Comment by pphysch
1 year ago
Anyone can go on Google Earth, look at the official UN borders of Israel, then do a search in Hebrew or "synagogue" (obviously not every synagogue is Israeli) or "checkpoint" and very clearly see the Israeli settlements outside Israel's legal borders. Search "Hizma" for a good example [1].
To make it even more obvious, toggle the "street view" layer over one of these areas and see what gets highlighted.
There is a clear apartness between the neatly-planned Israeli settlements, often built on demolished Palestinian villages, and the organic scattering of indigenous, primarily Arab Palestinian villages. With militarized checkpoints in between. Anyone can see it, if they have the will and a web browser.
[1] - https://earth.google.com/web/search/Hizma+checkpoint,+Sderot...
I'm not sure what point are you trying to make here.
Nobody, including Israelis, will argue about the status of Palestinians living outside of Israel's border, in areas that are occupied (a terminology of international law that Israel also agrees to, https://casebook.icrc.org/a_to_z/glossary/occupation ) do not enjoy equal rights to Israelis (Arabs, Jews, Christians and other) living within Israel's borders. During the US occupation of Japan or Germany post WW-II could the Japanese or Germans travel freely to the US? Vote in the US elections? It's true that Americans didn't settle those regions (they built military bases they still maintain so maybe a little).
"often built on demolished Palestinian villages" - I think this isn't generally true in the west bank, if that was what this statement was about. There are certainly demolished villages within Israel's borders (going back to the 1948 war).
> During the US occupation of Japan or Germany post WW-II could
Which was a temporary state and certainly didn't last for 50 years.
> It's true that Americans didn't settle those regions (they built military bases they still maintain so maybe a little).
There are no countries in Europe where US is maintaining military bases without full consent of their governments.
> could the Japanese or Germans travel freely to the US? Vote in the US elections?
How is this relevant? The people living in the occupied territories do not enjoy equal rights with the illegal Israeli settlers who have taken parts of them over. It's basically colonialism.
If Jordan took back the west bank and Egypt took Gaza back then this also wouldn't last for 50 years. This is a unique situation where the party the land was occupied from doesn't want it back and the party that occupied it doesn't want it and the people living on this occupied land also don't really want it (or at least not willing to make peace in exchange for getting it). Because it's so hard to solve we've been stuck for 50 years. Still the legal status of this territory is the same as occupied Japan or Germany. It's a "temporary state", just a very long one.
In terms of "colonialism" I don't think it quite fits the strict definition of the word. Again it's a bit of a unique situation. If we compare to Europe many of the borders were drawn as a result of war, and this would be no different. The difference is that in Europe the population might have been expelled (e.g. like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Germans_from_Czec... ) and the area annexed. Another interesting history to look at is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_border_change...
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> Which was a temporary state and certainly didn't last for 50 years.
Because the population in neither one enacted a serious of terror campaigns or "Intifadas" against them. If they did it's almost certain that the allies would still occupy Germany and the US Japan.
edit: Also, until the 2+4 treaty, formally known as the "Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany" was signed in 1990 the allies still held part of their occupational rights over Germany. Not 50 years, but 45 at least.
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