Gaza's land continues to be stolen
First the land was taken from it's owners by the Israelis, and now that the Israelis are gone, the Palestinain Authority doesn't want to give the stolen land back. Talk about Chutzpa. Israel seized Fatma Khalaf's farmland five years ago as a security buffer for a Jewish settlement. Now that the Israelis are gone from Gaza, she wants her 50 acres back. But the Palestinian Authority has different plans. It wants to build high-rise apartments, universities and new farms on the ruins of the Israeli settlements and says land expropriated by Israel will not automatically be returned to its owners. When her property was taken, Khalaf was building a house on it. She and her sons want to resume construction, open a seaside restaurant and cultivate the rest of the land. "We came out from Jews' (occupation) unscathed," Khalaf said. "Now, we won't let the Arabs take it." How does the PA justify it's thievery? Simple, the old socialist excuse of "Public Good". "We have a plan: that all the lands (appropriated) in Gaza be used for public good," Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said recently. Even before the Israeli pullout from Gaza earlier this month, he decreed that the government would take control of all lands and assets that Israel left behind. But that Bullshit won't fly! Many owners vow to fight. Khalaf, in her 60s, threatened to shoot any official who comes near her prime seaside plot: "No one can take our land again." Hell yeah!
posted by The Sandmonkey @ 10/01/2005 03:41:00 AM
10 Comments:
Land belongs to the geographical conquerors who conquer it. We're all just renters on the planet,
a dynamic history of movements of various peoples over millenia,
usurping former unhabitants establishing their cultures and domains, and then losing out to the next wave of technology, disease, change, war, poverty.
Hey, I wrote this brilliance all before 8:00 in the morning.
Will Sam Be Joining Raed & Niki Jarrar in Their 'Hello Frisco' Love Nest?
Typical arab excuse: public good!! what does it mean?
So a jew confiscates land & is called an expansionist thief.
A palestinian does it & is called a visionary statesman.
I believe that Israel should give the Land to the Maronite Christians. We helped them during the Civil War and now most of our people have been forced to flee Israel...so why not give it to us? Besides doesnt Israel want friendly nations as neighbors??
S Tauq
If they offered her fair market price it would be legal in the U.S.
The Supreme Court says so.
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA
This is too inform you that you have been tagged and that I answered your tag ...:)
MG, is Raed really in San Francisco now? Niki could gte a visa, but Raed?
Tell me it isn't so. If anybody from the Jarrar family emigrates to the US I am going to personally set up a protest blockade in front of their residence. And no, San Franciscans don't scare me any :p
I am afraid I must disagree.
Yes it is terrible when the state takes away private land, but sometimes it must be down for society to thrive.
Even in America, the land of individual liberty, it is recognized that land occasionally must be confiscated.
Of course, the owners MUST be compensated 2x-10x the land value and this should never be done lightly or in secret. But sometimes, it must be done.
C'est La Vie
I think some of ya'll missed the irony of Sam's post. I'm not sure if that was just applying your own experiences or if that was just being unknowledgable about Palestinian Slogans and demands.
The irony here is that the argument for continued aggression against Israel has been that they forcefully (true or not) expelled "Palestinians" from their land in order to increase the size of Israel and in order to insure Israel's prosperity by taking the prime agricultural land or at least using it as a "buffer zone" or cutting people off from it with the "aparthied wall".
It is truly ironic that these folks finally get their demand to have their land released, only to have a government entity come in and take it.
Whether the claim for "public good" is legal or truly reflects "public good" is neither here nor there, particularly when there is a continuing call within the Palestinian movement to have the "right of return" to lands now in the domain of Israel.
I can't decide if I should laugh or cry, but it does remind me of something my grandmother always said, "be careful what you ask for because you just might get it."
As mentioned before, the same thing happens in the US and other western countries. It is called "Imminent Domain". The government has to pay for the land. The value of what is paid is the source of disputes.
Recently the US Supreme Court said it was OK for local govt's to take over private houses and sell it to other private developers to increase the tax base. Not just to build roads and other public facilities.
We aren't that much different.
How terribly selfish the women is. She expects to start a business, create useful employment for her family and probably other people and actually do some good for the the Palestinian area. She must be stopped before others start doing productive things as well. You never know where it could end; maybe a viable and happy community or something?
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