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Thursday, June 18, 2015

UN Resolutions that suggest Israel undergoes Ethnic Cleansing

UN Security Council Resolution 607 (1988)

The Council was informed of the decision of Israel to continue deportations of Palestinians in the occupied territories, the Council reaffirmed the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention referring to the protection of civilians in times of war.
The resolution called upon Israel to cease the deportations and abide by its obligations arising from the Geneva Conventions

UN Security Council Resolution 608 (1988)

The Council expressed regret at Israel's decision to deport Palestinians in the occupied territories in defiance of the previous resolution on the topic.

The resolution called upon Israel to cease the deportations and ensure the safe repatriation of Palestinians back to the Palestinian territories.

UN Security Council Resolution 636 (1989)

The Council condemned the deportation of 8 Palestinians by Israel in the occupied territories, reaffirmed the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention referring to the protection of civilians in times of war.

The resolution also called upon Israel to ensure the safe and immediate return of those deported and to cease further deportations of civilians.

For: 14 Abstention: 1 Against: 0

UN Security Council Resolution 641 (1989)

The Council condemned the deportation of 5 Palestinians by Israel in the occupied territories, reaffirmed the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention referring to the protection of civilians in times of war.

The resolution also called upon Israel to ensure the safe and immediate return of those deported and to cease further deportations of civilians, which were usually expelled to Lebanon.

For: 14 Abstention: 1 Against: 0

UN Security Council Resolution 694 (1991)

The Council strongly condemned the deportation of 4 Palestinians by Israel in the occupied territories on December 17, 1992. They were in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention referring to the protection of civilians in times of war.

The resolution deplored the action and reiterated that Israel should refrain from deporting any more Palestinians and ensure the safe and immediate return of those deported.

UN Security Council Resolution 726 (1992)

The Council strongly condemned the deportation of 12 Palestinians by Israel in the occupied territories on December 17, 1992. They were in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention referring to the protection of civilians in times of war.

The resolution deplored the action and reiterated that Israel should refrain from deporting any more Palestinians and ensure the safe and immediate return of those deported.

Israel did not comply with the resolution, and continued to deport Palestinians.

UN Security Council Resolution 799 (1992)

The Council strongly condemned the deportation of 413 Palestinians by Israel in the occupied territories on December 17, 1992. They were in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention referring to the protection of civilians in times of war.

The resolution deplored the action and reiterated that Israel should refrain from deporting any more Palestinians and ensure the safe and immediate return of those deported.

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Do Jews have "more right" to the land in dispute?

Prior to Israel as we see it today, the region of Jerusalem and its surrounding territory (which adopted many names in its history) has had only one moment where the Hebrews actually ruled the land.

For many centuries, they were either a minority scattered throughout the world or otherwise ruled by another entity in the land in question.

Even since the beginning of their lineage with the father of the Hebrews, Jacob, along with his children they didn't settle there. They migrated to live in Egypt and many generations passed with the Hebrews living in Ancient Egypt before their emigration under Moses.


Their most notable period was approximately 1000 BC, when David defeated Goliath and ruled as king of his newly conquered land. His successor and son, king Solomon claimed the throne thereafter, and then after his death civil war struck and split the kingdom into Judea and Samaria.
The divided kingdom became weak and fell prey to the Empire's around them (namely the Assyrian Empire), until Nebuchadnezzar conquered the land and the Hebrews were exiled to Babylon.


That was all they had, three or four generations to add to the 70 years of their colonization today. 

They weren't the first people there either. People lived there before them when it was called the land of Canaan.

The most important fact to take from this is that Jews don't have "more right" on the land simply because they ruled for three or four generations. The concept that people lived before them, and people lived after them means their rule was just a passing moment in history. In fact the Arabs under the Caliphate ruled for almost 1000 years, so the concept of "more right" on the land has very little context.

Jews through Zionism have conquered the land today with the help of Britain, but for how long, especially considering they are constantly under international pressure.

Conquering lands and colonizing people doesn't really work the same way it did centuries ago, and the Zionist movement has found it extremely difficult to maintain so far.

Saturday, May 2, 2015

One-State or Two-State, that is the Question.

The initial proposal of the Partition Plan drafted by the UN in the form of Resolution 181 in 1947 was the first notion of a two-state solution, following the mass migration of Jews that caused clashes between those seeking refuge from the antisemitic movement in Europe and the native Arabs that were being displaced by the thousands because of this migration.

