West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem

[The 1967
War and the Israeli Occupation of the
West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem



Did the Egyptians actually
start the 1967 war, as Israel originally claimed?


"The former Commander of
the Air Force, General Ezer Weitzman, regarded as a hawk, stated
that there was 'no threat of destruction' but that the attack
on Egypt, Jordan and Syria was nevertheless justified so that
Israel could 'exist according the scale, spirit, and quality
she now embodies.'...Menahem Begin had the following remarks
to make: 'In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian
Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that
Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with
ourselves. We decided to attack him.' "Noam Chomsky, "The
Fateful Triangle."



Was the 1967 war defenisve? -
continued


"I do not think Nasser wanted
war. The two divisions he sent to The Sinai would not have
been sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it and
we knew it." Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's Chief of Staff
in 1967, in Le Monde, 2/28/68



Moshe Dayan posthumously
speaks out on the Golan Heights


"Moshe Dayan, the celebrated
commander who, as Defense Minister in 1967, gave the order
to conquer the Golan...[said] many of the firefights with the
Syrians were deliberately provoked by Israel, and the kibbutz
residents who pressed the Government to take the Golan Heights
did so less for security than for the farmland...[Dayan stated]
'They didn't even try to hide their greed for the land...We
would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn't possible
to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance
that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot,
we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the
end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot.
And then we would use artillery
and later the air force also, and that's how it was...The Syrians,
on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to us.'" The
New York Times, May 11, 1997


The history of Israeli
expansionism

"The acceptance of partition
does not commit us to renounce Transjordan; one does not demand
from anybody to give up his vision. We shall accept a state
in the boundaries fixed today. But the boundaries of Zionist
aspirations are the concern of the Jewish people and no external
factor will be able to limit them." David Ben-Gurion,
in 1936, quoted in Noam Chomsky, "The Fateful Triangle."


Expansionism -
continued

"The main danger which Israel,
as a 'Jewish state', poses to its own people, to other Jews
and to its neighbors, is its ideologically motivated pursuit
of territorial expansion and the inevitable series of wars
resulting from this aim...No zionist politician has ever repudiated
Ben-Gurion's idea that Israeli policies must be based (within
the limits of practical considerations) on the restoration
of Biblical borders as the borders of the Jewish state." Israeli
professor, Israel Shahak, "Jewish History, Jewish Religion:
The Weight of 3000 Years."
Expansionism -
continued


In Israeli Prime Minister Moshe
Sharatt's personal diaries, there is an excerpt from May of
1955 in which he quotes Moshe Dayan as follows: "[Israel]
must see the sword as the main, if not the only, instrument
with which to keep its morale high and to retain its moral
tension. Toward this end it may, no—it must—invent dangers,
and to do this it must adopt the method of provocation-and-revenge...And
above all—let us hope for a new war with the Arab countries,
so that we may finally get rid of our troubles and acquire
our space." Quoted in Livia Rokach, "Israel's
Sacred Terrorism."
But wasn't the occupation of Arab
lands necessary to protect Israel's security?


"Senator [J.William Fulbright]
proposed in 1970 that America should guarantee Israel's security
in a formal treaty, protecting her with armed forces if necessary.
In return, Israel would retire to the borders of 1967. The
UN Security Council would guarantee this arrangement, and thereby
bring the Soviet Union—then a supplier of arms and political
aid to the Arabs—into compliance. As Israeli troops were
withdrawn from the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and the West
Bank they would be replaced by a UN peacekeeping force. Israel
would agree to accept a certain number of Palestinians and
the rest would be settled in a Palestinian state outside Israel.
"The plan drew favorable
editorial support in the United States. The proposal, however,
was flatly rejected by Israel. 'The whole affair disgusted
Fulbright,' writes [his biographer Randall] Woods. 'The Israelis
were not even willing to act in their own self-interest.'" Allan
Brownfield in "Issues of the American Council for Judaism." Fall
1997.[Ed.-This was one of many such proposals]


What happened after the
1967 war ended?


"In violation of international
law, Israel has confiscated over 52 percent of the land in
the West Bank and 30 percent of the Gaza Strip for military
use or for settlement by Jewish civilians...From 1967 to 1982,
Israel's military government demolished 1,338 Palestinian homes
on the West Bank. Over this period, more than 300,000 Palestinians
were detained without trial for various periods by Israeli
security forces." Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising
Against Israeli Occupation," ed. Lockman and Beinin.


