The fence and the Hag Court decision

Israel started a war against Egypt and Syria, Jordan started the war against Israel. (BTW, there were difficult air combats to the Israeli pilots against the Jordan pilots as the Jordan pilots are great pilots).
The fact that Jordan started the war is an important one to my mind. I think that a country that defences itself against an enemy who starts a war, is not like a country that goes with no reason into another country.
Also don't forget that Israel wanted to give back the Gaza Strip to president Saadat but he refused - and he knew why.

I told you that the procedure of the decision wasn't right as Shamgar described it, because the facts (like Israel/Jordan) are not given in a complete view.

For myself, I told you that I don't feel well with a fence that splits a farmer from his land.

And with no connection to this thread but to others we argued about - few groups of terrorists asked Israel to erase them from the list of wanted terrorists and they in return will commite to not orgenize terror acts against Israel.

So maybe I don't understand few of the acts that Israel takes against terrorism and I'm not sure that people abroad are understanding it better.

Arye

Arye,

So you don't understand what Israel is doing and we don't understand what you're trying to say about it! I worry that language difficulties may be proving insurmountable here, but nevertheless I share bigmick's exasperation and have to confess to being completely in the dark myself as to what it is you are actually trying to say.

Please clarify - for all our sakes

Regards,

JonR

JonR, I suspect that looking for clarification or hard facts from Arye is a fruitless exercise. It’s like trying to nail jelly to a wall.

Sorry Arye, but your pointless, illogical, insupportable, factually incorrect waffle is too awful to bear; it’s like arguing with a tired and confused toddler. There is nothing rewarding in responding to this nonsense so I’m going to ease out of this one. Bye.

JonR,

I'm sorry that you don't understand me but I can't help it.

1. I think that saying that

quote:

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In the 1967 armed conflict, Israeli forces occupied all the territories which had constituted Palestine under British Mandate (including those known as the West Bank, lying to the east of the Green Line).

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is twisting the facts - although it is true, Israel didn't occupy the West Bank without a reason - and the reason was the attack of Israel by Jordan.
2. bigmick asked me to bring this quote from the decision of the court, but when I bring it, he says that he doesn't understand why.
3. It may be a crime, but the main goal of a government is to keep its citizens lives - and here there is something strange: The tough policy of the Israeli government against the terror proves itself as a good one as there are less and less terror acts against citizens in Israel.

I hope this is clear, and if it is not, please excuse me!

Arye

quote:

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1. I think that saying that
quote:
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In the 1967 armed conflict, Israeli forces occupied all the territories which had constituted Palestine under British Mandate (including those known as the West Bank, lying to the east of the Green Line).

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is twisting the facts - although it is true, Israel didn't occupy the West Bank without a reason - and the reason was the attack of Israel by Jordan.

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So if it's true what's the problem? Isn't that just what big mick was saying? If you want to rehash reasons back to the old testament then we can look at what was said earlier abouth the jordanians counterattcking. I'm no expert in this but a quick google shows that big mick is on the money here. I could care less if it matters to this case or not but stacking his track record on facts against yours, I know whose team I'm batting for.

I totally understand if big mick doesn't bother replying to your post, so if not I'm guessing he reckoned that your poorly referenced quote

quote:

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73. In the 1967 armed conflict, Israeli forces occupied all the territories which had constituted Palestine under British Mandate (including those known as the West Bank, lying to the east of the Green Line).

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doesn't actually say

quote:

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in the year 1967 Israel conquered the West Bank

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and doesn't provide necessary context.Just my take.

[This message was edited by Harvey on Sat 24 July 2004 at 23:48.]

I'm pret<y drunk at the moment so I suggest a life is ino rder )

Harvey,

I really can't agree with you or with bigmick, maybe I don't see the things in the way you see it but let me try the last try:
suppose you are a judge and there is a story you have to judge and I'm the only one who can tell you the facts.
First I tell you the story:
There are two guys, one is a very strong one and the other is a weak one. The weak guy starts to hit the strong one, the strong one hits back and the weak guy is hardly injured and he is taken to a hospital.

The facts you get as a judge -
There was a fight between the two guys and one was badly injured and was taken to hospital.

Do you think that the facts you got as a judge are the truth or are a kind of a twist of the truth?

There is a big differece between a country that invades into another country with no reason and between a country that invades to a country that attacks it.