The proposal was based on separating the region based on ethnicity, however the Arabs immediately rejected the draft as it was unbalanced, providing the Jews with 56% of the land when they only comprised approximately 15% of the population. The Jews were initially unhappy with the UN Resolution because Britain promised them the entire region, but decided to accept it as their first opportunity to establish a homeland.

The Jewish decision was heavily influenced by the strong Zionist movement within their ranks. Arabs always considered Zionism a threat to the demographics of the region, especially following Jabotinsky's original account of the colonial plan of the region in his 1923 essay "The Iron Wall".

In the essay, Jabotinsky describes the behaviour of a native people towards the prospect of being colonized, which lead to the blunt realization that it would be impossible to expect a "voluntary agreement" with the Arabs. He realized the only way to achieve a state where the Jews were the masters of the land rather than a people absorbed within the population as a minority, was to use force.

Jabotinsky questioned it himself; why would the Arabs want to concede an area they inhabit for a colonial entity that wants to enforce a majority of its own? Why would any native throughout history ever want that? The only real solution to achieve colonization as he saw it, would require a "transfer" of Arabs in order to make the migrants the majority of the region. Even under British occupation and before that under the Ottoman Empire, Arabs were ruled by the respective authority's security forces, but the demographics were never threatened.

When conflict ensued following the proposal, the Arabs were not able to hold their position and maintain their territories only to concede it, which resulted in redrawing armistice lines and demilitarized zones. While some Arabs even now refuse to acknowledge the defeats they faced and stubbornly mention a non-negotiable one-state solution, those who do, feel they can only approach the conflict with one compromise based on the last known legitimate truce regarding borders; the Armistice "green line" Agreement of 1949, or popularly known as the pre-67 borders.

The one-state solution isn't ideal for Israel since the Arabs outnumber the Jews. It would mean a pure democratic process where all people who have a claim on the land, displaced or otherwise, have equal rights to vote and that would result in Arab leadership. Israel would face the same fate as the South African democratic process which ended white minority rule.

Ironically Israel claim it is the "only democracy" in the Middle East, yet a pure democratic process inclusive of all its people would deny Israel's entire existence. Democracy and Zionism therefore are mutually exclusive.


Fortunately for the Zionist movement, the Arabs are divided and do not possess the unifying strength to overpower Israel with its powerful backing of the United States, and therefore cannot force a hand in making such a bold claim for the one-state solution. Arabs have no other option but to approach the negotiation table with the two-state concept.

However, just as the Palestinian Papers have revealed, neither the issues surrounding the Right of Return, nor the ever-changing "land swaps" seem acceptable for Israel to agree to any terms that would make the two-state solution viable, regardless of the extreme concessions made by the Palestinian Authority (PA) even on key issues surrounding Jerusalem.

That's because the two-state solution doesn't really work for Israel either, even if the PA agree to all of Israel's preconditions. Zionism, as Jabotinsky puts it, is the colonization of the region, and any final agreement for a two-state solution would put an abrupt halt on the ongoing growth of the "Jewishness" of the land.

The real answer for Zionism is to maintain the status-quo. As long as they are in a state of conflict and the Palestinians don't have an official state, the Israeli government believe that the occupied territory can be annexed by Jewish-only settlements since there is no "official claim" to the land, regardless of what could potentially be part of a future Palestinian state.

The key question that arise from this dilemma is how Israel can get away with building settlements that encroach on a potential future state of Palestine. Even the United States government - Israel's only ally - has admitted that the core issue preventing peace negotiations from resuming is the ongoing settlement activities. These settlements have been deemed illegal by International Law as per the 4th Geneva Convention which was drafted for the protection of civilians, stating that an occupying entity must maintain the identiy and integrity of the occupied people on the land it occupies.

"Might is right" is the unfortunate reality. While the United Nations was established never to allow such atrocities to repeat itself as witnessed during WWII, it is ironically the very mechanism Israel is using to maintain this current state of conflict. That is because the US have in fact been guilty of being Israel's "lawyer", rather than their "honest broker" due to the Israel lobby in the US.

While rest of the world acknowledges the illegal settlements, the US with Israel have been able to stop UN Resolutions being passed in order to avoid halting the settlement activities. The UN Security Council voted to "immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory", but the US have been able to prevent it using a very powerful weapon given to them by the UN; the veto.

