Reply to Shervan Sardar:

YOU WROTE: "Let's not forget that in the past four years, three times as many Palestinians have been killed by Israeli violence,..."

BECKY: And a thousand Israelis have been killed. The differential death toll can be seen in the context of a society which encourages its young men to daily go throw rocks at armed IDF soldiers. Where young people are daily sacraficed by strapping suicide bombs around their waists.
Also note: that although the death toll is higher for Palestinians in sheer numbers, the percentage of Israeli children and women killed is MUCH higher than for Palestinian deaths, meaning that the male Palestinians are the likely aggressors.

YOU WROTE: What rule of law? The law of occupation as defined by the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hague Convention, and many other international treaties.

BECKY: Your entire argument of occupation is based on Israel occupying another country. But what COUNTRY is Israel occupying? I think the only reasonable answer you can come up with is Israel. If Israel is occupying Israel then its not much of an occupation is it?

For readers who are less learned than you, let me briefly say that in 1967 when Israel took over both militarily and administratively Samaria, Judea, Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, Gaza, the Golan Heights and the Sinai, that Egypt was "occupying" Gaza. And Jordan was "occupying" Samara and Judea --called "The West Bank" by that same Jordan occupier.

So, under international law, and UN resolution 242, Israel was to negotiate a peaceful return of "territories". NOTE!! It does NOT say ALL territories. Much discussion at the time revolved around minor border adjustments being necessary for Israel's security needs.

Israel has followed International law by returning the Sinai to Egypt, negotiating a peace treaty with both Egypt and Jordan. It has attempted to negotiate peace treaties with the Palestinian Arabs many times and signed an agreement with Yassir Arafat in 1993 under the Oslo accords only to suffer INCREASED attacks from Palestinian terror groups strictly outlawed by Oslo.


So---- WHAT COUNTRY IS ISRAEL "OCCUPYING?"

The Palestinian Arabs have been given an opportunity to found their own independent country 14 times since 1937 (per Dr. David Meir-Levi) but have opted to instead wage war on Israel--either directly by joining militarily with neighboring Arab countries, or through a guerilla war "the Intifada" which has resulted in major loss of life, loss of liberty, and increased poverty and suffering for the Palestinians.

YOU WROTE: Any occupying power (not just Israel) is prohibited from annexing territory that it occupies (East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza), building civilian settlements in occupied territory, making security decisions based on those illegal settlements, demolishing civilian homes, engaging in practices of collective punishment, wantonly killing civilians, denying access to medical care, torturing prisoner detainees, deporting residents from the occupied territory, and expropriating the land and water resources of an occupied population.

BECKY: What a list of "charges" all of them false. Israel was NOT prohibitted under Oslo or any other agreement from building settlements on the West Bank. Indeed, many Jewish settlements pre-date 1948 as the lands of Judea and Samaria have been homelands for Jewish people for 3,300 yrs. As for demolishing homes---Israel destroys the homes of suicide bombers in order to act as a deterrent for more. Israel also destroys homes which are used to fire at IDF positions,house bomb-factories, or illegal weapon-smuggling tunnels. Israel also destroys SOME homes which have been built without permits but is way behind on doing much of this. Homes destroyed by the security barrier were usually built without permits --so no compensation was owed-- but land owners are paid for the use of their property and ownership of the land remains with the property owner.

Wantonly killing civilians??? Hardly!! The IDF has a STRICT policy of minimizing civilian deaths or injuries. The proof is that the death toll of Palestinians is 97.2% male (source:www.us-israel.org/jsource/myths/mftoc.html)

Denied medical care? -- From 1967 - 1993 Israel provided universal insurance and health care for all Palestinians. Contrast this with the United States in which 40% of Americans are uninsured.

Torturing prisoner detainees? The Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the only coercive technique allowed by Israeli law in order to extract information from prisoners is sleep deprivation. Contrast this with ANY ARAB COUNTRY.

Deportations? Israel HAS deported some from the West Bank to Gaza. A few negotiated deportation to Cypress have occurred as well. So what?

Seized land and water resources? From 1967 to 1993, Israel installed water and sewer systems throughout the West Bank and Gaza delivering these services to those areas for the first time ever. Currently Israel and the Palestinians share resources but there are some disputes. Any party can use Israeli courts to mediate these disputes.

YOU WROTE: While three million Palestinians live under Israeli military jurisdiction, Israelis (including settlers) live under Israeli civil and criminal jurisdiction clearly an apartheid state of affairs. Even Israeli settlers are authorized by Israeli military jurisdiction to arrest any Palestinian, need I say more.

BECKY: Under Oslo, Israel was to provide miliary security while the PA the civil administration including a police force. Unfortunately Arafat's police were just another group of armed terrorists. 97% of Palestinian Arabs are under the PA self-rule.

Palestinian Arabs ARE NOT citizens of the State of Israel. Hence, they are not subject to Israeli civil administation but PA administration--which has pretty much been a failure. This HARDLY makes Israel an apartheid state. Instead, it makes it a state in which a large number of non-citizens have illegally immigrated.

As for Israeli settlers allowed to arrest Palestinians ---even in the USA, any citizen may invoke the power of citizen's arrest.