This is what keeps Palestinians supporting the militants against Israel, as much as most Palestinians fear and hate the consequences when Israel attacks their essentially helpless towns with full military power: because Israel uses it economic and military power to keep taking all the Palestinians have left. The following is an from an article by John Judis in theNew Republic. The link is at the bottom. John Judiss intellectual origins are on the New Left, but he is an excellent, informed reporter with balanced judgement. Israel’s founding in 1948 began to address the terrible wrongs that Europe’s Jews had suffered. It provided a state and what seemed like a safe haven. But Palestine’s Arabs, who had made up the overwhelming majority of the region, and who believed after the promises of World War I that they would gain their own state, came instead under Jordanian and Egyptian rule after Israel won its independence. And after the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel annexed Jerusalem, occupied the West Bank and Gaza, and turned the Palestinians who lived there into colonial subjects. The Israeli government encouraged and subsidized Jewish settlements in the territories in violation of the fourth Geneva Convention that prohibits an occupying power from transferring its population into the territories it has seized. Israel’s settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem now number over 500,000. Palestinians are allowed to build on only about 40 percent of the West Bank. Settlers enjoy Israeli citizenship and rule of law. The Palestinians are under harsh military rule. No Palestinian may travel abroad without Israeli approval. There are 542 roadblocks impeding the movement of Palestinians, but not of settlers on the West Bank. Water rights are restricted. The settlers consume about six times more water than the 2.6 million Palestinians. Settler attacks on the Palestinians, which the police often ignore, have steadily increased. The number of “price tag” attacks spiked by 300 percent this last spring during the peace talks. newrepublic/article/118846/israel-palestine-history-behind-their-new-war
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 22:24:54 +0000
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