Hamas and Fatah have worked out a reconciliation agreement, Reuters and Al Jazeera are reporting--to form an interim government, with elections a year off, a deal brokered by Egypt. Elliott Abrams is on it like a duck on a junebug, pronouncing, at the Council on Foreign Relations, that this shows there can be no Palestinian partner for peace because Fatah will break bread with Islamists. And you wonder who fomented that split, back in 2007?
Thus the ineluctable historical forces of democratization in the Arab world bear down on Israel, too, the Arab spring would enfold Israel and Palestine, too, and the American forces that blocked such a path historically with one rationale after another-- our air craft carrier against the Soviet threat, our bulwark against radical Islam, our only democratic ally-- they grow desperate. Panicked, Abrams writes, "this move by President Abbas vastly complicates U.S. efforts in the region and the Obama Administration’s current negotiations with Prime Minister Netanyahu." What U.S. efforts in the region? What negotiations with Prime Minister Netanyahu?
Continued acquiescence by the Egyptians in the blockade of Gaza must now be on life support.
Since this was an Egyptian brokered ‘reconciliation’ any continue acquiescence is beyond life support.
I for one am all for an open border between Gaza and Egypt. Hopefully all goods along with electricity and water can be shipped through Egypt as well.
Not to mention food, medical supplies, school supplies, building supplies, and trade goods (both ways), all of which Israel doesn’t allow into Gaza except in very small quantities.
So much for the blockade. Of course that still means Israelis will be firing on fishing boats and their snipers will still be turning a third or more of the farmland of Gaza into killing fields. But it’s a start.
Hi Chaos4700,
Q: all of which Israel doesn’t allow into Gaza except in very small quantities.
R: What you are suggesting is impossible, because the way you worded that sentence, because of ‘all’ you should have use the word ‘most.’ Your sentence is a fallacy, not that I do mind, but given what I do have read over the past year [referring to your very eloquent contributions to this site], I do think that, in a grammatically sense, this is what you do have in mind.
If my assertion is wrong, I sincerely apologize. I am not out here to lecture you or stir up some s***. Over time I have become very cautious over how my words were being ‘interpreted,’ bent, distorted, mis-directed and gone haywire beyond the simple message I was trying to get across.
I still cannot fully grasp what is going on out there [mentally/philosophically]. To me, as an outside observer, it looks like a victimized and abused child re-enacting all the horrors s/he was forced to go through, but this time have another Guinea ‘Pig’ to ‘play’ around with.
Daniel.
For whatever reason I cannot edit my reply. This sentence should not read:
“this is what you do have in mind.”
But,
“this is what I think you did not have in mind.”
Memo to oneself: do not go online when seriously sleep-depraved.
This is what the decline of american power looks like.
This is what reliance on the AIPAC lobby looks like.
I really liked that Ken O’Keefe video from Gaza on the night Mubarak was driven from office. The game changed that day.
Not everyone sees this as a big win for Palestinians against Empire. Haider Eid from Palestine
“Ultimately, what this intended “declaration of independence” offers the Palestinian people is a mirage, an “independent homeland” that is a bantustan-in-disguise. ”
link to al-shabaka.org
Particularly if, as some Israelis occasionally claim, Gaza is no longer occupied, but merely at war with Israel. Without occupation, Israel has only the rights of a party at war, to blockade weapons, not food, medicine, and all the rest.
Of course it’s hard to buy the “Gaza isn’t occupied” line, and I’m not sure that is an official Israeli line, either. A large enough mouth always has two sides.
Be interesting to know what the I/E treaty says about Egypt’s duty w.r.t. Gaza in a time of war, and in a time of (peaceful) occupation.
Good news, lysias, the fledgling Egyptian democratic government has announced it will open the gate to Gaza and it has affirmed its support for the Palestinian people.
If Fatah and Hamas can engineer a reconciliation Israel is in big trouble.
Instead of dividing and conquering Israel may soon be surrounded.
“If Fatah and Hamas can engineer a reconciliation Israel is in big trouble.
Instead of dividing and conquering Israel may soon be surrounded”
Seafoid, I think that Israel must be happier than a pig in shit about this. The Islamic fanatics are within striking distance of taking over Gaza and Hamas knows it and most probably why the sudden agreement with the Fateh to keep the boogie man away from both of them. Israel would rather have to face a united Hamas and Fateh than Islamic fundamentalists in their place.
If Syria falls, there too you’ll see a “brotherhood” eventually taking over in the same way that the Egyptian Brotherhood will be entering politics with candidates this coming fall. With over half of Egypt unhappy with the peace deal and wanting to rewrite it along with the gas contract, Israeli politicians must be back to nightmares at the prospect of being surrounded by Islamic fundies. Hamas and Fateh were never a threat to Israel and Israel knew it but it can’t say the same about all those fundies starting to surround Israel.
I don’t know, Walid. I don’t share your pessimism.
I can’t see Salafis taking over anywhere. I think the Egyptian attack on the gas link is a sign of things to come for Israel. Chickens coming home to roost. Everybody hates Israel. Apart maybe from certain Maronites.
If the Alawis lose Syria then things could get very interesting. The Assads were good friends to Israel.
“…I don’t share your pessimism.
