It is not just a question of semantics

There is, of course, the Israeli take on United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 and their absurd assertion that the resolution calls for Israel to withdraw from "occupied territories" and not "the occupied territories" and that this, therefore, means that the requirement is for Israel to withdraw from some of the territories occupied. Now, if this were only a question of semantics we shouldn't be too concerned but, it isn't! It is, in fact, a tried and tested formula which the Zionists use when it comes to their land grabbing.

It is in considering this that we should look at Olmert's speech from November 2008 where he said that Israel "must give up Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem and return to the core of the territory that is the State of Israel prior to 1967, with minor corrections dictated by the reality created since then." Yes, we are left wondering what Olmert meant when he spoke of "minor" corrections and might he have meant something similar to the "good" Rabbi from yesterday's post who talks about a Palestinian state in "approximately the 1967 borders"? Now, if we are unsure what the Israelis understand  by "minor changes" and "approximate borders", we would do well to look at a report in today's 'Haaretz' where we can read that Israel, despite their promise to suspend settlement building, has authorised the construction of 112 new apartments in the West Bank. Of course, the Israelis have a very strange idea of what "suspending construction" actually means, just as they have their very own interpretation on what "minor corections" and "approximately the 1967 border" will entail. Nevertheless, this is the drivel they will be firing at us when it comes to them telling us how much they worked for a "just settlement", and the "just" there we mght wholly equate with the type of Israeli "justice" which was experienced by the population of Gaza last year.

Modifiers cannot be appled to these issues; Resolutions 194 and 242 are not ambiguous and as the today's 'Guardian' quite rightly points out: "All settlements on occupied territory are illegal under international law." Of course, with its ally in Washington supposedly demanding a stop to all settlement building and then welcoming the so-called "patial curbs" imposed by Netanyahu, also prepared to see its own "road map" for peace trodden upon time and time again we can be sure that once again Israel will once have the chutzpah to turn round and blame the Palestinians for failing to negotiate. After all, Israel is prepared to offer them a state with "minor corrections" to the 1967 borders, but which will have "approximately" those borders. Moreover, hasn't Israel already displayed its good intentions with its "partial curbs" on settlement building? Not only is this drivel being used to deprive the Palestinian people of their rights, it also offends good taste and the only riposte one can offer is to repeat the words of the 'Guardian: "All settlements on occupied territory are illegal under international law." Now, let us sit back and wait for the Zionist "newspeakers" to modify or quantify the word "all".