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I have a question that I have been wanting to ask. Just out of curiosity:
What are your views on the settlements in the West Bank?
Do you consider them illegal? Why or why not?
Do you think they should continue expanding and constructing settlements? Why or why not?
How do you believe it is affecting the Palestinians?
All answers are appreciated. I am just curious.
Settlements shouldn't be there, they are a strategic liability for Israel.
They are illegal under international law according to the ICJ, furthermore their presence weakens Israel's case against the right of return.
They shouldn't be expanded (in fact absent a deal I'd like to see at least some of them removed), no new settlements have been built since some 8 years if I'm not mistaken.
Note: Jerusalem is another issue altogether, though I personally don't agree with construction there either.
Thanks for the response.
Although,
That is a mistake. The settlements do continue to be constructed. In fact just last year in September, construction work was renewed in 63 settlements, in which 1,629 housing units were and now are being built.no new settlements have been built since some 8 years if I'm not mistaken
Also, I'm pretty sure just this year another 500 housing units are supposed to be built. And I'm sure there is more that I just haven't heard about.
By the way I put one last question about the settlements on the main post! If you don't mind sharing your view on it.
I think what wat0n is saying is that all new housing construction has taken place within existing settlements. No NEW settlements are being built on new land.Originally Posted by Palestinian
As curlyg stated, the construction you mentioned is going on on existing settlements.
As for the last question, I think that it affects them negatively. While it's true that they do generate jobs for Palestinians, the tensions between settlers and Palestinians far outweigh this good thing. IMHO. This is also another reason of why they are a strategic liability, they destabilize the West Bank.
Jewish communities are entirely compliant with international law created by the League of Nations in ratifying the binding Palestine Mandate establishing all of Palestine as the Jewish National Home.
The Arabs are illegal squatters.
I largely agree with wat0n.
I think additional construction in the settlements should be avoided. Where it is truly necessary, the construction should take place in existing major settlement blocs. Further settlement construction, particularly settlement construction that is non-contiguous or far from the Israeli border, is a strategic liability and misallocation of the country's limited financial and military resources.
They are almost certainly illegal under international law, protestations to the contrary here notwithstanding (whether you accept international law is another question). Several hundred smaller outposts are also, if I recall, illegal under Israeli domestic law.
For both of these reasons I don't think there should be more construction of settlements.
I also agree that Jerusalem is a different story to the West Bank. Although construction in East Jerusalem is also probably illegal under international law, it is far more viable than additional construction in the West Bank, so long as it is contiguous with current Jewish neighbourhoods.
Having said all that, I don't think settlements are the major reason why peace hasn't been achieved. That still falls to the belligerence and intransigence of the Palestinian leadership(s).
I partly agree on this, but I think it falls on both sides. The past two years the PA didn't really do any negotiating with Israel, but the reasoning to this were the settlements. So, the settlements are a major issue to peace.That still falls to the belligerence and intransigence of the Palestinian leadership(s).
Oh, ok! I kind of misunderstood what he was saying. Although, the settlements/outposts etc already constitute for about 43% of the West Bank.I think what wat0n is saying is that all new housing construction has taken place within existing settlements. No NEW settlements are being built on new land.
Do they really? I thought that many of these settlements, if not all, are "Jewish only". I was pretty informed that they cause more trouble to the Palestinians than providing Jobs. The control of the settlements prevent the development of Palestinian communities, such as those in the Jordan Valley and in the southern Hebron hills. And also, Israeli control of land, along with its control of the Israeli-Palestinian joint water sources, is preventing the development of Palestinian agriculture, the major sector in the Palestinian economy. And to add on that, the Settlements in the West Bank severely violate Palestinians’ rights to property, freedom of movement, livelihood, self-determination, and other basic rights. So, I'm not quite sure how they are helping them.While it's true that they do generate jobs for Palestinians
Settlements have always been there - it never prevented negotiations in the past. After all, if a peace agreement is signed many settlements will have to be dismantled - the best way to stop settlements is to negotiate seriously. This has been a really pathetic excuse by the PA to avoid negotiations.
This is definitely not true. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy has done an excellent job preparing a very detailed interactive map that shows all settlements and Palestinian communities and various possible final status borders - it's actually a great resource for everyone here imo:Oh, ok! I kind of misunderstood what he was saying. Although, the settlements/outposts etc already constitute for about 43% of the West Bank.
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/i...aps/index.html
Overall I have no doubt settlements have a net negative impact on Palestinian society. However they do provide jobs, mainly in construction (ironically).Do they really? I thought that many of these settlements, if not all, are "Jewish only". I was pretty informed that they cause more trouble to the Palestinians than providing Jobs. The control of the settlements prevent the development of Palestinian communities, such as those in the Jordan Valley and in the southern Hebron hills. And also, Israeli control of land, along with its control of the Israeli-Palestinian joint water sources, is preventing the development of Palestinian agriculture, the major sector in the Palestinian economy. And to add on that, the Settlements in the West Bank severely violate Palestinians’ rights to property, freedom of movement, livelihood, self-determination, and other basic rights. So, I'm not quite sure how they are helping them.
