Friday, January 02, 2009

If you repeat the lie enough times...

'Major Israeli settlement 'unlawful'

By Tim Franks
BBC News, Ofra


Israeli settlements on occupied territory are seen as illegal by the rest of the world.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7795139.stm

Thats right, folks, EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD thinks YOU SUCK!

'The research into land ownership in Ofra was carried out by the Israeli human rights group, B'tselem.

Sarit Michaeli, the spokeswoman for the group, says it is important to remember that under international law - at least in the eyes of the rest of the world - all Israeli settlements on occupied territory are illegal.

But she says that the new research removes any legal prop for Ofra to exist under Israeli law.'

You may or may not have followed the whole Israeli settlements saga, but reading this has a special resonance for me- I am currently reading '1948' by Benny Morris. The purchase of land by incoming Jews (Jews additional to the thousands who never left Palestine that is) started in the 1890's and it was a brisk market. The sellers? The bigwig Arab landowners under the Ottomans rule. By the end of the 1920s large amounts of the coastal plain had been purchased.

After the 1948 war, sales still went on, but they had to be kept quiet, because now the sellers were considered traitors- traitors to what exactly is hard to say because there is no Palestinian state to betray.

But two things are being conflated here. There is the legal ownership of land which has to do with title deeds, land registrys and that sort of thing. And completely seperate is land which is conquered in war. Over and over again, the Arabs have attacked the state of Israel, and pretty much every time they LOSE more land. Now, smart people would stop that after a couple of goes, but hey, the Palestinians are no Einsteins (pun intended). So lets see- you start a war to annilihate some people, but they are much better at war than you, kick your arse and you lose some of your land. What claim do you have to the land you lost, exactly? In what court are you going to try to reclaim that land, precisely?

After world war II, Germany lost a huge chunk of its land in the east to Poland- taken away, lost, denied to it forever* (* or until the next war anyway). I can't remember hearing the international press bleating on about the poor lower Silesians, and all the illegal Polish settlements... but then thats probably because everybody felt the Germans didn't deserve pity after starting such a long and immensely destructive war. So whats different about the Arabs? How come no matter how many times they attack Israel and lose, land taken by the Israelis doesn't now belong as of right to Israel?

Well it does. The 'facts on the ground' may be locked in a 'Groundhog day' for moron leftards but in the actual Israel there is a wholly different reality. I suspect that most of the land currently under Israels control will end up controlled by, lived on, bought and sold by Jews. For BBC website writers and readers that must sting but hey, sometimes you just don't get what you want.

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