The I/P conflict can be understood simply by looking very very closely at the following images.
This image shows the settlements in the west bank, in exacting detail.
and the settlements (through 2008) of east jerusalem
and the forbidden roads throughout the west bank.
In case you wanted to understand.
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(black, blue and light blue areas are Israeli Settlements)
(light yellow areas surrounding darker are israeli controlled areas (called area C) that surround the palestinian population centers.)
Black, Blue and Light Blue are Settlement and Military holdings of Israel. Bright Red dots are israeli military bases.
all others are palestinian areas.
It was this development that caused Arafat to leave the peace talk negotiations. Clinton said that he would get no better deal, but it was a political impossibility to negotiate a position where, if you win, your people live in a balkanized/pseudo-apartheid state.
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(these are settlements in East Jerusalem, not shown in the above map)
note the segregation wall (red)
what is not shown in the above picture are the roads around east jerusalem that palestinians are not allowed to use.
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(Israeli roads in the west bank not accessible by Palestinians)
(the forbidden roads of the West Bank, forbidden to palestinian foot and road traffic)
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there, now you should have a pretty good understanding of the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict.
and of the only way to achieve its resolution, without endless war-turned-into-slow-but-steady-genocide.
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update: from the World Bank 4 days ago
The World Bank recommended "that continued easing of the economic restrictions on the West Bank, and lifting the Gaza blockade, remain a top priority for the government of Israel.
"Specifically, it urges unlocking of the economic potential of Area C in the West Bank," it said, referring to the more than 60 percent of the territory that is under complete Israeli civil and military control.
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Update 2:For Christy
Water Aquifers in the west bank to compare with maps above.
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Update 3: comment references
you claim
that by not holding out their hands in friendship and brotherhood as Jews arrived on the shores of "Palestine", but by declaring war instead, to this day never calling that war off, they have lost just about everything they once possessed.
That got me thinking. . .when did the refugees first come? and when did the conflict start.
In 1935, last big immigration year, over 66,000 Jews had arrived in Palestine, mostly from Germany
The treatment of local arabs by Jewish settlers was much much less than civil.
The Haganah (or Hagannah) (means defense in Hebrew - pronounced "Hah Gah nah') Jewish underground was created in 1920
The Haganah Oath
I hereby declare that based on personal voluntarism and my own free recognizance I am entering the Hebrew defense organization [Irgun Hahagannah Ha'ivri] in the land of Israel. [Eretz Yisrael]. . .
I swear to dedicate all my powers and even to sacrifice my life to defense and to the war for my people and my homeland, for the freedom of Israel and for the redemption of Zion.
The Haganah Foundation Doctrine (1920)
"The "organization" is under the authority of the World Zionist Organization in cooperation with "Knesset Yisrael" (the Zionist assembly) in the land of Israel, stands ready to serve them and follows their orders. "
"Duties of the "organization. 1) Defense of the Hebrew Yishuv in the land of Israel against anyone who attacks its life, property or honor. 2) Defense of the Zionist endeavor and the political rights of the Jewish people in the land of Israel. 3) Defense of the Land of Israel against any enemy activity from abroad, in accordance with the possibilities and the political circumstances."
Theodor Herzl (founder of the World Zionist Organization)
In fact, Herzl had every reason to understand the Arab population of Palestine, their numbers and their point of view. Prior to the Second Zionist Congress, he sent the student leader Leo Motzkin on a tour of Palestine. One passage in his report includes this statement: "Completely accurate statistics about the number of inhabitants do not presently exist. One must admit that the density of the population does not give the visitor much cause for cheer. In whole stretches throughout the land one constantly comes across large Arab villages, and it is an established fact that the most fertile areas of our country are occupied by Arabs..." (Protocol of the Second Zionist Congress, Pg. 103).
There is, of course, a great irony in referring to "our" country when discussing a land already inhabited by others. When Herzl himself visited Palestine, he seemed to ignore the local residents almost completely. Ernst Pawel writes: "The account of this visionary's journey through both past and future is notable for one conspicuous blind spot. As Amos Elan has pointed out, the trip...took him through at least a dozen Arab villages, and in Jaffa itself, Jews formed only 10 percent—some 3,000—of the total population. Yet not once does he refer to the natives in his notes, nor do they ever seem to figure in his later reflections. In overlooking, in refusing to acknowledge their presence—and hence their humanity—he both followed and reinforced a trend that was to have tragic consequences for Jews and Arabs like."
Ahad Ha'am
Ahad Ha'am, the respected Russian Jewish writer and philosopher, refused from the beginning to ignore the presence of Arabs in Palestine. He paid his first visit to the new Jewish settlements in Palestine in 1891. In his essay, The Truth From the Land of Israel, he says that it is an illusion to think of Palestine as an empty country: "We tend to believe abroad that Palestine is nowadays almost completely deserted, a non-cultivated wilderness, and anyone can come there and buy as much land as his heart desires. But in reality this is not the case. It is difficult to find anywhere in the country Arab land which lies fallow..."
The behavior of Jewish settlers toward the Arabs disturbed him. They had not learned from experience as a minority within a wider population, but reacted with the cruelty of slaves who had suddenly become kings, treating their neighbors with contempt. The Arabs, he wrote, understood very well what Zionist intentions were in the country and "if the time should come when the lives of our people in Palestine should develop to the extent that, to a smaller or greater degree they usurp the place of the local population, the latter will not yield easily...We have to treat the local population with love and respect, justly and rightly. And what do our brethren in the land of Israel do? Exactly the opposite! Slaves they were in the country of exile, and suddenly they find themselves in a boundless and anarchic freedom, as is always the case with a slave that has become king; and they behave toward the Arabs with hostility and cruelty."
Jewish ethics were the heart and soul of Ahad Ha'am's brand of nationalism, and to the end of his life he denounced any compromise with political expediency. In 1913, protesting against a Jewish boycott of Arab labor, he wrote to a friend: "...I can't put up with the idea that our brethren are morally capable of behaving in such a way to humans of another people, and unwittingly the thought comes to my mind: If this is so now, what will our relations to the others be like if, at the end of time, we shall really achieve power in Eretz Israel? And if this be the Messiah, I do not wish to see his coming."
Etzel (Irgun)
Etzel - (Hebrew) Acronym for "Irgun Tzva'i Leumi" - National Military Organization; Dissident (revisionist) Zionist terrorist group founded in reaction to Arab riots. Etzel broke away from the Haganah and began violent activities about 1938. Etzel conducted a number of terror operations against the British, alone or in cooperation with Lehi, as well as brutal bombings of Arab civilians.
Dier Yassin
As well as lies, Israel also born out of terrorism. Jewish terrorism. The Irgun Zvei Leumi, Haganah, Lehi, the Stern gang. There were repeated massacres in the decade following 1946… at the village Deir Yassin near Jerusalem, Friday 9 April 1948, the Irgun, Haganah and Stern gangs’ systematic massacre of at least 100+ Palestinians, mostly women and children, was a defining atrocity on which the Israeli state was founded. Following the killings the village was looted and the dead desecrated.
Homes were dynamited. The cemetery was bulldozed and Deir Yassin was wiped off the map.
More than 50 orphans were found huddled by the walls of old Jerusalem.
Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, said: “Without Deir Yassin there would be no Israel”.
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update 4: pre-1948 map of palestine, the populated lands of palestine