If someone doesn't agree or doesn't see the difference, then there is a big disagreement between us. But in this disagreement, I can't trust the advices of the other side.
I don't think that Israel should be accused for being a strong country - and the occupied areas, especially the West Bank, was taken by Israel as Jordan started a war against us.

If you think that it doesn't matter, then it is ok with me (as long as you are living there and not living here...).

BTW, as it went with another argue with bigmick, you have to be busy day and night dealing with what your government is doing and Iraq and I don't think that you can have the time to judge Israel.

Arye

quote:

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Originally posted by bigmick:
... Unless I’m mistaken, the actual war started with Israel launching attacks on Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Jordan. Jordanian forces launched an unsuccessful counter attack and over the next 6 days Israel did indeed conquer the West Bank.

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The catalyst for the attacks lauched by Israel in 1967 was the massing of Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian forces at the instigation of the Soviet Union.

Steve Margolis
defy convention - make music

And Egypt threat to stop ships from arriving to Eilat via Tyran Strait.

Arye

Steve, my reading of what big mick said is that the "actual" start of the war was Israel's attack. He appears to be quite specific on this point as he is rebuffing Arye's notion that Jordan's attack started the war. Whatever the catalyst was or wasn't is not part of this discussion as far as I can see, but I'm sure that a quick google will reveal that there was a series of catalysts on both sides leading back to BC which led to the war, so this tit for tat game is futile and doesn't change the fact that the court's decision is undoubtedly valid.

Arye, I'm sure that i haven't a clue what you're talking about with your two guys story. i have to confess that I haven't read the decision, but if the judges have had statements from 40nations including US, Israel etc. i'm guessing that they have had a broad spectrum of opinion and information. I recall reading that Israel refused to cooperate fully with the court, so if the full story was not heard, why the hell didn't your government provide full disclosure and why should you now be whinging about how the court conducted it's affairs? For my sins i am a lawyer and although i have not been involved in litigation since training, I know enough to state that where there is a dispute, the court will call on both sides to provide evidence through disclosure and if you refuse to provide same to support your case, then tough. No point in crying all over the forum pal. Your country doesn't care about international law so what do you care?

I didn't support the war or the motivations of the US or UK, so I think that theircrimes should be judged just as those of Israel. As a civilised human being I have all the time in the world to critise Israel's crimes thank you very much and I sure as hell don't need your permission

[This message was edited by Harvey on Sun 25 July 2004 at 20:38.]

Harvey said:

"Arye, I'm sure that i haven't a clue what you're talking about with your two guys story."

Harvey, join the club!

Arye said:

"BTW, as it went with another argue with bigmick, you have to be busy day and night dealing with what your government is doing and Iraq and I don't think that you can have the time to judge Israel."

Once again, Arye, you employ your standard last-ditch attempt to persuade us that whatever your arguments about Israel, only you are uniquely qualified to make them because you happen to be Israeli. Your similarly old-hat assertion that Blair's war on Iraq somehow invalidates our right to counter those very same arguments is specious to say the least and fools no-one.

I have news for you. One of the benefits conferred on members of the Naim Forum is a little concept that perhaps is alien to you - it's called 'freedom of speech'. This allows us to judge and have opinions about whoever or whatever we like (responsibility and Forum rules permitting). We do so in the knowledge that our judgements or opinions can be countered by others. Even yourself.

Unfortunately this does occasionally result in fairly pointless threads like this, but then again I suppose that's just an occupational hazard and moreover, just my opinion.

As far as I am aware Israel were perfectly entitled to provide a judge to sit on the International Court but refused to do so. So whingeing about the judgement after the fact as Israel has done is itself invalid and again serves no-one except Israel's one-eyed interests. Again, all just my opinion.

Make of that what you will.

Regards,

JonR

Steve
You are correct in identifying one of the catalysts for the Israeli attack. Would you care to suggest the major catalyst that brought these countries together in this purpose? Contrary to what Israel would have one believe, it's less of an instinctive, visceral loathing of Jews by Arabs and considerably more of the aggressive regional policy of the Israeli government.

As I've already said however this sifting through history to play the blame game is both pointless and irrelevant to this discussion. The initiator of this thread has had his initial contentions disproved and his spurious intentions scuppered and so seeks to obfuscate with this ridiculous tangent on who started the 6 day war. Please Steve don't help this guy with this game.

