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Wednesday, November 17, 2021

The Promised Land and The Outposts

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                  

  1920 and Israel/Judah-renamed Palestine by Romans: 120,466 sq. km. or 46,512.1826 sq. miles which included  Judea and Samaria as it had always been.  Samaria was the northern section and Judea the southern.  Israel's total surface was 17,500 sq miles  of which 45% was in Transjordan. 
 The cattle-keeping tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh lived in Transjordan.  King David conquered the whole Transjordan including the rich copper mines of the Arabah.  under the weak successors of Solomon, this area was lost or only held temporarily.  Western Ammon was held for a time by a Jewish family, the TOBIADS.                                            

The extent of the Promised land reached the Pelusium arm of the Nile Delta, the Gulf of Elath, and the Euphrates opposite Aleppo in the East: It included most of Syria and altogether covered 58,000 sq miles.  This entire area was occupied by the Israelites under David and Solomon.                       

                     Israel, now only 8,550 sq. miles in size.  

Israel's Border Police forces evacuated and demolished an illegal outpost near Shilo in Samaria (the West Bank).  A group of 20 masked people arrived at a nearby hill and began throwing stones at the Border Police, damaging a patrol vehicle. 

                                             

Evacuation of Beit Dror outpost, July 27, 2021
(photo credit: CHANA IVGI)

"Masked demonstrators arrive at Geulat Zion and begin throwing stones at Border Police, damaging patrol car; evacuation takes place amid uptick in violence between settlers and Palestinians."                                      

The Border Police then continued to another nearby illegal outpost, Ramat Migron, where five people were arrested during clashes with police and four patrol cars were damaged. The evacuation comes amid continued violence between settlers and Palestinian in the West Bank.

Those that dare to live in their previous homeland are usually orthodox Jews who have great respect and awe of the land, so intricately woven into Judaism.  Israel has dared to allow living space under different PMs.  This is the land most dearly loved in our religion and it's hard to deny Jews to live there when they are a stone's throw away from it.  

                                                

By 135 CE, a Jewish General, Bar Kokhba,  had held Jerusalem for the past 3 years, taking it from the Romans who had taken it from the Jews in 70 CE by burning down the Temple with the city.  Palestine was the name the Romans gave to the land to get even with the Jews for retaking the land as it is giving praise to the Philistines, the worst enemy the Jews had fought.                            

The Jews had held the land ever since Joshua b: c. 1350 BCE of the tribe of Ephraim and the 601,730  Israelites had entered it and helped to create an empire.  That was an empire for 1,420 years that had been of the Israelites before the greedy Roman conquerors. The USA is only 245 years old.  Israel was 5 1/2 times older than the USA.  Can you imagine what the USA will be like in the year 3441?  

It wasn't just a country to the Judeans, who lived in the southern end of Israel.  It had religious underpinnings.  The Israelites were led there by G-d, and told to live there and that it was to be their home.  The Temple had been a very important part of their religious beliefs.    

The Israeli-occupied territories refers to the land won back by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967. It was a terrible 6 days when all the surrounding Arab armies attacked Israel, and a miracle happened.  Israel won.  After attacking Israel from 1947 to 1949, and again in 1956 and losing, this was the Arab chance of retribution.  It didn't work.   It was a hard win for Israel.  776 soldiers died and 5,293 were injured, a far more serious war than previous ones.  The started with Syria, Egypt and Soviet Union spreading rumors of concentrations of Israeli forces on the Syrian frontier, still believed by some.  They ignored on the spot reports by the UN that no such concentration existed.  The Arabs tried so hard to bait the Jews into starting the war even while they were all lined up on the border.                                               

The 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors shocked the world and resulted in an Israeli victory that created the boundaries of the modern Middle East.

The war started when Egypt spread rumor for concentrating the bulk of the Egyptian army in Sinai-90,000 men and 900 tanks.  Egypt then closed the Straits of Tiran to all destined for Israel, AND CALLED FOR WAR.  Led by Egypt, the Arab States formed a war pact against Israel.  Jordan, Iraq, Syria had their armies along the border with Israel.  They made public speeches saying their intention was to destroy Israel.             

Israel Defense Forces Former Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz salutes Yom Kippur War of 1973 casualties at an official annual memorial service for fallen soldiers.

 It also sometimes refers to areas of Southern Lebanon where Israeli military was present to support local Lebanese militias during the civil war and after it. Originally, the sole governance of the territories were as the Jordanian-annexed Judea-Samaria, land first promised to the Jews and won back in the 1967 war, the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip (given to Palestinians in the name of peace that has never come) , the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula (given back to Egypt in the name of peace), and the Syrian Golan Heights.            

Israel Signs Second Disengagement Agreement With Egypt


If you want to know about occupied territories, ask the Jews how they suffered under the Syrian Greek  Occupation during the days of Judah the Maccabee, and then again by the Roman Occupation, equally as bad.  Nobody has suffered more than the Jews from 'OCCUPATION."  The Jewish morality is the Golden Rule, not to do to others that which they find repugnant to themselves, clarified by Hillel born in Babylonia of 1st century BCE before Jesus was born.  

The first use of the term 'territories occupied' was in United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 following the Six-Day War in 1967, which called for "the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East" to be achieved by "the application of both the following principles: ... 

1.Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict ... Israel withdrew from Gaza completely and look what it got them; rockets landing into Israel.  Ask Ashkelon's hospital how they like it; having to go to the basement to operate.  

2.Termination of all claims or states of belligerency" and respect for the right of every state in the area to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries.  The Palestinians, followers of Arafat's Fatah and Hamas terrorists certainly haven't been following that rule, and are still firing rockets into Israel.  Syria and Lebanon are now being taking over by Iran and Russia is also involved there with plenty of Russians in the population.  

In addition to the territories won by Israel following the Six-Day War, Israel also controlled portions of Southern Lebanon following the 1982 Lebanon War, and maintained a military presence there until withdrawing in 2000.

What are Israeli outposts?  In Israeli law, an outpost (Hebrewמאחז‎, Ma'ahaz lit. "a handhold") is an unauthorized or illegal Israeli settlement within Judea and Samaria ( the West Bank), constructed without the required authorization from the Israeli government in contravention of Israeli statutes regulating planning and construction. 

In Israeli law, outposts are distinguished from settlements authorized by the Israeli government. This distinction between illegal outposts and "legal" settlements is not endorsed by international law, which considers both a violation of the norms, governing belligerent occupations, applicable to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.  

They started as military outposts.  In theory, military outposts are temporary occupations for military strategic purposes, not for the settlement of civilians. In the Israeli held areas in Judea and Samaria, this were typically Nahal settlements, and they became a principal way to start civilian settlements.           

Outposts were originally Nahal villages established by the Israel Defence forces.  Nahal is a corps which combines military training with farm work;  its members become farmers when their service ends.  The villages are, in substance, military points, like those held by any other unit of the Israel Defence forces. 

There are villages that were made up of  civilians established in areas which Israel hopes may be assigned to the jurisdiction by peace treaties.  Israel has declared again and again that, in peace talks, everything will be negotiable.  

There are communities established in areas where the political future is not covered by Israel's positions.  The assumption has been that they may even go to Arab sovereignty under a treaty of peace.

                                              

Israelis dismantle structure in illegal outpost.  

So while everyone else is breaking previous plans for peace, Israel's law is after those religious folks living in Judea and Samaria's countryside illegally.  


Resource:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_outpost

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_casualties_of_war

facts about Israel, Division of Information, ministry for foreign affairs, jerusalem

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