As curlyg said, settlements ironically provide jobs in constructions. The rest of the issues you mentioned fall into the broad "tension" label. All in all they have a net negative effect for Palestinians.
Palestinian
Well, I for one don't fully agree with watOn and curlyg about the legality/illegality of "the settlements". I don't propose to rehash here everything that we discussed before. But here is a sample interchange from another thread...
http://www.israelforum.com/board/sho...c-Threat/page4
And an opposing opinion by By Eugene W. Rostow
Copyright 1991 The New Republic Inc.
The New Republic, October 1991
Assuming the Middle East conference actually does take place, its official task will be to achieve peace between Israel and its Levantine neighbors in accordance with Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. Resolution 242, adopted after the Six-Day War in 1967, sets out criteria for peace-making by the parties; Resolution 338, passed after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, makes resolution 242 legally binding and orders the parties to carry out its terms forthwith. Unfortunately, confusion reigns, even in high places, about what those resolutions require.
For twenty-four years Arab states have pretended that the two resolutions are "ambiguous" and can be interpreted to suit their desires. And some European, Soviet and even American officials have cynically allowed Arab spokesman to delude themselves and their people--to say nothing of Western public opinion--about what the resolutions mean. It is common even for American journalists to write that Resolution 242 is "deliberately ambiguous," as though the parties are equally free to rely on their own reading of its key provisions.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Resolution 242, which as undersecretary of state for political affairs between 1966 and 1969 I helped produce, calls on the parties to make peace and allows Israel to administer the territories it occupied in 1967 until "a just and lasting peace in the Middle East" is achieved. When such a peace is made, Israel is required to withdraw its armed forces "from territories" it occupied during the Six-Day War--not from "the" territories nor from "all" the territories, but from some of the territories, which included the Sinai Desert, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.
Five-and-a-half months of vehement public diplomacy in 1967 made it perfectly clear what the missing definite article in Resolution 242 means. Ingeniously drafted resolutions calling for withdrawals from "all" the territories were defeated in the Security Council and the General Assembly. Speaker after speaker made it explicit that Israel was not to be forced back to the "fragile" and "vulnerable" Armistice Demarcation Lines, but should retire once peace was made to what Resolution 242 called "secure and recognized" boundaries, agreed to by the parties. In negotiating such agreements, the parties should take into account, among other factors, security considerations, access to the international waterways of the region, and, of course, their respective legal claims.
Resolution 242 built on the text of the Armistice Agreements of 1949, which provided (except in th case of Lebanon) that the Armistice Demarcation Lines separating the military forces were "not to be construed in any sense" as political or territorial boundaries, and that "no provision" of the Armistice Agreements "Shall in any way prejudice the right, claims, and positions" of the parties "in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine problem." In making peace with Egypt in 1979, Israel withdrew from the entire Sinai, which had never been part of the British Mandate.
For security it depended on patrolled demilitarization and the huge area of the desert rather than on territorial change. As a result, more than 90 percent of the territories Israel occupied in 1967 are now under Arab sovereignty. It is hardly surprising that some Israelis take the view that such a transfer fulfills the territorial requirements of Resolution 242, no matter how narrowly they are construed.
Resolution 242 leaves the issue of dividing the occupied areas between Israel and its neighbors entirely to the agreement of the parties in accordance with the principles it sets out. It was, however, negotiated with full realization that the problem of establishing "a secure and recognized" boundary between Israel and Jordan would be the thorniest issue of the peace-making process. The United States has remained firmly opposed to the creation of a third Palestinian state on the territory of the Palestine Mandate. An independent Jordan or a Jordan linked in an economic union with Israel is desirable from the point of view of everybody's security and prosperity. And a predominantly Jewish Israel is one of the fundamental goals of Israeli policy. It should be possible to reconcile these goals by negotiation, especially if the idea of an economic union is accepted.
The Arabs of the West Bank could constitute the population of an autonomous province of Jordan or of Israel, depending on the course of the negotations. Provisions for a shift of populations or, better still, for individual self-determination are a possible solution for those West Bank Arabs who would prefer to live elsewhere. All these approaches were explored in 1967 and 1968. One should note, however, that Syria cannot be allowed to take over Jordan and the West Bank, as it tried to do in 1970.
The heated question of Israel's settlements in the West Bank during the occupation period should be viewed in this perspective. The British Mandate recognized the right of the Jewish people to "close settlement" in the whole of the Mandated territory. It was provided that local conditions might require Great Britain to "postpone" or "withhold" Jewish settlement in what is now Jordan. This was done in 1922. But the Jewish right of settlement in Palestine west of the Jordan river, that is, in Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, was made unassailable. That right has never been terminated and cannot be terminated except by a recognized peace between Israel and its neighbors. And perhaps not even then, in view of Article 80 of the U.N. Charter, "the Palestine article," which provides that "nothing in the Charter shall be construed ... to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments...."
