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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (198753)	8/23/2006 1:12:43 PM
From: geode00	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

What LAW? You keep missing the point. The LAW isn't a thing like a stone or a tree, it's a figment of our imagination. It only exists because we agree to let it exist. The LAW is simply an agreement between most people in a specific place at a specific time. That's it. 1. Exactly how many, what % of Palestinians sold their lands willingly to Israel? "...In 1950, two years after Israel's creation, it applied the Absentee Property Law to the land of any Palestinian who fled or was forced to leave their property during the 1948 war. The same law was later applied to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip after the 1967 war. The property rights were transferred to the Custodian of Absentee Property without compensation to the property owner or provision for him/her to appeal the take over. In the Occupied Territories the seized land has been used predominately for military bases, Jewish-only bypass roads, and settlements. Although Palestinians may have been away from their lands during both periods, they were temporarily "absent." Those who fled in 1948 and in 1967 were prevented by Israel from returning to their property. Unlike Palestinians who in 1948 were shut out of the newly created state and ended up in neighboring Arab countries or just a few miles away in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem landowners are not absent. Many landowners live in the surrounding Jerusalem suburbs and in the West Bank...." usa.mediamonitors.net 2. What about the right of return? "...The Palestinian refugees claim the right of return, based on Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ("Everyone has the right to leave any country including his own, and to return to his country") and United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194, paragraph 11, where the General Assembly: Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for the loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the governments or authorities responsible... Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation. Many of them also argue that, by the UDHR, this right is an individual and not a collective one, and that it cannot therefore be restricted by any collective agreement between Palestinians and Israel.[citation needed] They also regard as a massive injustice the fact that Jews are allowed to emigrate to Israel under Israel's Law of Return, even if their ancestors have not lived in the area for 2000 years, while people who grew up in the area and whose immediate ancestors had lived there for many generations are forbidden from returning...." 3. You see this conflict in terms of one side's RIGHTS under the LAW as absolute and the other side as some kind of criminal entity. It is, however, nothing of the sort. Israel wasn't formed through a law, it was formed through war. It can be dismantled through war as well. Israel needs to find agreement for itself, be in perpetual war or be dismantled. Ditto the rest of us.