ISRAEL – ישראל

Land and Security

Elad Arnon Israeli Shaliach for Central Alabama

Clash of Historical Narratives

Israeli and Palestinian identities are deeply entangled. The two peoples lay claim to the same land and locate their holy sites in the same city.  Ironically, they share a history of displacement and wandering, of being identified as an unwanted, outcast body.

Israeli and Palestinian Identities in History and Literature.  St. Martin's Press, 1999. 

Islamic Empire in the Middle Ages the National Arab dream

Palestinian National movementThe first demand for Palestinian national independence was issued by the Syrian-Palestinian Congress on 21 September 1921 after the collapse of the Ottoman’s Empire.

al-Husayni meeting with Adolf Hitler (December 1941).

Mohammad Amin al-Husayni was the first palestinian nationalist leader active in both opposing the British in order to secure the independence of Palestine as an Arab state and led violent riots against Jews opposing the establishment of a National home for the Jewish people in Palestine

During World War 2 he cooperate with Nazi Germany asking to prevent the deportation of Europe Jews to Palestin

United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine

resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 29 November 1947 by a vote of 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpNpueivtWQ&feature=related

Film of the UN resolution:

“After being forcibly exiled from their land, the Jewish people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom”.

Israeli Declaration of Independence May 1948

Zionist movement leads to the establishment of the state of Israel

5 Arabs army invasion to the new Israeli state may 1948

Israel after the war

Palastinians Refuges 1948

The Palstinian’s Nakba

The key symbolize the hope to return home

the Palestinian Arabs failed to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state according to the partition plan, an estimated 700,000 Palestinian refugees and the destruction and abandonment of up to 418 Palestinian villages are called al-Nakba ("The Catastrophe") by Palestinians

Six Day War - 1967

Syria threat – shooting from the Golan heights to north Israel

Jordan threat – siege on Jerusalem

Egypt threat - closing of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping

The Casus belli:Three major threats

Six days war – June 1967

Within the brief span of six days, the IDF overran the Sinai peninsula; took the entire West Bank of the River Jordan; and captured a great part of the Golan Heights.

The culminating event was the capture of the Old City of Jerusalem

Israeli Generals in liberated Jerusalem

“I stand here before you, the leaders of our generation, in awe, in this ancient, glory filled place overlooking our eternal capital and looking upon the staging grounds of our nation's earliest history”.

IDF chief of staff Yitzhak Rabin: Acceptance of Honorary Doctorate Mt. Scopus June 28, 1967

The Palestinian Authority

Hamas Regime

Israel

Israel Today – West Bank – Gaza Strip: two nations three governments

ISRAEL – ישראל

Land and Security

Recent events Time Line

Time line

The Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada

The Middle East Peace Summit at Camp David failed.

There were four principal obstacles to agreement: territory, Jerusalem and

the Temple Mount, Palestinian refugees and the 'right of return”, and Israeli

security concerns.

July2000

September 2000

Palestinian rioting erupted following Ariel

Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount

ISRAEL – ישראל

Land and Security

February 2001

Ariel Sharon, at the time from the Likud party, ran against

Ehud Barak from the Labour party.

Sharon was elected Israeli Prime Minister February 2001

Sharon refused to meet in person with Yasser Arafat.

civilian Israeli movement called Fence for began

a struggle for the construction of a continuous

security fence between the Palestinian population

centers and the Israeli population

June 2001

Stage A - runs from Salem to Elkana, and around Jerusalem (in the

northern and southern sections), was completed by the end of July

2003.

Stage B - running from Salem towards Bet- Shean, through the

Jezreel Valley and the Gilboa mountains, approved in December

2002, was completed in 2004.

Israeli government Builds the security fence

Security arrangements in the West Bank

Terrorism has been defined throughout the international community

as a crime against humanity. As such, the State of Israel not only

has the right but also the obligation to do everything in its power to

lessen the impact and scope of terrorism on the citizens of Israel.