Who the hell cares when people are losing their livelihoods, their lands and their families to another insidious land grab masquerading as a security policy?

I've given up dealing with Arye on this one but concur with the sentiments of JonR and Harvey on this matter.

Can we have a ball back please Mister ?


Fritz von Scrumpin

quote:

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Originally posted by bigmick:
Steve
You are correct in identifying one of the catalysts for the Israeli attack. Would you care to suggest the major catalyst that brought these countries together in this purpose? Contrary to what Israel would have one believe, it's less of an instinctive, visceral loathing of Jews by Arabs and considerably more of the aggressive regional policy of the Israeli government.

As I've already said however this sifting through history to play the blame game is both pointless and irrelevant to this discussion.

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I'm not convinced that there is not a visceral loathing - on both sides. From what we see, there is considerable indoctrination of hatred in children of a chillingly young age.

It's also true to say that the situation was not good even prior to the 67 war, with constant threats by their neighbours to 'drive the Israelis into the sea' and Arab invasions in 1948 and 1956.

However, the Israeli government must shoulder considerable blame for the current situation.

It should also be said that the coverage we get in the UK, from the press or television, is neither neutral or unbiased and this colours all our views.

You're quite right that 'sifting through history to play the blame game' is pointless, although perhaps not irrelevant to this discussion. It's also too complex to lead to much clarity.

To obtain a true historical perspective we would have to take account of the Nazi attrocities against the Jews, without which the State of Israel would almost certainly not have been declared and endorsed by the UN in 1948.

Jews and Arabs had coexisted peacefully on the land for thousands of years, prior to the British rule of Palestine. One could argue that it was the British policy of 'divide and rule' that really started the current suspicion and hatred between the two sides.

However, as you said, playing the blame game is pointless and the important thing is where they go from here.

On the surface it seems so simple. There must be peace, security and fair borders for both sides and, it seems to me, that wise and enlightened leadership is what is needed above all else. Unfortunately this is hardly what we have with either the hard-right Sharon or the near billionnaire Arafat.

It has not been my intention to join an argument between the different proponents on this forum. I merely posted what I posted to counter the suggestion - widely believed - that Israel was totally at fault for the 67 war.

There's no black or white here. I pray that grey turns slowly to gold.

Steve Margolis
defy convention - make music

Steve I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments and I believe I share your aspirations in this regard.

When I indicated the factual course of events it was simply to correct a factual error in Arye's post and also to dispel his notion that it was the Arabs who were totally at fault for the war. I also restated that regardless, the history matters not one jot given what the court was being asked to decide on. IMHO, the notion of either side trying to squirm out of valid and overwhelming censure of criminal activity by reference to an arguable sequence of historical events is quite simply sickening. If one tries to defend the land grab and attendant humanitarian abuses that flow from the construction of this wall by reference to 1967 or whenever, then why should the actions of a suicide bomber not be condoned on the basis that his parents and siblings were blown to pieces by an Israeli missile, that his family home was bulldozed, that his land was seized, that there has been systematic Israeli abuse back to 1948 and beyond. It's perverted thinking, it’s utterly pointless and solves nothing.

Steve,

I agree with most of your words including the fact that "the Israeli government must shoulder considerable blame for the current situation."

I don't agree with you about the thought that the past is not important and we can start from now and on:
First, it is almost a crucial question in complicated situations how far to go to the past. It is not so easy to decide that we can erase the past and start from a point we like to start from.
Secondly, a great difficulty in solving the problem now is the demand of Arafat to let the Palestinians who were evacuated in the year 1948 returning back to their homes. I think that it is a sure bate that Israel is ready to say - let's forget the past and let's solve the problems from now and on, I don't think that the Palestinians are ready for that, their official leaders are not ready.
Thirdly, you don't want to talk about the past? Why mentioning the war and the fact that "Israel occupied the West bank"? Going with the line that there is no past and talking about blames is pointless, let us all say that there is a given situation these days, let us solve the problems as they are coming up now: The Palestinians will stop the terror at once and Israel will give them their land and they will be able to have their own country.

Arye

At least I know when I'm wasting my breath !

