Comments on: Occupation comes home: What was a military surveillance vehicle doing in TLV last night?

By: Prometheus

Prometheus — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 11:33:22 +0000

Aaron,
First let’s see what the term “occupation” means:

Military occupation is effective provisional control[1] of a certain power over a territory which is not under the formal sovereignty of that entity, without the volition of the actual sovereign.

Now, tell me please, who was the legal sovereign of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea from between 1929 and 1979 ?

By: Aaron

Aaron — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 03:32:21 +0000

Prometheus, if Judea and Samaria legally belonged to Jordan until 1967, then they belong to the Palestinians now (the PLO, I think). Jordan claimed to transfer its rights to the Palestinians.

The reality is that Jordan had no rights to transfer to anyone, because its annexation of Judea and Samaria was not generally recognized and had therefore had no international legal significance. Judea and Samaria were res nullius since the British ended their role as Mandatory.

By: Piotr Berman

Piotr Berman — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 01:55:21 +0000

Don’t they have industrial designers? This is the most ugly vehicle I have seen in quite a while.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 16:38:21 +0000

I should emphasize the “whoever ends up with the territory.” If Israel is almost sure to end up with, say, the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem in a final status agreement, that doesn’t mean that the Jewish Quarter is not occupied. The Israeli occupation of the Jewish Quarter is temporary, even if it’s likely to lead to permanent jurisdiction.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 16:35:37 +0000

If all colonized countries are occupied, then “occupation” has lost almost all of its meaning. Belligerent occupation is an established juridical category, and its everyday meaning flows from that. In principle, it’s a completely normal and legal status. As far as I know, colonies aren’t considered legal or legitimate anymore. If you say, “This is an occupation,” you’re not saying whether it’s right or wrong, just or unjust. If you say, “This is colonization,” you’re saying it’s wrong.

Occupation is by definition temporary: It ends when the war ends, whoever finally ends up with the territory. That’s the situation described in UNSC Resolution 242. The occupier and the occupied each have fairly well-defined legal rights and obligations. Colonies, on the other hand, are in theory perpetual. That’s one of the contradictions that’s most relevant here.

Of course you could say that something is a mixture of the two, with some “de facto single state” mixed in as well. That might be accurate (I don’t think it is, but whatever), but if so, then the more that it’s colonization, the less that it’s occupation, and vice versa.

By: Prometheus

Prometheus — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 10:54:53 +0000

Prior to 1967 the territories belonged to Jordan.
So what Israel occupies is a part of Jordan and nothing else. Palestinians have no word in this dispute.

By: Yossi Gurvitz

Yossi Gurvitz — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 05:21:51 +0000

If the territories are colonies, then fine, start calling them colonies and stop calling them occupied. Because they can’t be both.

Why not? They are both occupied *and* colonized. Same as any colonized country.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 03:07:19 +0000

If the territories are colonies, then fine, start calling them colonies and stop calling them occupied. Because they can’t be both.

Jonathan, if the territories are no longer occupied, then don’t call them occupied territories (I’m not saying you ever did), and point it out when the +972 contributors make such a fundamental mistake.

By: max

max — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 21:04:40 +0000

According to Haaretz the police has been using such vehicles for quite some time, so this is a 1st for a protest.
I presume that the 1st time police arrived on horses, and then on Vespa to a protest was also a 1st…

By: Kolumn9

Kolumn9 — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 20:21:31 +0000

What’s the problem? The border guard/police deployed a vehicle to keep track of where the protesters were so that they would know where to deploy units when violence broke out. Is it the color of the car that is the problem for you? You are exaggerating the importance of this.