Posted on 11/16/2004 5:10:49 AM PST by stevejackson
On July 9, 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel's security barrier was a violation of international humanitarian law and human rights law. Eleven days later, the United Nations General Assembly voted 150-6 to condemn Israel and demand removal of the barrier. All twenty-five members of the European Union supported the motion.[1] The EU position would not have been so offensive had it not then undertaken an act of stunning hypocrisy. In August 2004, the EU put out tenders for companies to construct a European separation fence to prevent migration into the EU from countries excluded from it.[2] European officials undertook to build a wall less than one month after condemning Israel's barrier at the United Nations.
EU countries are not the only ones to display hypocrisy. Several states voting to condemn Israel themselves have built barriers on disputed land, often as a response to terrorism. Israel's decisions rest on firm precedent. India, for example, has built a barrier along its line-of-control with Pakistan. Following a number of violent confrontations with Yemeni soldiers and tribesmen, the Saudi Arabian government unilaterally began constructing a barrier on land disputed by its southern neighbor. Morocco has built a barrier against Algerian infiltration in the disputed territory of Western Sahara. Ironically, while both British foreign minister Jack Straw and Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gül condemned Israel's security fence, both their countries have built their own barriers to combat terrorism. In Cyprus, it is the U.N. itself that, at significant hardship to the local populace, sponsored a security fence reinforcing the island's de facto partition.
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Only on walls built in territories that don't belong to the builder.
Imagine if we built our US-Mexico wall right through the middle of Mexico City.
I wounder how the U.N. would rule on our ownership of Texas.
What rule of thumb do you use to decide national ownership of territory?
nothing there belongs to the palis. anything they get is more than they deserve.
if someone has to say otherwise then they should do it with their guns.
I believe the Palestinians have been doing just that.
How's that working out?
it would be working out a lot better if israel would let lose and get rid of the palis permanently.
Stop wondering. They would rule it as legal.
"What rule of thumb do you use to decide national ownership of territory?"
National ownership of territory is not decided by war. The Fourth Geneva Convention (of which Israel is a signatory nation) addresses this in Article 49. "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."
National ownership of territory is decided by treaty. As an example, please refer to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that the U.S. signed with Mexico on February 2, 1848.
The terms of the agreement established the border between the U.S. and Mexico at the Rio Grande and the Gila River and granted the U.S. more than 525,000 square miles of former Mexican territory that includes present-day Arizona, California, western Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah.
No such treaty exists between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Then again, the Palestinians think it would be working out a lot better if the Arab countries would let loose and get rid of the Israelis permanently.
Seems to me that this line of thinking has not been working out well for either side for the last 50 years. Time to change the thinking, or should we give it another 50 years?
I'm so glad to hear that. I was living under the delusion that wars were sometimes involved.
the line of thinking would work if it was completed without outsiders trying to force diplomacy on people who need to be at war.
the arabs should let loose and so should israel and the winner gets the land.
And you define "losing" as "they're not killing as many Israelis as they used to".
All of this makes sense to you?
It will make sense when they are killing no Israelis. No one is entitled to their own state. You go out and try to make one and see what your government does to you.
Sometimes. Sometimes not. The U.S. acquired Alaska from Russia without a war.
Israel certainly didn't feel that way in 1947. They accepted the land given to them by the UN. I think they felt entitled, don't you?
So why were the Israeli leaders meeting with Arafat?
No one is entitled to their own state. But if you can convince somebody to give you one, or create one by force, then yes, you can have a state just like the Israelis.
Courtesy and expediency.
Oh, please.
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