Ali Abunimah at EI, on Hamas's softening, post Cairo:
Another analysis of Hamas'
shift currently circulating argues that Hamas has accepted the
Palestinian "consensus" position of a two-state solution on every inch
of the 1967 occupied territories with removal of all settlements and
with the Right of Return. But it knows that no potential peace deal
coming from the Obama initiative will ever reach even these minimal
conditions, and that if Abbas and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert could not reach even the outlines of an agreement after two
years of negotiations, the chances of any deal with a
Netanyahu-Lieberman government are even tinier. In this scenario, Hamas
need not stand in the way of a two-state solution because it will fail
anyway. But by saying it would accept that minimalist outcome, it would
avoid blame for the failure and its adherence to resistance would be
vindicated….
[Khaled] Meshal's speech [of June 25] confirms Hamas' long-term shift away from Islamist
rhetoric toward mainstream Palestinian nationalist discourse. It
indicates that Hamas is highly sensitive to international and
Palestinian public opinion and is aware that Palestinians need to build
real international solidarity as part of a strategy to level the
glaring power imbalance with Israel. But it is not prepared to seek
recognition at any price. All this has implications for the movement's
message and methods.
This leaves the field open for an urgent debate among Palestinians
about what that future vision should be and what role resistance in all
its legitimate forms should play. No group of leaders, whether from
Hamas or any other organization, could or should carry the burden of
restoring Palestinian rights by itself. Hamas, like other Palestinian
organizations, can only be a guardian of fundamental rights to the
extent that it is embedded in a broader movement mobilized in Palestine
and globally to defend those rights.
No, you're not applying legal analysis, you're misconstruing what it says in the Geneva conventions to suit your ideas even though the vast majority of legal experts are of a different opinion.
Oh, and those Arab villages were just non-existent fantasies. Care to explain where in the Geneva conventions you got that from and the support you have from expert legal analysts?
A matter of interpretation? How unfortunate that there is no provision in the GCs for just over half of the signatories (or even all but one of the signatories) to make such "interpretations". They got together to come to a foregone conclusion. If you and me and 170 other people make a contract, and then about 110 of them vote unanimously that the contract means X when it clearly says Y, are you morally or legally obligated to go along with that? If it hurt Israel, they would have voted that black is white.
I determine that they are not. I have as much power to make these determinations as the UNSC. Anybody can determine anything, the question is whether their interpretation is legally binding. It isn't. As even they know since they "deplore" and "call on" rather than ordering. Face it, you are trying to apply the rules that govern national laws to international laws and it doesn't work. Specifically, you are trying to define various bodies as legitimate judges of whether the law has been broken. The problem is that treaties are deals between countries, not laws imposed from outside. There is no body that has the authority to make legally binding determinations except when the treaties themselves designate such a body (as is the case with the WTO). In order to tell if a law has been violated, you need to argue the facts and the interpretations of the law. Generally, it helps to have people who understand how laws and contracts work. The bodies you cite do none of these things. They don't consider the facts, they don't even make broad interpretations of the treaty. If they had said "no country may do things that part III of the 4th GC (occupied territories) says, even to people who are not bound by the Geneva Convention", that would be more respectable. Instead they made a legal conclusion "part III applies in this particular case" without bothering to do legal analysis. Their entire analysis was "Israel bad". How would you like to be in front of a judge who said "I find you guilty" without considering the facts?
Real reason for why Israel was called upon to abide by article 49? Because the U.N. are a bunch of whores for the Arab oil. You have a better argument on "transfer" than on whether the article applies at all. You may even be correct. However, there are levels between involuntary deportation and voluntary movement. "We were forced to come here", "we were sent here", "we came here on our own". The first two are clearly banned. The third depends on the interpretation of what it means for the occupying power to "transfer". Of course, it is moot since the Palestinians are not protected people under the part III of the 4th GC. Fact is, it is very clear that most of the GCs don't apply to people who don't accept the GCs. For one thing, all 4 GCs say so right near the top. For another, the 4th GC specifically identifies an exception to that rule. It says "Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention are not protected by it. " then says that "The provisions of Part II are, however, wider in application, as defined in Article 13." Quite apart from the absolutely clear statement that those not bound by the GCs are not protected by it, the fact that there is an exception for part II (which applies more broadly) demonstrates that the rest are not universal, but only apply under certain circumstances. You can't have a set of rules that applies more widely than "universal". So far, I have not seen anyone make a reasoned argument as to why that limitation shouldn't apply. All I have seen are appeals to authority. "The Party says there are five". Either the limitation is meaningless, in which case, why have it there, or the Palestinians are obeying the GCs (reality begs to differ) or the Palestinians are not protected by the articles of the GCs outside of part II.
