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Politics : GENEVA ACCORD -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Soileau who wrote (77)	12/7/2003 10:30:42 AM
From: John Soileau	Respond to of 190

Correction to last post: the western portion. John

To: John Soileau who wrote (77)	12/7/2003 12:44:52 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 190

Yes, you are right, it's a very complicated situation. About 70% of the Mandate was government owned since Ottoman times and Turkish land records were a mess. The 70% passed from Turkish to British to Israeli, Jordanian and Egyptian hands. The Turks attempted land reform in the 19th century; it seemed to have the effect of mainly putting land into the hands of absentee landlords, not the tenant farmers who had lived on it for generations. Certainly the Israeli confiscations of "absentee-owned" land after 1948 are something that would be unacceptable to its former owners. Israel did offer compensation, btw, but it was always refused, since to accept would mean an end of the claim on the land. What I am trying to set straight is the Palestinian supporters attempt to elide the period of Zionist settlement in 1880 - 1947, where land was bought at high prices, with the period following the war of 1948. The Palestinian supporters wish to elide this into one long period of, how did marcos put it "robbery, murder and suppression of indigenous"? while neatly overlooking the Israeli war of Independence, a war where the Zionists were much the underdog, and lost 1% of their entire population. Had they lost the war, they would have lost much more than that, of course. The Israelis had hard choices after the war, and a flood of Jewish refugees from all over, and the bitter realization that the Arabs still weren't going to sign a peace, even though the Brits tried to negotiate one. Had Ben Gurion realized that the Arabs were going to be so implacable in their hatred of the Israelis that they were going to shove their Palestinian "brothers" into squalid camps and keep them there in perpetuity - and get the US taxpayer to feed them at UN expense! - I don't know if he might have made a different decision. Probably not.

To: John Soileau who wrote (77)	12/7/2003 3:06:43 PM
From: marcos	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 190

Heard on the radio this morning, Hamas et al declare ceasefire on civilians, not on zionist military or 'settlers', just civilians .... good move but a partial one, a lot of those 'settlers' keep children around their forts and will use every available propaganda opportunity of wounded or dead kids ... far better to restrict operations to only against armed combatants outside the green line ... and even there, a complete ceasefire during negotiations could help, provided that occupying forces are genuinely prepared to talk There are patches of land legitimately acquired by zionists prior to 1948, all through the western and northern portions of Palestine, they had over six per cent of the mandate by then, this can't be forgotten ... there were also enclaves elsewhere, as in Jerusalem ... it's such a patchwork, that even given outside impartial judges with the power to enforce their rulings, you still can't really separate these two tribes without a lot of people losing land and homes They are so alike ... even on food rules, what's the difference between kosher and halal, probably not much 'the "I was there first" argument' - Nadine and the old US general may be right, it's really about who gets there firstest with the mostest guns .... leads one to fantasise about how the independent democracies could maybe organise a policing effort, roll in there and slap both brands of warmongers upside the head .... not gonna happen any time soon of course, and what a tar-baby it would be if botched, but quite the tempting thought, arrive in force and lay down rule of law, three simple regulations to start - thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not marry within thy tribe