The Security Fence is an operational concept conceived by the Israeli

Defense Establishment in order to reduce the number of terrorist

attacks whether in the form of explosive- rigged vehicles or in the form

of suicide bombers who enter into Israel with the intention of

murdering innocent babies, children, women and men.

http://switch5.castup.net/Customers/Castup/v_round_320x240/Design.asp?clipurl=http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ClipMediaID=1221451&ak=null

Fence Against Terror (Video - IDF Spokesperson production).

Ramadan Shalah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader,publicly admits that Israel's Security Fence is an important obstacle to the terrorist

Israel is faced with several threats which required a multi layered response:Continued terrorist attacks including shootings, explosive charges, booby rigged vehicles and suicide bombers.

Smuggling of weapons, explosive and explosive charges into Israel.

Initiation of violent acts and terrorist activity through the assimilation into the local arab population.

The threat

Exploded bus and car as a result of a suicide bomber

Carmel Market in Tel Aviv after a suicide bombing 1-nov-2004

The Hebrew University Cafeteria after bombing 31-july-2002

passover massacre Netanya March 27, 2002

The IDF is responsible for the operational activation of the Security Fence both on its eastern and western side.Command and control centers along the Security Fence receive on line data from the various observation systems and devices.

They provide the soldiers in the center with up to date situational map of each and every sector.Once a change in the pattern is detected or an alert is signalled, they can direct the patrol to inspect the suspicious cause for alert and deal with it.

The response

This particular design is used in a minority of cases- a total of 8 km in the initial stages of the project (4%).

Its main purpose is to prevent sniper fire into Israel and on major highways and roads.

This design is used mainly along the new Trans - Israel Highway, in Bat Hefer and Matan, and in densely populated urban areas such as Jerusalem.

Once the whole project is completed, the portion of the concrete sections will be 6%, approximately 30 km.

Solid barrier system

When Israel's free society was defending itself against an unprecedented campaign of

terror, most of the international community was calling for an end of the "cycle of violence"

and a return to the negotiating table.

When the Palestinian terrorists struck... Israel was condemned for imposing "collective

punishment" on the Palestinian population.

When Israel chose to target individual terrorists with precision air strikes, its actions were

condemned as illegal extrajudicial assassinations.

It seemed that in eyes of many, the Jews had a right to defend themselves in theory

but could not exercise that right in practice...

Natan Sharansky:

Minister of Housing and Construction during Ariel

Sharon Government:

Netanya

Haifa

Tel Aviv

Jerusalem

Ramallah

Bethlehem

Design of the Multi layered Fence system

The settlements movement

The land of Israel is the birthright of the Jewish people and no political leader has the jurisdiction to give away any part of it.

Agreements damaging the integrity and security of Israel have not and do not further the goal of peace in the region.

http://www.amana.co.il/Index.asp?CategoryID=100

Yesha today boasts well over 150 communities:

Right wingThe settlements

movement

personal perspective

Conflict/ Elad Arnon

So many things in my mind I want to shareSometimes word is a cruel wayTo express, to dareDear homeland please stopBleedingAs my hartIs keepOn bitingSweet land of milk and honeyUse to fall throw coldInterests and moneyAnd I just a childWandering aloneBetween love and hateAnd so goes on.

In my lovely houseThere is a windowI can see a fence from thereThis my mother hands to save meFrom bombing busses orShooting menThis my father hate to send them:

“Don’t you ever hit my boy”And there's the book to justifyAbraham Isaac AdonaiWhen I put my ranksI sharp my swordTo keep Golan to my hart closeBut back Home Jerusalem still cryingPolitics get hard when people dying. Written during Israeli Palestinian seminar in

Walberberg Germany August 2009

For more information about the conflict:

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFAIsrael Ministry of Foreign Affairs

http://makom.haaretz.com/Makom – Engaging Israel

http://onevoice-la.org/One Voice

http://knesset.gov.il/Knesset website

http://www.mots.org.il/Eng/Index.aspMuseum on the Steam

http://www.yesha-israel.com/index/home/Yesha

Questions and comments will be more then welcome Elad Arnon JFCA Shaliach eladarnon@gmail.com

http://www.securityfence.mod.gov.il/Pages/ENG/default.htmIsrael Ministry of Defance

http://www.securityfence.mod.gov.il/Pages/ENG/questions.htmQuestions about the fence