It does say that. The problem is that you haven't bothered to find out what the GCs mean by "protected person". Near the beginning of the 4th GC it says "Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention are not protected by it." Remember what I said about skimming laws and contracts rather than reading carefully? That is why. "Protected person" is a term of art, it refers to a specific class of people defined by the terms of the GC. So anywhere that the GC says something about "Protected persons" the first thing you have to do is figure out whether someone is a protected person under the definitions provided. If they aren't then the rest of the statement isn't talking about them. Look over part II, which applies more broadly. Notice that "protected person" doesn't appear in it one single time. Contrast that with part III where it appears 79 times (including "protected persons"). That's not a coincidence, that was intentional. BTW, whether the individual loses status as a protected person by helping Fateh doesn't matter since they never had the status as a protected person in the first place. What the resolutions provide is abundant evidence that the U.N. is prejudiced against Israel. In a world with billions of people, with Israel and the Palestinians (including all 14 million Palestinians world wide) totaling a third of one percent of the world population (and an even lower percentage of the deaths in conflicts), and less than 2 parts per 10,000 of the land area in the world, 10% of all UNSC resolutions are resolutions attacking Israel. This in a world where actual genocides occur with appalling regularity.
How am I misconstruing? Make your own arguments instead of plagiarizing other people and citing bare and unsupported conclusions arrived at by politics, not by looking at the facts and the law.
Wow, even with the warning about exactly what you would come up with, you came up with what I predicted. I did leave out "a few outright lies about what Jewish leaders said", but you provided those too. DBG 1937 your first fake quote. The original said the opposite: "We do not wish and do not need to expel Arabs and take their place." http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x... DBG 1948 statement, a second fake quote, not only is it not in the book you cited, but it was originally a fake quote attributed to Israeli Northern District Commissioner Israel Koenig. I guess whoever changed it to DBG thought Israel Koenig wasn't famous enough. http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x... http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x... Given that DBG was against compulsory transfer, the last quote is a fake as well. The problem you have is that when you go looking for inflammatory quotes by Israel's leaders, you go swimming in a sewer of lies. People are lazy about attribution and nobody provides the chain of attribution. So if one Palestinian lies in print about what DBG says, and cites a reputable source that doesn't actually say that, then every other idiot who picks it up just cites the reputable source, not the intermediate source. They never bother to check whether it is actually there. Then when people come looking, they see 10,000 articles and such citing the same "source" of the quote, so they think it is reliable, not realizing that it is all a lie stemming from a single original liar. Phil or Adam made up a fake Einstein quote on here a few days ago. I wonder if that will show up in 10,000 different places a few years from now.
So stick to official government policies where the text of the original is available. BTW, what site did you cut and paste your fake quotes from?
Actually, their interpretation does matter and is binding in the ICJ. blah blah anti-Semite blah. get a new record, this one's getting olf
The thing is, they do consider the facts and believe it or not, they're not just out to get Israel, this is their interpretation. Now, quit burying your head in the sand.
You're applying your own legal analysis to suit your views even when it contradicts the views of the vast majority of legal experts. You're trying to point out a difference where one doesn't exist.
"No, there was nothing in their statements about fighting back if Israel attacked first." Yes there was if you bothered to research properly. Or did you deliberately ignore that bit? It seems you did, seeing as the preceding sentence to the one you quoted was: "If Israel embarks on an aggression against Syria or Egypt, the battle against Israel will be a general one and not confined to one spot on the Syrian or Egyptian borders." Ooops! And as for the legal opinion of the blocking of the Straits, please read this: The United Arab Republic had a good legal case for restricting traffic through the Strait of Tiran. First it is debatable whether international law confers any right of innocent passage through such a waterway…. {Secondly]… a right of innocent passage is not a right of free passage for any cargo at any time. In the words of the Convention on the Territorial Sea: 'Passage is innocent so long as it is not prejudicial to the peace, good order, or security of the coastal state… taking the facts as they were I, as an international lawyer, would rather defend before the International Court of Justice the legality of the U.A.R's action inclosing the Strait of Tiran than to argue the other side of the case… Even Israeli politicians all but admitted that closing the Straits of Tiran posed no security threat to Israel.
