The Israeli military’s ongoing plans to destroy eight Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank and displace some 1,300 villagers from their homes is being challenged in the nation’s High Court of Justice today.
The government’s official stance on the ousters is that they are necessary because they will save the military time and money by allowing them to constantly use the area that was historically a grazing area for the villagers as a live fire zone for training exercises.
The IDF declared the area a “live fire zone” in 1976, and then said the villagers were illegally built too close to that zone in 1980. The evidence from the villagers however shows that those villages have been there since 1830.
The High Court previously blocked the villages demolition in 1999, and the military has mostly allowed the villagers access to the grazing area during Jewish holidays, when it’s not being pummelled with practice fire.
Even though nearly 40 years as a live fire zone hasn’t already ruined the villages, Israel’s military has insisted in the past that “terrorist” threats posed by the villagers being able to see them practising was the primary reason to destroy them.
Despite one or two touted exceptions, the IDF always wins. Israel is a militarized State that uses "security", even though it is infrequently an issue, as a pretext to take what it wants, and of course the Occupied Territories are subject to Israeli military law and nothing more, Geneva Conventions and UN resolutions notwithstanding.
That's exactly what every aggressive state does. They don't mention this on the history channel in the constant shows about Hitler, but all Hitler did was tell the public about how his military actions were to ensure national security and help other countries fight terrorism. If the history channel mentioned this, it would put US rhetoric into a little too much perspective.
I think this news should be sent to all and every senators, the US government departments, the United Nations secretariat, the European Union parliament, the WH so as the British house of common and all over the world for people to see whom they are dealing with, a regime that's built by the thieves and for the thieves. The only language that Israel will understand is the international economic and political boycott of Israeli regime which consist of thieves and more thieves.
"this news should be sent to all and every senators" …. "to see whom they are dealing with". Nice sentiment, but the senators already know whom they are dealing with —- Zionists who write campaign donation checks, and idiots who vote and think that Palestinians hanging on are keeping Jesus away.
This is just more evidence that the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians that started in 1948 continues to this day. The ethnic cleansing of the Bedouin villages is also currently taking place.
I believe a more updated, accurate and detailed map of the region shows a much smaller more riddled West Bank (from all the illegal settlements).