Posted by
Andrews on Thursday, July 02, 2009 3:43:35 PM
This one came up in a comment posted to one of my articles, but it comes up so often I feel the need to write on it. The problem I have is the use of the term "occupied territories" with regard to Israel.
First, let me ask, did anyone call Judea, Samaria and the Gaza strip "occupied territories" between 1948 and 1967 when they were occupied by Egypt and Jordan? No, they were just part of those two nations. Only when those nations attacked Israel and Israel defeated them and took the territories were they suddenly "occupied".
The second question is why we use this term only with regard to Israel. We do not call, for instance, the Chaco Boreal "Paraguayan Occupied Territory". We do not call Alsace and Lorraine "French Occupied Territories". We do not call Texas, California, and the entire southwest "US Occupied Territories". Or, to be accurate, maybe a handful do call each by those names, but we consider those who
DO use such terms quite partisan and a bit daffy.
The reason is simple. We recognize that when a war takes place,
ESPECIALLY a defensive war, that the land a nation wins in that war is part of the victorious nation. They have every right to settle their citizens in that land, to build, to found new cities and to generally treat it as they would their other territory.
For example, we do not call the suburbs of Dallas "settlements". We do not believe that moving to Sacramento is an act of aggression. And we do not see it as an illegitimate government action that we prevent (or we used to anyway) Mexicans from settling in the southwest without going through normal immigration procedures.
So, why on earth do we refuse to recognize land taken in a defensive war as part of Israel? They were attacked, after all. There is not even the excuse of an aggressive war. Unless you believe that Israel has no right to exist, there is absolutely no justification for thinking that Judea, Samaria and the Gaza area are not integral parts of Israel. Israel has a better claim than Paraguay does to the Chaco Boreal. Yet we persist in calling it "occupied territory", calling every new building a "settlement" and seeing normal activities as signs of aggression.
If we were to treat the southwest by the same rules we do Israel, the US has been guilty of horrible aggression against Mexico. And we have to resettle tens of millions of "settlers" from the region in order to retake the moral high ground.
Somehow I don't see anyone taking that claim seriously, yet such absurdities are accepted every day with regard to Israel. I just don't get it.
POSTSCRIPT
As I have heard a lot of absurd claims about the founding of Israel, please check out my earlier posts on the same topic, including "
For Those Who Enjoy History", "
Just Angry", "
Moral Equivalence", "
A Hypothetical Situation", "
Correlation vs. Causation" and "
The Failure of Negotiation". It may also be of use to refer to older essays on Islam in my posts "
Thoughts on Islam and the Current Conflict", "
Winning Over Moderates", "
What About The Crusades?" and "
Perceptions of Iraq". And finally, for those who love to mention the USS Liberty, read "
Dismissing Conspiracy Theories" and "
Conspiracy Theorists' False Logic" (or "
False Flag Theories and 9/11" and linked articles for a more general treatment) before trying that approach. And finally, though not related to this topic directly, as many love to claim that "secular" Iraq and "religious" Al Qaida could not cooperate, read "
Quote of the Day" for a brief response. (Actually, it is somewhat related, as religious and secular groups often fought jointly against Israel, at least when not at one another's throats. For that matter Sunni and Shia jointly attacked Israel from time to time. Clearly a coincidence of goals is enough to temporarily overcome any other differences, and Saddam and Al Qaida certainly had some goals in common.)