Post on 27-Jan-2015
description
Map of war zone 1967
The Sinai Desert. Main Egyptian forces dug in here. Jordanian forces
ready here
Syrian forces ready here
Results• Israel had restored its image as an independent and strong
nation.
• Israel was now three times bigger than it had been in 1966.
• The pan-Arab ideas of Nasser had taken a huge knock.
• Israel now had the security risk of an extra 1 million Arab people inside its own borders. About 1/3 million Arabs fled to Jordan- where they were easy prey to PLO recruiters.
• Israel was now easier to defend against outside aggression having wide deserts and mountains just inside its borders.
• The status of the new territories was problematic. Should the residents get citizen status?Could you have an Israeli/Arab Palestinian? Did Israel really want all the land- especially that with inherent ownership problems (eg the Gaza Strip)?
• Israel launched a huge settlement plan- to occupy the land won with people loyal to Israel.
Hostile Ground: Israel’s Wars Since 1948
Conflict Started Ended Duration Parties Involved/Areas of Fighting
War of Independence
May 14, 1948 January 7, 1949
239 days Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq
Suez War October 29, 1956
November 6, 1956
9 days Egypt, Syria and Jordan
Six-Day War June 5, 1967 June 10, 1967 6 days Egypt, Syria and Jordan
Yom Kippur War
Oct. 6, 1973 May 31, 1974 238 days Egypt and Syria
First Lebanon War
June 1982 June 1985 Approx. 1,000 days
PLO, Syria and Lebanon
Recognizing the Two Narratives
The Palestinian Narrative:
• Fear of Dispossession / 20th Century Jewish Immigration• Nakba of 1948• The 37-year Occupation (West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem)• Spiritual connection to the Holy Land
The Jewish Narrative:
• History of Jewish Persecution• Holocaust• Israel as Jewish ‘Safe Haven’• Spiritual connection to the Promised Land
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Two Perspectives“I have spent a great deal of my life…advocating the rights of the Palestinian people to national self-determination, but I have always tried to do that with full attention paid to the reality of the Jewish people and what they suffered by way of persecution and genocide.”
– the late Edward Said, leading Palestinian American intellectual, Professor of literature at Columbia University and well-known author
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“When Israelis ask me about the Palestinians, I tell them they live like us, they suffer like us, they laugh and cry like us. They are just like us, but they suffer more than us.”
– the renowned Israeli immunologist, Dr. Zvi Bentwich, founder of Israels first and largest AIDS clinic and member of Physicians for Human Rights
Brief Historical Background
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The area known as Palestine was part of the Ottoman empire for 400 years until World War I, at which time Palestine fell under British control. In 1947, the U.N. proposed partitioning the area into two states. In 1967, the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem came under Israeli occupation..
The Composition of the Holy Land
Page 53 of
41Source: 2003 CIA World Fact Book - Palestine data consists of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Economic Comparative Analysis
Israel
Unemployment 1 out of 10
Growth rate -0.8%
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Palestine
Unemployment 1 out of 2Growth rate -18%
Sources: United Nations 2004 Human Development Index (HDI), 2003 CIA World Fact Book.
A Palestinian has to work for 28 years to earn what an Israeli does in one year
GDPPer Capita
Annual BudgetUN HDI Rank
$117.4 Billion$19,500$45.1 Billion22 out of 177
GDPPer Capita
Annual BudgetUN HDI Rank
$2.4 Billion$700$1.2 Billion102 out of 177
In the land between the Mediterranean sea and the Jordan river…
Military Comparison
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Main Battle Tanks – Combat Aircraft –
Artillery – 2001 Military Expenditures –
Official Active Forces –
Source: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Israel Palestine
3,950 4381,542$10.1 billion167,600
000$85 million35,000
“We can argue with the Palestinians about who’s to blame; but about who is suffering worse – there is no argument. They are a destitute nation living in an elaborate prison under the guns of the Israeli army.” Jerusalem Post Editorial, March 3, 2004
Israel continues to maintain tens of thousands of troops in the West Bank and Gaza – Israel invaded and occupied those areas in the 1967 war
The Conflict has taken 4,000 lives in 4 years
Page 57 of
41Sources: Middle East Policy Council, The Guardian Unlimited
Population Citizens Killed U.S. Equivalent
Israel 6,116,533 949 45,048
Palestine 3,512,062 3,538 292,487
From September 29, 2000 to January 5, 2005
How Do We Resolve the Conflict?
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The Formula for a Two State Solution:
Israel and Palestine based on 1967 borders with a shared & open capital in Jerusalem and a just settlement to the refugee problem
I. A new state of Palestine, viable and independent, consisting of the West Bank and Gaza Strip with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital.
II. A state of Israel, secure within its borders, fully recognized by all 22 Arab countries along with peace agreements with each Arab country resulting in normalization of relations and an official end to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
This will result in the following:
The Historic Arab Peace Initiative from the Arab League 2002
1. The full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967.
2. The achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian Refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194.
3. The acceptance of the establishment of a Sovereign Independent Palestinian State on the Palestinian territories occupied since the 4th of June 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
The Arab League would:
A. Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region.
B. Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace
Page 63 of
41Source: The Beirut Declaration of the League of Arab States, 2002.