World opinion on the legality
of Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza.


"Under the UN Charter there
can lawfully be no territorial gains from war, even by a state
acting in self-defense. The response of other states to Israel's
occupation shows a virtually unanimous opinion that even if
Israel's action was defensive, its retention of the West Bank
and Gaza Strip was not...The [UN] General Assembly characterized
Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as a denial of
self determination and hence a 'serious and increasing threat
to international peace and security.' "John Quigley, "Palestine
and Israel: A Challenge to Justice."



Examples of the effects
of Israeli occupation


"A study of students at Bethlehem
University reported by the Coordinating Committee of International
NGOs in Jerusalem showed that many families frequently go five
days a week without running water...The study goes further
to report that, 'water quotas restrict usage by Palestinians
living in the West Bank and Gaza, while Israeli settlers have
almost unlimited amounts.'
"A summer trip to a Jewish
settlement on the edge of the Judean desert less than five
miles from Bethlehem confirmed this water inequity for us.
While Bethlehemites were buying water from tank trucks at highly
inflated rates, the lawns were green in the settlement. Sprinklers
were going at mid day in the hot August sunshine. Sounds of
children swimming in the outdoor pool added to the unreality." Betty
Jane Bailey, in "The Link", December 1996.
Israeli occupation -
continued

"You have to remember that
90 percent of children two years old or more have experienced—some
many, many times—the [Israeli] army breaking into the home, beating
relatives, destroying things. Many were beaten themselves, had
bones broken, were shot, tear gassed, or had these things happen
to siblings and neighbors...The emotional aspect of the child
is affected by the [lack of] security. He needs to feel safe.
We see the consequences later if he does not. In our research,
we have found that children who are exposed to trauma tend to
be more extreme in their behaviors and, later, in their political
beliefs." Dr Samir Quota,
director of research for the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme,
quoted in "The Journal of Palestine Studies," Summer
Israeli occupation -
continued

"There is nothing quite like
the misery one feels listening to a 35-year-old [Palestinian]
man who worked fifteen years as an illegal day laborer in Israel
in order to save up money to build a house for his family only
to be shocked one day upon returning from work to find that
the house and all that was in it had been flattened by an Israeli
bulldozer. When I asked why this was done—the land, after
all, was his—I was told that a paper given to him the next
day by an Israeli soldier stated that he had built the structure
without a license. Where else in the world are people required
to have a license (always denied them) to build on their own
property? Jews can build, but never Palestinians. This is apartheid." Edward
Said, in "The Nation", May 4, 1998.
All Jewish settlements in territories
occupied in the 1967 war are a direct violation of the Geneva
Conventions, which Israel has signed.
"The Geneva Convention requires
an occupying power to change the existing order as little as
possible during its tenure. One aspect of this obligation is
that it must leave the territory to the people it finds there.
It may not bring its own people to populate the territory.
This prohibition is found in the convention's Article 49, which
states, 'The occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts
of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.'" John
Quigley, "Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice."
Excerpts from the U.S.
State Department's reports during the first Intifada


"Following are some excerpts
from the U.S. State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices from 1988 to 1991:
1988: 'Many avoidable deaths and
injuries' were caused because Israeli soldiers frequently used
gunfire in situations that did not present mortal danger to
troops...IDF troops used clubs to break limbs and beat Palestinians
who were not directly involved in disturbances or resisting
arrest..At least thirteen Palestinians have been reported to
have died from beatings...'
1989: Human rights groups charged
that the plainclothes security personnel acted as death squads
who killed Palestinian activists without warning, after they
had surrendered, or after they had been subdued...
1991: [The report] added that
the human rights groups had published 'detailed credible reports
of torture, abuse and mistreatment of Palestinian detainees
in prisons and detention centers." Former Congressman
Paul Findley, "Deliberate Deceptions."


Jerusalem - Eternal, Indivisible
Capital of Israel?


"Writing in The Jerusalem
Report (Feb. 28, 2000), Leslie Susser points out that
the current boundaries were drawn after the Six-Day War.
Responsibility for drawing those lines fell to Central Command
Chief Rehavan Ze'evi. The line he drew 'took in not only
the five square kilometers of Arab East Jerusalem—but also
65 square kilometers of surrounding open country and villages,
most of which never had any municipal link to Jerusalem.
Overnight they became part of Israel's eternal and indivisible
capital.'" Allan Brownfield in The Washington Report
On Middle East Affairs, May 2000