Thanks for this, Martin. Excellent information.
Doug
On Thursday, January 15, 2004, at 02:08 AM, Martin Pratt wrote:
> It's difficult to discuss terriorial issues between Israel and
> Palestine
> without discussing the politics, but here are a few points of
> information which I hope will provide some context for discussion of
> the
> security barrier (the name used by the Israeli government) / Wall (as
> it
> is widely referred to in Palestine, often prefixed by the word
> 'Apartheid'):
>
> When people refer to the '1967 borders', what they actually mean are
> the
> Armistice Demarcation Lines (ADLs) established in April 1949 between a)
> Egypt and Israel around the Gaza Strip and b) Israel and Jordan around
> the West Bank, as they existed on 4 June 1967, i.e. immediately before
> Israel occupied the two territories. Although these lines became de
> facto borders, they were not originally intended as such. They were
> simply ceasefire lines and I very much doubt that anyone involved in
> the
> armistice negotiations imagined that they would ever form the basis for
> permanent international boundaries.... The ADL between Israel and
> Jordan
> is often referred to as the "Green Line" because it was marked in green
> on Israel's 1:100,000 topographic maps of the period (in the map
> attached to the 1949 Armistice Agreement it was actually marked with a
> thick blue crayon).
>
> The significance of the '1967 borders' is that United Nations Security
> Council Resolution 242 of November 1967 called for "withdrawal of
> Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict".
> Most Palestinians see Resolution 242 as the legal basis for their title
> to all territory in the pre-1948 Palestine which was not occupied by
> Israel prior to the 1967 war. Israel has repeatedly noted the absence
> of
> the word "all" before "territories" in Resolution 242, and continues to
> regard the West Bank and Gaza Strip as disputed territory. In practice,
> most observers believe that the '1967 borders' will form the basis for
> the boundaries of the a future Palestinian state. It is interesting to
> note that the recent model peace agreement known as the Geneva Accord
> specified that the boundary between Israel and Palestine "shall be
> based
> on the June 4th 1967 lines with reciprocal modifications on a 1:1
> basis"; see http://www.tikkun.org/community/geneva/ for the text of the
> accord and overview maps and http://www.heskem.org.il/Maps.asp for
> large-scale (1:50,000) maps of the proposed boundary (click on the
> Hebrew text in the top green bar - the English version of the site does
> not yet include links to the maps).
>
> The best website I have found for maps and images of the infamous
> security barrier is the Palestinian site http://stopthewall.org About
> a
> third of the barrier that has been constructed so far more or less
> follows the old Armistice Line, but significant sections of it lie on
> the Palestinian side of the '1967 border'. The
> approved-but-yet-to-be-built and projected sections of the barrier cut
> much deeper into territory claimed by the Palestinians. When
> considering
> the implications of the barrier, it is important to bear in mind not
> only the area of land that is affected but also land use: much of the
> land from which Palestinians have been excluded by the barrier is
> valuable agricultural land or land containing wells.
>
> On 8 December last year the General Assembly of the United Nations
> requested the International Court of Justice to give an Advisory
> Opinion
> on the legal consequences of the construction of a wall in the occupied
> Palestinian territory. Although an Advisory Opinion by the ICJ is not
> binding, it will nevertheless have a significant bearing on the future
> of the barrier. The oral hearings in the case begin on 23 February and
> I
> assume that, as with other ICJ cases, the pleadings will posted daily
> on
> the Court's website.
>
> I hope these comments are of some help.
>
> m a r t i n
>
>
> > Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 13:26:49 -0800
> > From: Doug Murray <doug@...>
> > Subject: Re: New Wall -- discussion point
> >
> > The pictures I've seen are stunning. I can't believe how big it is.
> > One website compared it to the Berlin Wall -- and how small it
> > made that wall look.
> >
> > Unfortunately most of the information out there is slanted
> > politically, one way or the other. And I don't want to get
> > into the politics of it, but the fact that something like this is
> > being created leaves mespeechless. Especially since it doesn't
> > conform to any borders. There has been a lot of talk of it
> > going into "Palestinian territory" and cutting off those lands.
> > Is there a situation where it goes the other way, cutting off
> > parts of "Israeli territory"?
> >
> > I'd love to see more images.
>
>
<image.tiff>
>
>
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>
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