After 42 months of US occupation rule in Iraq, have we in the US finally learned a few truth about the true nature of rule by military occupation?
First and foremost, this: Rule by a foreign military occupation force– like any form of military rule– is inherently anti-democratic.
As we learn this fact, can we finally start to convince our fellow-citizens here in the US that Israel’s exercise of military occupation rule over some millions of its neighbors is a situation that has to be brought to a very speedy end?
And can we accept that our government here in the US, including successive administrations from both parties and the vast majority of members of Congress from both parties, has actually enabled and colluded in perpetuating this inherently oppressive, anti-democratic situation… which has been proceeding now for nearly 40 years? And therefore, that we as US citizens have a special responsibility to end the extremely generous financial and above all political support from our government, that has enabled this highly discriminatory form of rule to continue…
This includes bringing to a definitive end Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem, its occupation of the rest of the West Bank, its continued occupation-at-some-distance of Gaza, and its continued occupation of Golan. Golan is part of the sovereign territory of Syria (and Israel’s ‘annexation’ of it in 1981 has no standing whatsoever in international law.) The West Bank and Gaza are territories that the UN unequivocally allocated in 1947 to a fully sovereign Palestinian Arab state, though this state has never been allowed to be born. And Palestinian East Jerusalem– like Israeli West Jerusalem– is territory that the UN had allocated to a special “corpus separatum”. Whether that latter idea is now revived or not, still, Israel has no claim to ownership of East Jeruslaem except by virtue of its conquest of the area in 1967– and the UN has repeatedly, and quite rightly, underscored the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force.
Running a prolonged military occupation over another nation’s people is, self-evidently, very harmful to the wellbeing, and often even to the lives and physical security, of the people thus occupied. But it is also– as many Israelis and Americans can now attest– extremely harmful to the moral and spiritual quality of the community doing the occupying. In fact, it is harmful all round– except for the small number of entrepreneurs and shysters who in any such situation arise to make money off it. (I’m thinking of shareholders in companies like Halliburton, the private security companies that have proliferated in both Iraq and the Israeli-occupied territories, the real-estate and construction companies that have been making a huge killing by exploiting, basically, looted lands and resources in Palestine and Golan, etc etc…)
Because occupation is so harmful, and so deeply anti-democratic, I think we should work just as hard to end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian and Syrian lands as we do to end the US occupation of Iraq.
Imagine living under military rule for nearly 40 years!
Anyway, I’ve put a couple of new resources up on the front-page sidebar here on JWN, to help people understand more about Israel’s occupation rule over E. Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, and Golan. One is the link to “Occupation magazine” that’s just below the second of my occupation “day-counters” there. I have to say that site is not perfectly organized. But it certainly has a large amount of (mainly, Israeli-sourced) material.
The other resource, a bit further down on the sidebar, is the link to the five-part series I wrote about “The human dimension of the Golan issue” in 1998, based on a quick reporting trip I made there in March that year. It’s a bit dated, obviously. But still, not many people write about the human dimension there, viewing Golan only as a chunk of strategic geography instead of as a beloved homeplace to its indigenous people– both those who still live there, and those who fled in 1967. (This piece, by Gideon Levy in today’s HaAretz, is also about Golan.)
.. And if we want any more “proof” about the parallellism of the two occupation forces, just look at all the efforts they have both made to stoke extremely harmful “divide-and-rule” actions among their subject peoples. As if things weren’t bad enough already for the people of Gaza and of Baghdad without having all these added layers of fear, divisionism, and suffering heaped onto them… God save them all.
6 thoughts on “Ending the occupation rule of Palestine and Golan”
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The so-called Israeli “occupation” must be taken in context…for example, which side ordered the UN Sinai peacekeepers to leave, blockaded the Straits of Tiran and moved its armies to the international border triggering the 1967 war?…what did Israel get for its trouble when it “disoccupied” Southern Lebanon in 2000?… or Gaza in 2004?…as for the Golan heights?…has anyone here actually ever been there and looked straight down at the Israeli villages and Lake Tiberias fishermen that were target practice for the Syrians before 1967?
Truedell, a couple of points. The inadmissibility of the acquisitin of territory by force doesn’t hinge in any way on the question of who started the fighting. Who started the fighting might, or might not, affect the other terms on which a final peace agreement is concluded– for example, regarding disarmament clauses.
But the Palestinians never did anything to start the war that in 1967 led to their homeland coming under occupation, so you can’t rationally penalize them for that.
Also, if you’ve read my pieces from Golan then evidently you’ll understand that I’ve been there. I’ve seen how Golan’s western escarpment hangs over some Israeli terrain– and also how to the north and east, Golan also dominates Damascus and much of the Syrian interior. So what is proved by your observation? That every country has the right to occupy terran that lies uphill from it? This would be a very weird operating principle! Far better, I think, to find a way of concluding a sustainable peace– which Rabin almost did in ’94-’95, as described in my 2000 book on that whole negotiation.
Concluding a final Israeli-Syrian peace was doable then, and it is still quite doable today. Thank God.
Oh, I just re-read your comments about the Israeli farmers and fishermen being shot at by the Syrians between 1949 and 1967. Have you ever actually read any of the reports by UNTSO in those days regarding who was shooting at whom and who was consistently violating the 1949 Armistice Agreement by moving their front-lines forward into what was supposed to be a no-man’s-land? Or try reading Gen. Odd Bull’s memoirs on the topic…
Occupation works “benignly” under two specific circumstances. The first is when the subject population is even more afraid of being occupied by someone else, as in the case of Germans who feared the alternative of Soviet occupation. The second, as in the case of Japan, is where the alternative is nuclear destruction. In both cases, the populations were surrounded by other nations happy to see the two countries occupied and prostrate. Both were also sapped of a big quotient of males in the 18 to 35 year-old troublemaking bracket.
None of these conditions apply in Iraq. Kuwait might see Saddam’s Iraq differently, but they are a tiny constituency and don’t care to see infidels or Shiites suppressing Sunni insurgents, either.
Gaza and the West Bank? These are topics that only Israelis can address. US public opinion is totally unequipped or captive of only one viewpoint. Vocal minorities will “own” the topic in US elections, and there is no gain for any US official to venture a risky and thankless alternative. Even a “best case” Palestinian state is likely to be a wobbly charity case that elects people who make your hair stand on end.
Honestly, the only way to neutralize the whole dilemma would be to give a Green Card and $20,000 in food and training vouchers to everyone in Gaza and West Bank. Hamas would then be left to rule over graying pensioners or the parents of US workers who would cease to have any ill will or grievances. If the US fancies hosting $25 million “guest” Mexicans, why not a quarter as many Palestinians?
It’s that or (face it) more of the same “roadmap” to nowhere.
Syria just threatened war over Yom Kippur, again. Yeah, lots of opportunity for fruitful negotiation again there. They want a restoration of the status quo ante-1967, including the resumption of their attempts to invade Israel as in 1948.
Syria just threatened war over Yom Kippur, again. Yeah, lots of opportunity for fruitful negotiation again there. They want a restoration of the status quo ante-1967, including the resumption of their attempts to invade Israel as in 1948.