Comment by Wytwwww
1 year ago
> 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...
The people living on this land wasn't ever offered a credible "this is your land & we leave you alone on it" deal, though. No sovereign country would tolerate a complete blockade of its borders, yet that is seemingly what Israel expected from Palestinians when "giving" them Gaza.
Gaza wasn't blockaded when it was handed to the Palestinians. Only later when Hamas came to power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip
EDIT: Just want to add that the reality is more nuanced. Naturally Israel affects control over its border with Gaza and Egypt affected control over its border. Israel has definitely refused to let Gaza operate an airport or a sea port and so it maintained some amount of control together with Egypt. That said a lot of how this evolved was around choices made by Palestinians and the rise of Hamas led to the official blockade being imposed. I do think this was an opportunity for Palestinians to demonstrate how they can govern territory controlled by them and be peaceful neighbors which ofcourse did not happen.
> people living on this land wasn't ever offered a credible "this is your land & we leave you alone on it" deal, though
Nobody in the former Ottoman Empire did.
> No sovereign country would tolerate a complete blockade of its borders
Plenty of enclave countries exist. The blockade clamped shut when Hamas took power [1]. A coup, mind you, which overthrew Gaza’s fledgling (and flawed) democracy.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip
> the party that occupied it doesn't want it
That's not that obvious considering all the illegal settlements. I'm sure they want the land just not the people living there.
But yes, no clear solution especially considering that the only (non-Hamas) option for self government, the Palestinian Authority/Fatah is thoroughly incompetent and corrupt.
> 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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