Quote Originally Posted by Vesh
Quote Originally Posted by DDT
Quote Originally Posted by Cyphyr
The wall is presented as a purely protective measure when in actual fact it is also being used to pre-empt a future negotiated settlement and cement Israel's landgrab of Palestinian territory.
There is no land grab by Israel. That land (The entire West Bank and Gaza) was already forfieted and lost to Israel by Palestinian Arab acts of war. As the victors, Israel gets to decide what land, if any, she will give to her Arab enemies. That was the risk that Arabs took when they challenged Israel to war. They can build that wall any where they feel like.
It's funny, but if these territories that were "controlled" by Arab countries were in fact parts of these countries, Israel could have lawfully annex them as territories of states-aggressors that were used to commit an aggression. But since those territories were not parts of the states-aggressors but just were "controlled" by them, it's unlawful to annex them.

So, Israel does not get to decide what land, if any, she will give to her Arab enemies.
You are "splitting hairs" here.
Do you think that the Palestineans in the West Bank and Gaza were not fighting alongside the other Arab nations who attacked Israel? They were given the West Bank in 1948 but refused to organize themselves because they wanted the whole land and so were part of the attack. They lost. I think you have succumed to liberal media interpretation of history on this point. This conflict is heavily affected by media as it molds the opinions of generations. Peoples memories are short.

The moment that Israel's spokespeople and friends abroad began talking about balancing Palestinian rights to statehood and Israel's need for security, it started to lose the media war.

Rights can only be balanced in the public eye with other rights, not pleas for safety. If the Palestinians portray themselves as the only ones with legitimate rights to disputed territories, and Israel repeatedly fails to offer an effective rejoinder, then why won't more people consider the Palestinians in the right?

And once they've gotten editors and church leaders to think of Israel as an "occupier" and inherently in the wrong, then all Palestinian tactics — even murder — become legitimate, and all Israeli countermeasures become illegitimate.

'We await the launch of a third Palestinian intifada," the head of Israeli army intelligence predicted.