Arye, what the hell are you on? I can't see that Steve even mentioned the occupation of the west bank. His comments about the war only appeared because of your clumsy attempt to shift the focus onto the events of 1967 when you said:

quote:

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I meant that the court didn't relate formally to the all facts. For example, they said that in the year 1967 Israel conquered the West Bank.

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It was YOU who brought up the war which as everybody else had acknowledged has nothing to do with the ICJ decision on the wall. It is you who is insanely fixated with your own idea of history and your own twisted notion of blame.

Interestingly, I found that we have ICJ decisions on our intranet and I looked for your quotes. "The Report of 8 September 2003 of the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967" is simply the full title of a report submitted by South African professor John Dugard; there is no value judgement in this quote, it is simply noted as the title of one of the many sources that the court has relied upon.

I couldn't find your S.73 quote. The dossier is obviously a collection of sources and isn't sectioned in the format you suggest. What specific document is this S.73 part of?

Having scanned the decision and dossier, I now understand why big mick stated in exasperation that he didn't have a clue what the hell you were on about.

Harvey,

Forget about the decision of the ICJ.
I said that a person in Israel, who was the president of the Israeli Supreme Court, said that in western countries a decision of a court starts with a description of all the facts that are connected to the case.
I guess that we can agree on this.
The decision of the ICJ starts with the war of 1967. I say, that it is not all the fact to relate the war, and to my opinion, it is not objective truth to relate to a war without relating to who started the war. If you think that it doesn’t matter who started the war, than I don’t agree with you and you can say that the way of showing the facts by the ICJ is a very correct one. I think that it is a crucial fact to see who started a war when it happens.

I have a document with this title:

“INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE
YEAR 2004 9 July 2004
2004 9 July
General List
No. 131
LEGAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF A WALL
IN THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY”

I quote from this document:

quote:

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73. In the 1967 armed conflict, Israeli forces occupied all the territories which had
constituted Palestine under British Mandate (including those known as the West Bank, lying
to the east of the Green Line).

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quote:

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The territories situated between the Green Line (see paragraph 72 above) and the
former eastern boundary of Palestine under the Mandate were occupied by Israel in 1967
during the armed conflict between Israel and Jordan.

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quote:

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93. After the occupation of the West Bank in 1967…

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The word “terror”, BTW, appears only twice and in a way that can make anyone who knows what is going on here to laugh loudly about this ICJ way of relating to the facts.

Arye

quote:

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Forget about the decision of the ICJ.

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The decision is the whole point! Without the decision there is little of worth and if you try to undermine the process you are trying to undermine the decision. As others have already asked, what the hell is your point in this thread? If you wholly accept the decision then what on earth are you bleating on about?

quote:

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In the fence case, the court took the facts as it was given to it by the UN. These facts didn’t include a word about the terror.

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You have now upped your count to two instances of the word terror in this weighty document. I know why I’m laughing out loud and it’s more to do with your failure to deal with the facts. I have the UN dossier in front of me. It is an 1164 page document and on it’s front page is the UN emblem and the title “LEGAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF A WALL IN THE PALESTINIAN OCCUPIED TERRITORY (Request for an advisory opinion). I have just scrolled through and picked out 3 pages pretty much at random and have instantly found 8 references to terror or terrorism. It’s not very scientific and your point is irrelevant to the thread but it sure as hell blows your ship out of the water. I have no idea what document you have before you and I’m pretty sure you don’t either. Your other quotes are as meaningless as ever. The decision is related specifically to the Palestinian occupied territory; when did this current occupation commence, answer 1967. And there is still no S.73 that I can see. A piss poor diversion Arye.

You have, of course, misrepresented what I said about judicial procedure. I said

quote:

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where there is a dispute, the court will call on both sides to provide evidence through disclosure and if you refuse to provide same to support your case, then tough

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You seem to think that if your government can’t be arsed to cooperate then the world should stop whilst court spends an age trying to provide evidence that will satisfy the Israeli government, which on the basis of your infantile semantics would of course never happen.

Will we see it from Space ?



Fritz von Baigelnaut

quote:

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Originally posted by Vuk's son:
Harvey, bigmick, JonR

Cool down. You argue a heated and derogatory debate mostly about nothing with someone who basically agrees with you.

Omer.

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That's news to me, Omer, but if so I'm delighted. Now as Arye's unofficial 'translator' could you please tell me what it is we are supposed to have agreed about?