Who says their interpretation is binding? If you are typical of attitudes in the Arab world, then no wonder the Arab world is so fucked up. Facts and laws mean nothing to you. You think that questions of whether laws are being broken should be settled not by an impartial legal system but by whatever is politically expedient for the Arab leaders.
Except that the only fact that they considered was "Is the accused country Israel". I mean they didn't consider the facts that actually determine whether the GCs are being broken. They said "It's Israel therefore they are guilty". Not, the GC says X, the facts are X, here is the evidence that the facts are X.
That's a different quote from a different day. The declaration of war and genocidal intent contained no such conditions. It was simple, straightforward and unmistakable. Especially considering that the Arab armies were massing on the borders, Syria had already attacked Israel, and the Egyptians had expelled the peacekeepers. Honestly, are you that stupid to think that those were not proof of the Arab's intent? They didn't even try to hide it. Frankly it pisses me off that they were so cocky before hand about how they were going to kill all the Jews, then when they got their asses handed to them, they pretended that they were just peacefully minding their own business when Israel started attacking them for no reason. Fuck you loser. The Arabs started it and pretending that you didn't just makes you a liar, not a victim.
How many conflicts do you know where the people who attempted extermination failed so miserably? How many conflicts where the victims weren't a small minority? Usually, by the time anything gets done about it, there is no reason to expel the genocides because their victims are already dead, so they don't need a place to go. In other cases, it is easier to move the remnants of the victims. Here, the numbers were roughly equal and a lot of the Arabs were unwilling to share a country with the Jews. The trouble with saying "this town ain't big enough for the both of us" is that if you lose, you have to leave town. Also, the Arabs didn't become refugees from their own country, they became refugees from Israel.
I'm applying the actual facts to the conditions and rules of the actual law. The orders to vote against Israel came from people who probably never even read the GCs. So far, you haven't quoted a single legal argument. All you have done is say that this or that political body doesn't like Israel and is willing to express that dislike by voting against it. So, find me a legal argument that explains why the Palestinians are protected persons under the 4th GC and I'll read it. Until then you are just blowing smoke. P.S. "Because I said so" isn't a legal argument, regardless of who is "saying so".
Pick one. Israel is in the right morally and legally. Just not politically. Their enemies and those who cowtow to their enemies outnumber and thus outvote them.
Facts and Laws mean nothing to me? I think you need to re-read your posts. The Geneva Convention is clear about who it applies to – it applies to the Palestinians, no argument about it.
Yeah, sure!
The next sentence was exactly the same as what you'd posted. And unless you can find evidence of the whole speech, where there is a declaration of war, you're a liar, and a bad one at that. "Fuck you loser" – Is that the best you can come up with? If you don't like what I have to say, then beat it.
I've already given the legal argument – since Palestinian's aren't nationals of any state, they cannot become high-contracting parties and are therefore protected and bound by the GCs by default. Now, if you choose to bury your head in the sand about it, then it's really not my problem.
You make no argument because you don't have one. I realize you have a problem following a logical argument, but try: 1) the GCs say that "Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention are not protected by it." and 2) The Palestinians are nationals of a supposed state (Palestine) which is not bound by the Convention because they refuse to follow the GCs. 3) Therefore they are not protected persons as defined by the GCs. So, either 1 is wrong, or 2 is wrong (or both), or they are both right and 3 is also right. So come up with some kind of argument other than "no it isn't". I feel like I'm in a Monty Python sketch.
The conditional speech was to trade unionists: May 26, 1967 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Histo... My quote was from May 17th or 18th from the official state radio of Egypt. As for "fuck you loser" you are a liar, and reason, facts, and the truth means nothing to you. So I see no reason not to treat you as such and insult you.
Thank you. And no, this is the first time you have given that argument. All you have done before is quote other people's conclusions without any reasoning. You actually have a decent argument. The problem with it is that if the Palestinians are not nationals of their own state, then they are nationals of Israel. "Persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals." If they are nationals of Israel, then they are not protected persons because they are in the hands of the occupying power of which they are nationals. Also, they don't have to become HCPs to be protected, they just have to "accepts and applies the provisions thereof" (of the GCs). They choose not to accept and apply the provisions. Which they can do. They just won't do it because terrorism suits them better. Then of course there is the problem that if the Palestinians aren't part of a state that Israel is occupying the territory of, then the territories aren't occupied. Nice try there, but you can't claim to be a State with legitimate rights as a State, then ditch that claim when you have to deal with the responsibilities of being a State.