HRW: West Bank Barrier Endangers Basic Rights

Israel: West Bank Barrier Endangers Basic Rights
U.S. Should Deduct Costs From Loan Guarantees

Human Rights Watch

(New York, October 1, 2003) The United States should deduct the cost of the West Bank separation barrier from U.S. loan guarantees for Israel, Human Rights Watch said today.

In a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush, Human Rights Watch said the barrier's path and operating arrangements violate the freedom of movement of Palestinians, endangering their access to food, water, education, and medical services. With every mile the barrier cuts into the West Bank, towns, villages, and residents become separated from their lands, crops, services, water, and jobs.

According to the World Bank, some 150,000 Palestinians will be harmed by the first phase of the barrier, which has already been completed. Other phases were likely to affect at least 150,000 more.

"Even in its first phase, the barrier is taking a terrible toll on tens of thousands of people," said Joe Stork, acting executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch. "President Bush should ensure that the U.S. government does its utmost to prevent these serious violations of international law. Deducting the barrier's cost from the loan guarantees is an obvious place to start."

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will be affected. Indirectly, all the Palestinains will be rather highly affected by this.

about this problem. they didn`t use his "road map" so their on their own..he`s got an election coming up.
so much for being the leader of the free world.

His idea of "liberation" is occupying a country and forcing his type of leader down the throats of the liberated country. Afghanistan is the perfect example of that.

will enhance the right to not be blown up.

**scribbles something down on a notepad labelled "Top 10 DUers to not take seriously" **

of those 10 top DUers I presume?

of course, it COULd have been built on the Green Line, but instead it was built on Palestinian territory, causing all these problems.

that "fighting terror" is, and has in most cases been, merely a transparent justification for stealing Palestinian land.

that's nothing new.

One must not forget how this land was won by Israel when the people surrounding them tried to eliminite all Jews and push them into the sea.

It's very sad that so many people here forget history or revise it to suit their goals of punishing Israel for their hard won land.

unlike that in Iraq, why did the Israelis keep the territory? And why did they build settlements on it?

"why did the Israelis keep the territory"

Because there was no one to give it back to. Jordan quickly renounced all claims to the territory so that ruled them out. That left the Palestinians who decided that the same bunch that hijacked airliners, blew up Olympic atheletes and otherwise waged a guerrella war of terror on the Israeli people beginning before the '67 war and was dedicated to the destruction of Israel (that's right the PLO) was the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people".

So Darranar, if you think it would have been a good idea for Israel to give the West Bank over to an entity that was formed in 1964 to destroy Israel, I'll wait patiently for an explaination as to how rational of a security move that would have been for Israel.

Yes, I think that they should have withdrew, even if it meant a PLO takeover.

Why idealists don't always make good world leaders.

No leader would ever enter into an agreement to let a terrorist group like the PLO take over the territory next door. It's suicidal and idealistic.

When extremist organizations become national leaders, they lose much of their ideaological basis and start becoming survivalists - much easier to negotiate with. Iran is a good example.

He has shown no tendency to become a leader.

and he is a leader, deserving or not.

Arafat takes people into the pit, that is not so much leadership as a suicide pact.

that doesn't mean that he doesn't lead them. Leaders don't require leadership; rather, they require power, which Arafat has plenty of.

Funny you say that. Lots of times I see pro-Palestinian folks say Arafat is powerless.

If he has lots of power he could stop the terror. The fact that he does not speaks volumes.

is political, not military. Since he does not have control over the settlements and the actions of the IDF, his poltiical power is useless when it comes to the conflict. All it can do is keep his place as preisdent of the PA.

Though it's true that political power matters a ton in this conflict, that political power - the power to control the IDF and dismantle the settlements - lies firmly in the hands of the GOI. Since the extremists on both sides - in the GOI and in Hamas - have no one that will stand up to them, this conflict will go on.

Though of course I've missed all 192,323 of those reasons. Maybe Muddle can summarise all those reasons in one post by explaining what made Reagan, Bush II, and Breshnev (can socialists be Realists?) better world leaders than Wilson, FDR, Carter, Clinton and Gorby....


Violet....

"That left the Palestinians who decided that the same bunch that hijacked airliners, blew up Olympic atheletes and otherwise waged a guerrella war of terror on the Israeli people beginning before the '67 war and was dedicated to the destruction of Israel (that's right the PLO) was the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people"."

Basically, what your doing is judging all Palestinians and defending how Israel treats them (by not letting them have their own state or equal rights) with this idea that they're all just wanting to destroy Israel.

Ask Israel's neighbor Syria.

Or China.

Or the U.S.

Or England.

Or Russia.

Or France.

Etc.

Everybody plays by one playbook, but wants Israel to use a different set of rules.

Everyone does play using a similar playbook - but when nationalists attempt to defend the actions of their favored state, they resort to complaints of a "different set of rules". This goes across the board; yours is just another example.

