Link:

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=68983&d=25&m=8&y=2005
(and before you bash the source, you can find it on APP, and many other US based sources too)

Text:

Israel Seizes Palestinian Land
Hisham Abu Taha, Arab News


JERUSALEM, 25 August 2005 — Israel has issued orders to seize Palestinian land to build its wall along a route that would effectively annex the West Bank’s largest Jewish settlement to Jerusalem, the Justice Ministry said yesterday, a day after Israel completed its evacuation of 25 settlements in Gaza and the West Bank.

Palestinians charged that Israel issued the confiscation orders while world attention was riveted on the forcible removal of settlers and tearing down of their homes by Israeli bulldozers.

Besides objecting to loss of land, Palestinians said that the wall would cut them off from the part of Jerusalem they claim for a state and reinforce Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s intention to solidify Israel’s grip on its main West Bank settlement blocs after the Gaza pullout. The settlement, Maaleh Adumim, 5 kilometers (3 miles) east of Jerusalem in the Judean desert, has about 30,000 residents. Sharon has said repeatedly that it will remain in Israel even after a final peace accord with the Palestinians.

Israel says the wall is needed to keep bombers from entering the country. When complete, the 680-kilometer (425-mile) complex of walls, electric fences, trenches and barbed wire is expected to include about eight percent of the West Bank on the “Israeli” side.

Amos Gil, executive director of Ir Amim, an Israeli settlement monitoring group, said the Maaleh Adumim barrier confiscation would seize about 60 square kilometers (23 square miles) of land.

Attorney General Meni Mazuz approved the order after a legal review, the Justice Ministry said. “Such decisions will only serve to undermine any efforts to resume negotiations,” said a senior Palestinian official, Saeb Erekat.

The United States issued a statement that implied criticism of the Israeli move. The wall “is a problem to the extent that prejudges a final borders, confiscates Palestinian property or imposes further hardship on the Palestinian people,” the statement said.

Palestinians claim all of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem for a state, complaining that the wall route unilaterally sets a border. Palestinians have praised Israel’s pullout from Gaza and the West Bank but insist it must be followed by an exit from the rest of the territory.

Yesterday, Israel proposed a dual crossing between Gaza and Egypt, defense officials said. The current Rafah crossing would allow for free exit of people and goods, and a new crossing would be built at the Gaza-Egypt-Israel border for entry under Israeli supervision. Palestinians rejected the idea.

The issue of the Rafah crossing is seen as critical to the future of Gaza. The crossing is Gaza’s only land link to the outside world without passing through Israel, which plans to maintain control over the territory’s Mediterranean seacoast and its airspace.

Also yesterday, Israel said it has reached a deal with Egypt on deploying hundreds of Egyptian border guards along the southern border of the Gaza Strip.

But a source close to the Egyptian presidency said some finetuning remained before the deal was done.

“We have reached total agreement with the Egyptians, there only remains the green light from the government and the Knesset (parliament) to be able to organize the signing ceremony,” Gen. Amos Gilad, a senior Israeli Defense Ministry official, told military radio.

However an official close to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told AFP that no final deal on the deployment of Egyptian guards had been agreed upon.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council yesterday welcomed the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and parts of the northern West Bank and urged the resumption of peace talks aimed at establishing an independent and viable Palestinian state.

Comment:

Well, there you have it. Basically, they stole land, and then get a pat on the butt for giving it back after it was built on and bulldozed down. Gee, thanks folks. Why they're watching themselves get their OWN land back, the other side is stealing a different bit of land. I don't understand how these people keep getting away with it!! When Iraq tried to steal land from Kuwait, we jumped right in, yet Israel keeps stealing it from Palestine, and we do nothing. Sad state of affairs if you ask me.

You have a thing for Jews, huh?

Nope, just for looking at both sides of a story.

Really?? I'll be looking for your post denouncing the next bus bombing where dozens of innocent civilians are murdered by a peaceful palestinian.

In your world view are the jews allowed to do anything other than die?

I will be the first to do that as soon as Palestine is allowed to have a military and defend itself.

If once BOTH Palestine and Israel are permitted to have a relatively similar military the bus - freedom suicides continue, all bets will be off and I will view them as the animals that the sick American media allows.

Until that day, how do you expect a nation to defend itself if they aren't permitted a military??????????????????

If the people of Palestine had the aptitude and ability to organize a first rate military force their first mission would be to kill every jew that currently exists in the middle east. How anybody could come to any other conclusion is beyond my ability to comprehend.

