jc, Betselem's premise is flawed, they argue that these territories are occupied, they are disputed, not occupied, the last "landlord" was the Hashemite Kingdom, and they gave it up for Peace. Right now, it is no more occupied than Alsace Lorraine is occupied by France, or East Prussia by Poland and Russia. Thus all the arguments about settlements and violation of of international law stands on very weak grounds. Unless, of course, you want to grant the "right of return" to Germans, and few tens of other national entities that have had to, during the last 100 years, change their place of abode due to the vagaries of war. What Europe fails to understand is that a precedent in the ME granting a "right of return" to a party that lost the war, will become a precedent in International law, and will set the ground work for right wing German factions to claim "lost Fatherland Territories", that will completely destabilize Europe itself. You start a war, you lose, you pay. The Germans and Japaneses know that and have learned to live very well with that. (Well, Japan is still not accepting Russia's possession of the Sakhalin Islands, but they are not sending kamikase over Moscow last time I checked)
Zeev |