I cannot believe some of the things I am reading here. So if you occupy some land by force (which is not yours to start with!) you're morally entitled to it, no matter of all the hundreds of thousands people driven from their homes, land where they have been living for all of their life, as opposed to the immigrants that came there after WW2. If this was FR, I would understand since it would be those neocons blathering, but here? My oh my...

And a good example of the power of propaganda, religious fundamentalism, and false history taught as truth.

Still, you would hope that Democrats would be smarter than their political counterpart -- not in this case, though. The 'view' is all the same.

That doesn't make it legally theirs. However, if this were legally Israel's land, I would say that they have an obligation to protect the people that were already living on it, the Palestinians. Otherwise, you're legally putting mass discrimination into the law by denying Palestinians on the West Bank and the Gaza strip their legal rights.

It was built on Israeli territory. By abdicating any true attempt at peace, Arafat and his cronies have also forced Israel to settle the border on their own. And they are doing just that, while Arafat sits and watches and still refuses to act on terror.

No, the Green Line will never be the final formal border between Israel and a Palestine state. It could be a good starting point, with some exceptions (Jerusalem for example), but nobody on the Palestinian side really wants to make peace because that means going after the Palestinian terror network.

Israel is the one that puts most of the unacceptable demands on the table, which is something Israel's staunch defenders such as yourself refuse to acknowledge; instead you throw the blame on Arafat for not acting in complete submission.

Israel is the one that stole the land in the first place - yet you ultra-nationalists always blame Palestinians for not accepting every unreasonable 'peace' deal which Israel proposes. That is unfair (but understandable, give the position you're in of defending the indefensible). At this point, each side does need to make painful concessions, but the only way this is possible is to return to the negotiating table. All sides agree on this point, except, guess who: Likud and far-rightists on one side, and Hamas and militant groups on the other side.

The claim that "nobody" on the Pal side really wants peace is absolutely ridiculous, too, and borders on a racist remark. You need to do some soul-searching and ask yourself where you really stand on this issue, muddle.

Here's another example of judging everybody from one "side" from the "pro-Israelis".

I had decided that I would keep pointing every single case of this out because I want to show exactly what some "pro-Israelis" are doing. However, that might be too many to point out . LOL.

there are quite a few pro-Israel posters on this board who don't generalize about the Palestinians. They need to be kept in mind.

but let's be honest - it's not many.

there are quite a few. In life, unfortunately, where conservatives aren't banned, they are few and far between who are both radically pro-Israel and not bigoted.

Unfortunately it seems they're a minority, as are the Israeli peace activists in Israel. Thank God for people like Uri Avnery...

Sorry if I sounded like I was generalizing.

wanted 5.5% of the West bank to be part of Israel, and now Sharon takes 10%.

As long as the Jordan River wall - the eastern wall - is not built and thereby reduces the PA Area to 42.5% of the West Bank and Gaza - the contiguous state needed for a PA State is possible.

I am hearing some crazy talk from my Arab friends tonight about saying to hell with the two state solution - I do not see it in the Arab press yet - but the idea was that in 40 years the Arab population out number the Jewish (and this could happen in as little as 20 years - but we were talking 40 years so all there would be dead!!) and the Jewish State of Israel Ends.

The options presume that the Jews are good moral folks and will reject expulsion of the Arab population, and will not go the South Africa route of 2nd class citizen - so the only other moral option is to accept minority status in an Arab state.

Seems no one would accept - at least tonight - the idea that the Israeli’s will build their wall - and then withdraw behind it and treat the area left behind as a "not-Israel" - a state if the folks want it, and if they do not, just an unorganized area not part of Israel and whose population is not their concern.

An interesting discussion!

I have never before now been an advocate of outside forces coming in and "stopping" Israel's madness. I've always been an advocate to let them solve their own problems, criticizing Israeli policy, criticizing suicide bombings, and perhaps even boycotting Israel.

However, I now think that if an outside force (like the UN) does not come in and stop Israel's madness that we're looking at genocide.

Particularly with the right-wing insanity of Sharon running the show - it's time for an international force in the region. Sharon and the IDF are out of control, stealing more land, murdering civilians, bulldozing their homes, disrupting livelihood with checkpoints, building a Racist Wall on land that isn't theirs - it goes on and on. On the other side, Hamas and IJ are out of control, murdering children, and with suicide attacks all over the place.

And the U.S. just sits back and watches the show. Care for more popcorn, Sir Bush?

thought about that before he allowed Islamic Jihad and Hamas to operate as Palestinian militants in the area that he is supposed to control. Today's attack in Haifa took place because of the incomplete barrier fence. The woman suicide bomber entered where it was not built yet. Every day the barrier is unfinished threatens 6.6 million Israeli lives.

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/346816.html

Israel's not stupid enough to kill him. He still has a place to live (sort of). He still is able to get food.

It's all the Palestinians that he represents that I'm worried about.