The Israeli - Palestine Conflict
by remillar@allwest.net Last updated 2004-05-27

Israel continues to bulldoze the homes of innocent people. and kill many innocent Palestinians.

The problem with Palestinian refugees is greater than the 1948 refugees. Refugees are being created daily as Israel deports Palestinians to Gaza or Jordan or whatever refugee camp they choose or refuses to allow Palestinians to re-enter when they leave. Most of the 1.1 million Palestinians in Israel are also refugees or what Israel calls presently "absentees" meaning they are there but not allowed to have their homes or property back. Some even live in their pre-'48 homes paying rent to the Israeli government but are not allowed to own their homes. Refugees are still being created in Israel too, as Israel bulldozes their homes and confines them to smaller and smaller Palestinian neighborhoods. Right now Israel is refusing any refugees. Contrary to common belief, Israel does not have a democracy as we know it----it is more a facist state---they do vote but it is not a republic "of the people, by the people and for the people" and they have no constitution to protect the Palestinian minority. New legislation to offer equal rights to all is against the law. Mostly military law rules the Palestinian Israeli citizens.

So far as the Jewish Israeli citizens living in settlements on stolen land in Palestine, most of them are quite militant and do not want to live among Palestinians. But they did know they were choosing to live on stolen land, when they moved there. They get many financial benefits for living there. Subsidies on their homes, very low interest rates, tax exclusions, etc.

Also Israel was not created as an exclusively Jewish State. The Balfour Declaration (1917), admittance to the U.N., the 1948 partition, and other U.N Resolutions have always said a state for Jews so long as the rights of the indigenous population is not compromised. Israel has simply ignored their responsibility for so long (with the help on the U.S. ) that it will be difficult to convince them they no longer can have exclusive priviledge.

Israel is violating the Road Map's prohibition of house demolitions because they are being carried out, according to Israel, for "proper" planning purposes (the construction of the Separation Wall, for instance, or the building of Israeli-only "by-pass highways" through densely settled Palestinian neighborhoods), not as "punitive measures." Sharone's Gaza offensive reminds him of the Holocaust.