Planning for June 2007
Posted by Helena Cobban
September 9, 2006 10:02 PM EST | Link
Filed in Israel 2003-08 , Lebanon , Palestine 2006
The early days of June 2007 will see two significant Middle Eastern anniversaries: 25 years since Israel's June 1982 invasion of Lebanon and 40 years since the beginning of the -- still continuing!-- Israeli occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and Golan.
To have to live under the heel of a foreign military occupation for 40 years.... Imagine!
I've been trying to find out what kind of events anyone might be planning to mark these two anniversaries. I've also been thinking maybe JWN should coordinate some special coverage of these two significant anniversaries, or a transnational online symposium... or something!
Anyway, any information about initiatives already underway, or suggestions for things JWN (or others) could do to mark and reflect on these anniversaries, would be really helpful. We still have nine months to plan for this.
Thanks!
Prior to that, there will be another anniversary. On May 14, 1948, Israel declared it's independence.
Yet remarkably, it has now been 21,303 days since Israel declared its independence, and the overwhelming majority of Arab and Muslim nations have refused to recognize that nation's right to exist in peace.
To be surrounded by enemies for over 58 years that refuse to recognize your right to simply exist. Imagine!
Perhaps Just World News could have some sort of commemoration noting the struggle for existance which Israel must endure to this very day. You still have eight months!
Joshua, you've made this (factually inaccurate) argument here many times before. I guess this is your month-of-September opportunity to post it here once again.
The factual inaccuracy lies in the claim that the overwhelming majority of Arab and Muslim nations have refused to recognize [Israel's] right to exist in peace. Of Israel's immediate neighbors, Egypt and Jordan both have robust peace agreements with Israel, and Syria and the PA both participated for many years in peace negotiations that came close to fruition but failed to do so because (mainly) of Israel's insistence on holding on to some of their respective national territories. Israel and the PA both still declare themselves ready to enter resumed peace negotiations based on international law and Security Council resolutions. That is incompatible with a claim of "non-recognition." How does someone offer to negotiate with a party they don't "recognize"?
Meanwhile, the whole of the Arab League backs a position of offering Israel full peace and normal relations if Israel will withdraw from all the land occupied in 1967. And beyond that, the vast majority of Muslim nations either have peaceful relations with Israel or support the Arab League position.
So where's the degree of "non-recognition" that you claim? It simply doesn't exist. What exists is a political problem over the insistence of successive Israeli governments that Israel should stay in some of the Arab territories seized in the 1967 war, despite the UN's longstanding and entirely sensible and justified rule stressing "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force" (reaffirmed in SC resolution 242.)
Joshua, if you want to continue to live in a world dominated by fantasies of persecution that is sad, but it is your choice. Better, surely to be open to the real possibilities of peace?
But now, friends, let's resume discussion on the main topic of this post...
Helena,
Amen!
That is incompatible with a claim of "non-recognition." How does someone offer to negotiate with a party they don't "recognize"?
is this a serious question?
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=75405
"Hamas said it would never recognize Israel, raising questions over whether a unity coalition would satisfy Western demands for lifting sanctions."
Are you saying China doesn't 'negotiate' with Taiwan?