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Originally posted by gravitational
Anyway, there were two foreign observers and advisers in that commission, Lord William David Trimble, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and Ken Watkin, international lawyer and former judge advocate general for Canada.
I guess their say on the commission's conclusions is also worthless by your standards.
www.ynetnews.com...
Originally posted by Eliad
If I remember correctly they could in fact declare a blockade because they are at war with Hamas and Hamas is the single ruling entity in Gaza, or something along those lines
How do you conclude that it isn't effective?
But the blockade in itself does not have the sole purpose of starving the civilian population, the fact that it did hurt the economy might be wrong, but not illegal according to international law.
And do you find that the economic damage of the blockade was excessive in relation to the fact the Hamas stopped getting ship loads of weapons? Can you really make that call?
sub-point b is the important one (Even I don't think it's Israel's intent to starve the Gazans).
I agree with parts of you analysis, but I don't think that we have enough data on smuggling before and after the blockade, nor are we legal experts of international law...
Let's try this again, and try to not be a duplicitous weasel this time, hey?
Gaza is not a separate political entity from the West Bank.
Together they are under hte government of the Palestinian Authority.
Following the victory of Hamas in the 2006 Palestinian legislative election, Hamas and Fatah formed a Palestinan authority national unity government headed by Ismail Haniya. Shortly after, Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in the course of the Battle of Gaza,[43] seizing government institutions and replacing Fatah and other government officials with its own.[44] By 14 June, Hamas fully controlled the Gaza Strip. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas responded by declaring a state of emergency, dissolving the unity government and forming a new government without Hamas participation.
'[A]n armed conflict exists whenever there is a resort to armed force between States or protracted armed violence between governmental authorities and organized armed groups or between such groups within a State.'
Because the stated goal of the blockade is to deny arms to Hamas; which has obviously not been very effective.
I did in fact say that was not the goal of the blockade, didn't I?
And yes. Hamas' capacity to fight has not been damaged by the blockade. In some ways the blockade has strengthened Hamas, adding recruiting material and making them the sole functioning economic entity in Gaza.
A fairly practical measure is the question, if the blockade were lifted tomorrow, would the Israeli people find themselves in a position equal to or less than the condition of Gazans under the blockade, as a result of Hamas' attacks? Even before the blockade, the answer was no.
Thankfully, the international laws at hand are pretty clear-cut.
Against whom though?
Most Stateless Palestinians residing all over the world have no rights whatsoever.
the outcome of that unfair/unjust invasion
What exactly was their crime then?
Will Israel take them back and compensate?
Israel allowed immigrants of Jewish background to migrate and inhabit these same lands. Why?
Since Israel seems to have no problem taking in immigrants, why not take the Stateless Palestinians back to their homes?
Couldn't you just simply migrate to Palestine without initiating war?
There were Jews living among Arabs anyway, so why the need to aggressively occupy Palestine and make it a Jewish only state?
Is that even lawful?
These are only a few questions that have always been on my mind and never seemed to find any answers.