate on what he saw as his soil.
The British military occupation was no way near as intolerable as the Israeli occupation of what is left of the historic Palestinian homeland -- the Brits were not moving in and displacing the population either: use NYC and NJ as approximate size example -- imagine women having babies on any of hundreds of choke-point lines (every day?).
"Palestin[ian] terrorists carried out their threat and began shooting five of one hundred and six Israeli school children held hostage for eighteen days in a sec ... "
At 40:40 of the fanciful movie "Time after Time". H.G. Wells chases Jack the Ripper to 1979 San Francisco -- Jack shows Wells how bad the future is by clicking a remote though TV channels -- Palestinian terrorists first station. Wondered where that came from in such a goofy movie? Then it occured to me that only present day Israeli terrorists go to such extremes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/19/world/israel-arrests-settlers-it-says-tried-to-bomb-palestinians.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/18/world/bomb-explodes-at-palestinian-school-hurting-5-children.html
The point I am hopefully heading for here is that Israel has to stop deluding itself that it faces an irrational terrorist enemy that can only be resisted forever -- what else to do if you are the good guys -- and start waking up to itself as the author of all its own troubles and thinking about practical working out of some way to live peacefully with Palestinians which includes not gouging the happiness out of the lives of millions day by day. Is it really worth living in Purgatory forever and subjecting others to Hell just for a little residential real estate?
I've just finished David Remick's "The Party Faithful -- The settlers move to annex the West Bank -- and Israeli politics" about what I call the "Super Jews" who are convinced they are the future of Israel. This is highest expression of Judaism, perpetuating a clash of civilizations (maybe world-wide!) to pick up a little sandy real-estate? Maybe they should call themselves "The Prosaics."
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/01/21/130121fa_fact_remnick
And for the most (supposedly) religiously motivated settlers Judaism reaches its Zenith when the men neither fight in the army nor work in the economy and the children are receive no secular education (math, science, local language). http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20130122/crown-heights/english-is-absent-math-doesnt-count-at-brooklyns-biggest-yeshivas?utm_content=ddrew2u%40sbcglobal.net&utm_source=VerticalResponse&utm_medium=Email&utm_term=English%20is%20Absent%20and%20Math%20Doesn%27t%20Count%20at%20Brooklyn%27s%20Biggest%20Yeshivas&utm_campaign=Bodega%27s%20%27Attack%20Cat%27%20Menaces%20Passing%20Pupscontent#ixzz2Iizm4p42
http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20130123/williamsburg/barred-from-talmud-studies-girls-get-english-math-at-brooklyn-yeshivas?utm_content=ddrew2u%40sbcglobal.net&utm_source=VerticalResponse&utm_medium=Email&utm_term=Barred%20From%20Talmud%20Studies%2C%20Girls%20Get%20English%20and%20Math%20at%20Brooklyn%20Yeshivas&utm_campaign=City%20Bars%20Serving%20Specially-Brewed%20Beer%20for%20Hurricane%20Sandy%20Reliefcontent
