Today is Day 14,254 of the Maintenance of the Immoral (and Illegal) West Bank Settlements and almost the 40th anniversary of the start of the immoral (and illegal) occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
Micah.6:8 “He has told you, O man, Only to do justice and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God
It is now 1991 and still the squatters flow into the West Bank.
As they say as many TV shows begin, “Previously”
1968 - April 13, 1968, Rabbi Moshe Levinger starts a squatter settlement in Hebron
1968 - 1972 – Jewish Israeli squatters found 11 settlements
1978 - President Carter says civilian settlements inconsistent with international law.”
1980 - There are 53 settlements where approximately 12,500 Jewish Israeli squatters live.
1988 - There are 110 settlements where approximately 63,600 Jewish Israeli squatters live.
“(I)n many ways Shamir gave Bush no choice but to challenge the loan guarantees. ..Starting in early 1990 Shamir clearly announced his intention to use Soviet Jewish immigration to counter …the threat of higher Palestinian birth rates … But to carry out Shamir’s strategy, Israel needs loan money to be used inside Israel; this would then free up the billions of dollars for settlements on the West Bank… So in a supreme act of chutzpah, Shamir turned to the U.S. and asked Bush to provide the funds to make a mockery of Bush’s own land-for-peace policy. Polls quickly revealed that 86 percent of the American public supported Bush on delaying consideration of the loans. On the face of it, it is morally intolerable to give American money that we know will be used to free up other monies that will go to strengthen the Occupation. .. the Jewish establishment is not only without any sort of moral compass when dealing with Israel; it is also simply incapable of acting rationally to defend Jewish interests… It is willing to tie the credibility and security of the Jewish people to a right wing policy that violates the best moral precepts of the Jewish people and places the Jewish people and Israel in conflict with the most positive development of the past half century, namely the worldwide movement toward democracy, human rights, peace and reconciliation. … The established leadership of the Jewish world, both in the U.S. and Israel,… are willing to lead the Jewish people into isolation, moral disintegration, and possible self-destruction.” Michael Lerner “Linkage” Tikkun Nov/Dec 1991
In addition here are some Excerpts from “Linkage: Loans, Aid, and Land for Peace” P.31 et seq. Tikkun November/December 1991 -
MK (Member of the Knesset) Yair Tzaban – “But at that point we never imagined that our government – Sharon, with the backing of Shamir – would be planning to escalate settlement in the Occupied Territories – a policy of outright provocation… All the world and half of the Israeli population, support the proposition of exchanging land for peace.”
David Saperstein – “I strongly believe that an expansionist settlement policy … is exceedingly dangerous to Israel’s security and Israel’s democratic character.”
MK Shulamith Aloni – “American Jewry lives under a constitution, believes in human rights, believes in equality before the law. Why doesn’t it insist that the Israeli government hold these same principles in relation to the Palestinians? Why do American Jews ignore what the Israeli government is doing in violation of Human rights in the Occupied Territories?”
1992 - There are now 120 settlements where 100,500 Jewish Israeli squatters live.
Deutoronomy 16:20 – “Justice, justice shall you pursue that you may live and inherit the land which God gave you” and the footnote in the 1980 Hertz Edition “(T)here is international justice, which demands respect for the personality of every national group, and proclaims that no people can of right be robbed of its national life or territory, its language or spiritual heritage.
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