It is the very contradiction of democracy on the international stage. The ability to cancel any vote made by the nations of the world with a single trump card that can be used at the discretion of any of the five permanent member nations to control the world's decision-making by playing their political games for strategic advantages. Incidentally, the concept of permanent members only exists because the five members were part of an alliance that were the victors of WWII, which is clearly a sign that the very foundation of the UN is already outdated.

Ultimately, the veto is the true power behind world decisions, not the voices on the UN Security Council.

The best way to rectify such a deadlock in the Arab-Israeli conflict, is to have a "majority" vote in the UN rather than a concept of a veto, where the definition of "majority" could be determined based on the weighting of a nation's contribution to the UN Security Council.

That would end Israeli occupation in a heartbeat and the building blocks of a viable solution could finally transpire, whether it is to establish one state or two.

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Is the solution for the West against ISIS to be passive?

The solution to the Middle East has never been one that needed bombing.The real problem lies with foreign funding.

Too many times in the history of the Middle East have we seen attempts to fight fire with fire only to see the flames increase. Terrorist groups like ISIS are looking for a fight. Don't give them one. They are isolated on the international stage and even the majority of Sunnis don't recognize them with any form of legitimacy.

There are too many political games being played via the UN where Russia and its bloc prevent the West from getting too involved and vice versa. The area is too critical for anyone to allow the other to have full control. When Assad was protected with a veto to protect his regime against the people's uprising, that's when the Syrian Spring went from civil disobedience, to protests, to violence, to radicalization.

Recent history has also shown that attempts to overcome political stalemate was by engaging in a proxy war i.e funding radicals to counter the radicals.

We saw it with Afghanistan where the Soviets funded one group and the Americans funded the other, creating a civil war which ultimately created the Taliban.

The first gulf war left Saddam Hussain in power and that only festered.

Israel's attempts to create discourse amongst the Palestinians by creating and funding Hamas to defy the PLO backfired on them.

Egypt's military regime receives the second largest foreign aid from the U.S. which makes it virtually impossible to have a democracy, even when the people tried, then failed.

Israel receives the largest foreign aid from the U.S. and we've seen what decades of war have done to the region with that funding.

The best solution is to stop pretending the West knows how to "solve the Middle East problem" and let them deal with it on their own.

The renaissance age that grew during the Fatimid era when the Arab world grew naturally, provided the world with science and philosophy, while Europe was busy burying "witches".

If we leave them to fight their own battles without puppet dictators or funded terrorists running the show, they might engage on a level playing field and eventually stability will come from the power of the people. It might not come overnight, but it needs to start sometime.

ISIS is only a result of a chain reaction that came from the Arab Spring where Assad was unchallenged. His regime was part of the alliance that formed with Nasser and called themselves the Arab League. That league was formed to break from the yolk of the monarchies that ruled the Middle East. Those monarchies were a product of WWI's dismantlement of the Ottoman Empire where the victors Britain and France played with the "spoils of war" by dissecting Arabia into the countries we see today and planting the seeds of subservient monarchs.

Terrorist groups like ISIS have never been the real problem, because when they are defeated another group like them will arise from the ashes unless the root cause is dealt with.

That root cause is "interference".


Water restrictions in the Palestinian Territories

Since the erection of the "separation wall" or more commonly known as the apartheid wall, 35,000 meters of irrigation network were ceased, 11,400 Dunams of agricultural land were confiscated, 100,000 ancient olive trees were destroyed. This impacted life, agriculture, freedom of movement, water usage, and income. It has also aloud for Jewish-only settlement expansions in the more fertile areas of the West Bank.

After the occupation of the West Bank, Israel took control of all water resources and prohibited Palestinians from water development and drilling the required infrastructure. To date not a single permit issued for agriculture or domestic use in Palestinian areas has been granted.

The "separation wall" aims at isolating more natural water wells owned by Palestinians.

More than 31 natural water wells producing 3.8 million cubic meters that serve 1000's of Palestinians for agriculture and domestic use has been confiscated. 

While the annual rainfall accumulation in the region is 47.8% in Palestinian Territories, 29.7% in Israel, 22.5% in Jordan, Israel's domestic water use per capita reaches more than 52%, leaving 30% for Jordan and 18% for the Palestinian Territories.

This is a very good documentary about the "wall of  hate".