I'll take your answer to my question as "no"

By attacking Israelis MILITARY. When you bomb civilians at weddings, funerals, etc. NO EXCUSE IS ACCEPTABLE. PERIOD, END OF ISSUE.

You got it backwards, why would you give guns to someone who likes to blow up civilians?????????????????????????????????????????????????

Once the palestinians stop murdering civilians with bombs, then maybe it would be considered to let them have an army.

If you're looking at both sides of the story you have to go back to 1947, then consider the wars of 67 and 73.

"In 1967, Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt. Both were used as staging areas in a war designed to annihilate Israel. Israel captured these areas in a defensive war in which they were fighting for their lives. They annexed them as a buffer zone against future attempts to annihilate them. All this was in accordance with established international law. The United States annexed California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona with less justification.

Forgetting why Israel took the land in the first place, the media announced the West Bank was "occupied territory." All historical precedence of other nations was denied to Israel."

See also this excellent fact-based article from the Israel Ministry of Foreign affairs:

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2003/2/DISPUTED+TERRITORIES-+Forgotten+Facts+About+the+We.htm

Geesh, and I get my stones busted for *my* sources?

I didn't bust your stones.

I assume by your comment you infer that the sources are biased. I don't disagree - but the facts remain the facts, and they stand apart from the bias of the presenters.

Perhaps you would prefer this:

http://www.un.org/Depts/dpa/ngo/history.html

are you disputing how the lands were acquired?

__________________
0o==o0

James 4:8

"...let us put aside the blindness of mind of those who can conceive of nothing higher than what is known through the senses"
-Saint Gregory Palamas, ---Discourse on the Holy Transfiguration of Our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ


Centrally located in North East Central Pa.

I would like to ask militant Palestinians in general if they think it is curious that if they had the same military might as Israel does, they would perhaps slaughter all Jews tomorrow whereas the Jews refrain from same.

I think part of the answer for that is that the Jews know that they would lose the patronage of their main sponsor (us - U.S.) were they to do something remotely like that. The other part is, perhaps, that the Palestinians are not as advanced as a culture as are the Israelis.

This is an enormously complex issue but I believe that we have a right to criticize Israel as they are the top recipient of our foreign aid (what - $3 to $4 billion annually) and we are somewhat in the cross-hairs of Arab hostility because of our unwavering support of Israel.

The scenario you describe does suggest that Israel acted correctly in '67. What is spoken of less frequently is the years before 1947. Perhaps they had no choice than to go into Palestine the way they did. All I know is I would have resented a lot of what I've read about them doing in the early decades of Zionism were I a Palestinian.

__________________
Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Good choice of words, ENORMOUSLY complex. Way beyond arm-chair quarterbacking in the OD section of this wonderful forum. I do love the discussion, and the exchange of ideas and opinions, and I appreciate where you are coming from.

Perhaps the reason Israel gets so much aid (besides the sheer number of Jews in the USA) is that they *are* the only stable, democratic government in the Middle East. We gave money to the Muhajadeen when Russia were "the bad guys" to get Russia out of Afghanistan, and look how well THAT turned out! Hello, Osama bin Laden! Wanna learn some covert tactics, get some free weapons, further your cause? Just help us get these pesky communists out of Afhganistan, they are such a threat to our National Security. Sheesh!

Well, which years before 1947? How far back should we go? How about before the Dome of the Rock was built, or before Rome destroyed Jersusalem? To the time of the original Temple?

I find it interesting that so many times in history there have been those who wished to destroy Israel and the Jewish people - the Holocaust was not that long ago, yet now we have extreme Muslim groups calling for their destruction. Is it because these groups don't have concentration camps and gas chambers and ovens that we are not more concerned about their ideaolgy?

-gil

You know Bot, it's funny, more and more, whenever Sharpton or Jackson goes off on a rant about racism people just don't buy it. It's become too automatic and just detracts from real issues much of the time.

How so ever, whenever criticism of Israel or Zionism comes up, the same people who ho-hum at Sharpton's tired playing of the race card don't hesitate to smear the questioner with the ol' anti-semitism label.

Why is that, you reckon?

__________________
Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Start a thread about Sharpton, I'll give you my Sharpton speech.

This particular thread starter claims he'd be the "first one" to criticize the Palestinians, but the gentle soul has not done that. I have seen him start at least two threads critical of Israel and I have seen him crank-up the old Jewish conspiracy thingy.

Hey, I ain't Jewish. I don't have a thing for or against Jews. But I'm aware of a consistent pattern of his and I think it stinks. I would love to see him defend his bias, wouldn't you?

Bot