Regards,

JonR

quote:

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with someone who basically agrees with you.

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Who are we agreeing with now? Please don't say you're talking about Arye as that can only mean that his posts have been even more incomprehensible than I'd thought

We've repeatedly asked him what the hell his point is with this thread and we are all still in the dark while he rattles on about who started the war. He appears to say that the ICJ decision is good and then proceeds to say that the court failed to proceed correctly. It makes no sense. Can I join with JonR and implore you to ask him what he's trying to say and what fundamental point we agree on.
Cheers in advance for your help Omer.

hi Omer
Sorry to nitpick, and I'm sure that your intentions are good, but I suspect that your assessment of Arye's input to this thread is a bit awry in respect of Arye's intention.

Here's Arye's contention

quote:

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In the fence case, the court took the facts as it was given to it by the UN. These facts didn’t include a word about the terror. Shamgar said that it was clear that the facts were given are not showing the whole picture - and in this case it is obvious that the judges should find out the true picture by themselves.

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The facts do not support this. The court drew on evidence from many sources, including a statement from Israel. The UN dossier refers may times to the terror emanating from both sides in this conflict. Not only did Isrel fail to appoint a judge, they refused to cooperate officially with the court and any shortfall in the evidence is down to this failure to engage in the process.

quote:

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I can understand his source of qualms towards the decision. He wants the other side's part in the blame to be more prominent. He wants the history books "correct".

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Look at the title of the dossier "“LEGAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF A WALL IN THE PALESTINIAN OCCUPIED TERRITORY (Request for an advisory opinion)". The question is whether the construction of this wall, and the many consequences of this construction in the occupied territories, is legal or illegal. It isn't a discussion about who started the 6 day war or who was to blame for any of the other disputes in this sorry conflict. Arye can be concerned about historical blame but that cannot have bearing on the court's decision and has no business in this thread. As I said above, when a there is a suicide bomb we don't hear governments or media debating what drove this person to take their life in such a way. The loss of siblings, land or livlihood at the hands of the IDF might be a fact and blame may be valid, but the unalterable fact is that the crime is wrong and repellent. I'd be very surprised if trials of intercepted bombers consider the losses as outlined above as a valid defence or even a legal consideration.

quote:

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a bit confused (recall media is Israeli-sided) but their heart's in the right place,

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I suppose this explains some things.

Thanks Omer, your input is most welcome.

PS I also don't recognise the UN dossier that Arye claims to be quoting from. The official dossier is a multi-sourced 1000+ page document which sounds like Harvey's description.

Omer I agree that the court doesn't sit in a void, but likewise it can only be expected to consider evidence that is actually pertinent to the matter before them and really this was my point. The court has made it's decisions on representations from 40 nations, including the US, UK and Israel and it has had the UN dossier which does refer to terrorism. Arye seems to infer that the court relied on nothing but a report from the UN which basically said Palestinians always good, Israelis always evil because all that has happened is that the Israelis occupied in 1967 and are now building a wall. To believe that this is what these learned judges think is to be incredibly naive.

This thread is about the court decision and that decision is about the wall, it's claimed function, why it has to exist, why it has to be where it is, to what extent people in the Occupied Territories are being directly and indirectly affected by it and on the balance of the answers to these questions whether or not it is illegal. One only has to review the events of the last 5 or so years to find the answers to these questions and indeed given it's brief the court should not concern itself to any extent with matters outside of the current occupation either in geographical, political or temporal terms. Who attacked who in 1967 doesn't answer any of the above questions.

I might as well ask why there was no mention of the massacre of Palestinians in Lydda or Deir Yassin, no dwelling on the Israeli raids throughout 1950-67 in which Arabs villages were destroyed and Arabs killed, all so that Israel could divert/steal their water source; the water theft incidentally was one of the key catalysts of the war. By 2000, 150 Palestinian villages still have no running water. These are all facts and all perpetuated by Israel but they have no business in this matter and the fact that the court didn't talk at length about these massacres or the water diversion, which is still a current problem doesn't matter a jot. It's not in their brief and their omission doesn't mean that the court was unprofessional or that the process was flawed. It's doesn't change what has already happened, the facts are the facts and if someone actually cares about the history they will take the trouble to avoid taking snapshots and aportioning blame on the basis of a single act or point in history e.g. the notion that the jordanian attack started the war.