The Arab League
This offer was repeated in March 2005
Joint Israeli & Palestinian Public Opinion
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76% of Israelis and Palestinians favor a two-state solution
The OneVoice poll of 23,000 Palestinians and 17,000 Israelis as reported in AP and Ha’aretz found that 76% on each side endorsed the two-state concept - a Palestinian state existing beside a Jewish state, "each recognizing the other as such, both democratic and respecting human rights, including minority rights."
Sources: Associated Press and Ha’aretz, May 2004.
Additional Palestinian Public Opinion
• 78% believe that the current Israeli measures, including the building of the separation barrier reduce the chances for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
• 85% support a mutual cessation of violence.
• 59% support taking measures by the Palestinian Authority to prevent attacks on Israelis if an agreement is reached on a mutual cessation of violence.
• 86% of the Palestinians believe that they cannot count on Arab States to support them in regaining their rights.
Page 67 of
41Source: Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, October 2003. Oslo Accords, 1993.
The 1993 Oslo Accord marked an historic turning point for Palestinians – they formally recognized, “the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security.” Furthermore, they reduced their claims to just 22% of the land of historic Palestine (West Bank, Gaza Strip & East Jerusalem).
Israeli Support for Ending the Occupation
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59% of the Jewish Israelis support a unilateral withdrawal of the army from most of the occupied territories and dismantling most of the settlements
1,371 Israeli soldiers now refuse to play a role in, “the continued oppression of the Palestinian people in the occupied territories.”
Sources: The Forward 8/20/04. DaHaf poll, May 6, 2002 by Peace Now. Refuseniks Watch. Yedioth Ahronoth, November 14, 2003
Four former Israeli security service chiefs called on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza Strip and dismantle most of Jewish settlements
Ami Ayalon, ex-Shin Bet chief, “I favor unconditional withdrawal from the Territories – preferably in the context of agreement but not necessarily”
Phot
o: A
mi A
yalo
n
“The Occupation of Palestinian territory is eroding Israel’s international standing. The U.S. is virtually our only friend, so we must remember that it, too, supports a withdrawal almost to the borders of 1967.” – Ehud Olmert Current Deputy PM of Israel
Current Challenges to a Two-State Solution
I. The current path of the Israeli barrier in the West Bank
II. The 200+ Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
III. Violence Against Civilians
IV. Restarting the Peace Process
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Challenge: The Path of the Israeli Barrier
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The barrier’s path has been projected to annex between 7% – 45% of Palestinian land. This will:
1. Completely surround 100,000 people in 42 towns2. Reduce the available water supply by 1 billion gallons 3. Confiscate hundreds of thousands of acres of land4. Severely restrict travel to jobs, hospitals and schools5. Adversely affect 4 out of 10 Palestinians
Sources: B’Tselem, Gush Shalom, Ha’aretz, International Court of Justice
The Israeli Supreme Court has ruled that the West Bank is “in belligerent [Israeli] occupation…subject to international law”
And the International Court of Justice at the Hague has ruled that the path of the barrier in the West Bank is illegal and must be torn down and compensation paid to the Palestinians adversely affected by it.
Is It Too Late For Two States?Some people argue it is too late by pointing to the fact that there are literally hundreds of Israeli settlement compounds throughout the occupied Palestinian territories with more being built every day. According to Condoleeza Rice, “Settlement expansion is not consistent with our understanding under the road map.”
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Question: Have you tried visualizing the settlements without the settlers?
Evacuating the settlements is a key ingredient for a just and final peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Sources: Brit Tzedek v’Shalom Jewish Alliance for Justice & Peace, Americans for Peace Now, CCAR 6/11/03
The Central Conference of American Rabbis in a letter to President Bush stated, “No peace can be established without…the dismantling of certain Israeli settlements.”
Something to consider:
•“Whoever becomes merciful on the cruel ends up becoming cruel to the merciful.”
•Rabbi Yonah Gerondi (Spain, 13th Century)
Obligatory WarWhen the Eternal your God brings you to the land that you are about to enter and possess, and God dislodges many nations before You – the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations much larger than you – and the Eternal your God delivers them to you and you defeat them, you must doom them to destruction; grant them no terms and give them no quarter. Deuteronomy 7:1-2
Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey after you left Egypt – how undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear. Therefore when the Eternal God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Eternal your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget! Deuteronomy 25:17-19
Discretionary War
The king may lead forth the army to a voluntary war on the decision of a court of seventy-one. He may force a way through private property and none may oppose him. There is no limitation to the king’s way. The plunder taken by the people in war must be given to him and he receives the first choice when it is divided. Talmud Sanhedrin 20b
Commanded War
When you are at war in your land against an aggressor who attacks you, you shall sound short blasts on the trumpets, that you may be remembered before the Eternal your God and be delivered from your enemies. Numbers 10:9
Preventive or Preemptive War?
Rava said: Everyone agrees that the wars Joshua fought to conquer the Land of Israel were obligatory. Everyone agrees that the expansionist wars of King David had to be discretionary. They argue about a strike against gentiles in order to weaken them from a future attack. One party considers it commanded [in self defense] and one requires it be discretionary. Talmud Sotah 44b