Some governments have taken the view that under the Geneva Convention of 1949, which deals with the rights of civilians under military occupation, Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal, on the ground that the Convention prohibits an occupying power from flooding the occupied territory with its own citizens. President Carter supported this view, but President Reagan reversed him, specifically saying that the settlements are legal but that further settlements should be deferred since they pose a psychological obstacle to the peace process.
In any case, the issue of the legality of the settlements should not come up in the proposed conference, the purpose of which is to end the military occupation by making peace. When the occupation ends, the Geneva Convention becomes irrelevant. If there is to be any division of the West Bank between Israel and Jordan, the Jewish right of settlement recognized by the Mandate will have to be taken into account in the process of making peace.
This reading of Resolution 242 has always been the keystone of American policy. In launching a major peace initiative on September 1, 1982, President Reagan said, "I have personally followed and supported Israel's heroic struggle for survival since the founding of the state of Israel thirty-four years ago: in the pre-1967 borders, Israel was barely ten miles wide at its narrowest point. The bulk of Israel's population lived within artillery range of hostile Arab armies. I am not about to ask Israel to live that way again."
Yet some Bush administration statements and actions on the Arab-Israeli question, and especially Secretary of State James Baker's disastrous speech of May 22, 1989, betray a strong impulse to escape from the resolutions as they were negotiated, debated, and adopted, and award to the Arabs all the territories between the 1967 lines and the Jordan river, including East Jerusalem. The Bush administration seems to consider the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to be "foreign" territory to which Israel has no claim. Yet the Jews have the same right to settle there as they have to settle in Haifa. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip were never parts of Jordan, and Jordan's attempt to annex the West Bank was not generally recognized and has now been abandoned. The two parcels of land are parts of the Mandate that have not yet been allocated to Jordan, to Israel, or to any other state, and are a legitimate subject for discussion.
The American position in the coming negotiations should return to the fundamentals of policy and principle that have shaped American policy towards the Middle East for three-quarters of a century. Above all, rising above irritation and pique, it should stand as firmly for fidelity to law in dealing with the Arab-Israeli dispute as President Bush did during the Gulf war. Fidelity to law is the essence of peace, and the only practical rule for making a just and lasting peace.
EUGENE V. ROSTOW was a Distinguished Fellow at the United States Institute and he was one of the architects who drafted UN Resolution 242.
Last edited by Reffo; 08-06-2011 at 06:18 PM. Reason: Highlight text in bold
Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem.
Author: John Galsworthy 1867-1933, British Novelist, Playwright
I am not sure what exactly you mean by "settlements" and "West Bank" but if I am right assuming this fake terminology stands for "cities and townships" and "Judeah and Shomron" then naturally my view is in support of Israel's security and sustainability above all immediate economical reasons these towns might serve.
Again, I assume they are built in full compliance with the Israeli laws and regulations and therefore are completely legal. Now if you refer to the vague and easy to misinterprete concept of the so called "international law" then the legality should be judged on the basis of international conventions/agreement which Israel is a signatory to. The international law is a derivative from the state sovereignity and if a sovereign state enters a legal treaty it becomes binding for it. THis is the concept of "international law" as commonly understood today. Naturally, if Israel was in breach of any such international treaties which it had joined on its own accord (which I am not aware of) then the legality can be disputed.
Do you think New York City should continue expanding and constructing? DO you think Warsaw or Lagos should? It's the town planning issue. I don't have a view on this.
Again, I assume you mean the Arabs (but please correct me if I am wrong). The Arabs are getting well-paid jobs out of it, they also get some training and new skills. They get better civil infrastructure. Important thing they get counterinfluence to their incessant hatred-brainwashing as they can now see for themselves. They clearly benefit.
The Arabs have colonized our Hebrew land.
The Arabs should be evicted to Yemen, or where ever they are happy tending their goats.Do you consider them illegal? Why or why not?
We should cut off water and electricity to the Arabs, who are trying to continue to colonize our land.Do you think they should continue expanding and constructing settlements? Why or why not?
Whats a "Palestinian"?How do you believe it is affecting the Palestinians?Curiosity eliminates all cats.All answers are appreciated. I am just curious.
Bravo, bararallu!
The Arabs ARE THE OCCUPANTS of the Land of Israel, no mercy to occupants.
They must go!
They have looted enough land during centuries of conquest and robbery!
Their birth rate is destructive, they eat away the environment like locust - let them do it to their own places.
Israel has her own people to take care of, no need for a fifth column!
And, send with them the left-wing cancer - meretz and shalom-achshav &Co.
Last edited by dayag; 08-10-2011 at 03:12 PM. Reason: spelling
The Arab authorities have said repeatedly no Jews in their homeland. And you aren't going to ethnically cleanse a half million Jews. So axiomatically the Arabs will have to accept less land. And since there are about 30,000 Arab Israeli citizens in East Jerusalem they will have to be ethnically cleansed of a sorts as well.
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