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ending occupation won't end terror
I'm dragging this point out of another thread where it didn't belong. Looks like we get to start a new mid-east debate! Yea!!
It was raised, like many times before that the simple solution to terror is that the Israel exit the 'occupied territories' and cede control to the Palestinians in those territories. The reasoning goes that the humiliation and blah blah blah caused by the Israeli occupation of the people in this region are the cause for terror.
Now I will counter the above argument with a logical approach why this is not THE reason for terror, nor will the cessation of an occupation stop this terror.
First, military occupation is not the cause of terror. Proof? Well lets examine military occupations across the world shall we? Lets bring a few examples: Tibet, East Timor, Poland, Kosovo, Palestine.
Tibet, no terrorist, no suicide bombers, barely a resitance movement.
East timor, small resistance movement, little terror, no suicide bombers.
Poland, large resistance movement (talking about when poland was occupied by Russia), no terror, no sucide bombers.
Kosovo (under serbia), little resistance movement, terror, no suicide bombers.
Kosovo (under NATO), no resistance movement, little terror, no suicide bombers.
Palestine, little resistance movement, lots of terror, lots of suicide bombers.
Using different examples of varried military occupation throughout the world and of limited time scope above, I believe I have shown that occupation does not result in terror and therefore we can not make this assumption.
Now having proved that the assumption that occupation leads to terror, I will difuse the argument that the end of occupation will stop terror:
For ending of occupation and the direct corrolation to an end of terror, we don't even need to take so broad examples from the world, there are many from Israel's own history:
Occupation of Sinai, and its end. Occupation of Southern Leabonon and its end.
Israel withdrew from Sinai in 1978. Terror continued before and after this date to Israel. Even though a formal peace signed with Egypt latter curtailed terrorist operations orginating from Egypt. Yet arms smuggling and terrorist support are still conducted from Egypt till this day.
Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon in 2000 (or 1999, can't remember, it was spring though of whatever year). The Hezbullah had terrorized Israel's northern border before the occupation, during the occupation, and now after the occupation. The ending of the occupation in Lebanon had no effect on curtailing Hezbullah activity, many will argue it has even strengthened their position. Hezbullah continues to terrorize the Israeli populance, despite the fact that Israel withdrew from every bit of Lebanonese territory, and this was verified by the UN who says there should be no areas of dispute.
From these two examples, one could come to a general assumption that the ending of an occupation has no direct effect on the end of terrorism.
To this mix of counter arguments, I can add the ones you have probably already heard:
Terror existed before the occupation (israeli of palestinain claimed areas). If there was no terror there would be no occupation, and so forth. These are all valid, but I won't go to prove these as I believe the above arguments are proof enough to difuse your incorrect assumptions.
Now I will leave this post empty of citing sources and direct specific examples, and will leave that to my other posts to some of you who I am sure will try to stab at the above points.
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