I can’t see Salafis taking over anywhere. ”
These guys don’t go around with T-shirts with a big “S” on them. They are already entrenched in one country but under a different name. They just announced their political entry into Egypt’s coming November elections to join their Brotherhood cousins and in Gaza, the assassination of Vittorio was really their message to Hamas. My pessimism comes from my aversion to religious fanatics in politics. Aren’t they behind those now fighting dictatorships in Libya or Syria?
I doubt it Walid.
Israel have always opposed a unity government emerging. Only last month Netenyahu warned that a unity government would threaten the peace process. I’d say from Israel’s perspective, this might be the best of all the bad outcomes.
Let all take note that Israel helped to get Hamas started because it assumed that the religious Muslims who make up Hamas’ leadership, would weaken Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization. Divide and conquer was Israel’s intent against Palestinians, but look what happened!
Seafoid, I think that Israel must be happier than a pig in shit about this.
Walid, on this point you are sadly mistaken. This is Israel’s worst nightmare. The division was their long-term strategy and now it has failed. This, combined with the New Egypt and the UN vote, will have the Israelis shitting in their pants. And they don’t have any Plan B.
The tides have turned and now for once, for once, Israel is on the defensive and NOT in the driver’s seat.
Of course Israel was happy with the split between Fateh and Hamas and so was the US. Optizam’s “organ grinder” label is most fitting but it also fits many other Arab regimes. Netanyahu’s “this will be good for Israel” plans did not include fundies coming to the party.
Shingo, Netanyahu is a big fake and he’s no Churchill and most of what he says is intended for the converted. Israel and the US must be scratching their heads at what they have created everywhere. You saw what degenerated from the US’ mujahideens.
let’s not forget
Actually, “Israel” is in a panic about this. Its’ organ grinder monkey, Fatah, is now bending to the Palestinian popular will, and that, combined with the demise of the Zionist stooge Mubarak, will hasten the end of the Zionist entity.
surrounded by what? if israel acted like a moral state and actually took actions to foster a peace deal… they would be surrounded by predominantly peaceful cheap labor… like they where when they FIRST started the occupation in 1967, and before they started the revisionist zionist expansion and oppression in earnest. but as israel is, structurally and politically, racist and expansionist, the question is:
can israel finally move toward a viable 2-state resolution? or are they militant enough to accept various regional conflicts, safe with 200+ nukes and a superior military, and their effective occupation of the US gov?
i fear the right wing zionists may have created a monster even they cannot control (i am talking their own population, not the small militant groups, and hamas). the true face of israel may be more apparent (is it not already?) in the coming years… i just spent four months there, and it shocked me. and i had quite low, and informed, expectations. even in this forum we mistakenly often buy propaganda lines from the “pro-israel” people. it is so thick and pervasive, even us rational informed people sometimes buy the occasional lie.
“they would be surrounded by predominantly peaceful cheap labor”
Israel and cheap labor
link to haaretz.com
“Omar is a 28-year-old resident of Khan Yunis who has worked for an Israeli employer in the hothouses in Gush Katif since 1996. ACRI and Kav La’Oved are troubled by the fact that he, as a Palestinian, won’t receive the “acclimation payment” the law assures to workers who lose the source of their livelihood as a result of the evacuation. But Omar is laughing because he never even received his basic rights: His last salary was NIS 50 for a full workday – slightly more than a third of minimum wage, which is NIS 145 a day. And he didn’t get vacation or sick leave. According to Omar, the most workers could earn in Gush Katif was NIS 60 for a full workday. But even if it is NIS 80, as Israeli inspectors in Gush Katif reported, it is still a lot less than minimum wage. ”
Israel and cheap labor
link to inminds.co.uk
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124×165472
abrams of iran-contra lecturing about ‘terrorists’. hmm.
Abrams was just on CSPAN, pontificating with another high level Jewish American necon in a debate against two Gentile Americans of the same past governmental level and prestige, in a debate about what the Arab Spring means, and what Uncle Sam should do about it. You could easily make up the debate without watching it.
Abrams, just another neocon dim light that keeps getting greasy MSM think-tank jobs for coverage as a mighty oracle of what’s in the USA’s best interest, must be proud of his latest efforts (not to mention lebensraum Israel’s, ); and Rachel Decter,
Norman Podhoretz,
Midge Decter,
must be proud of him too. They are still squashing Rachel Corrie and her parents, still in that lawsuit in Israel for one shekel, as “pancake girl.”
When will the American public wake up like the Arab Spring, the American Spring might take some time; that’s standard fare for this world.
If more non-Zionists, including Gentiles, had the confidence to withstand their opponents’ “anti-semitism” browbeating, and state their views on apartheid “Israel” with full candour, we wouldn’t be in the state of supplication to the Lobby that exists today. Why should hundreds of millions of people hold their collective tongues out of fear of reprisal from the few million well-heeled, influential and very emotional Zionist radicals that control discourse in the mainstream media and in polite society? We’re nearing the day when truth and justice will prevail, so let’s prepare ourselves accordingly, and call a spade a spade!
“… Why should hundreds of millions of people hold their collective tongues out of fear of reprisal from the few million well-heeled, influential and very emotional Zionist radicals that control discourse in the mainstream media and in polite society? ”
Optimizam, sorry I got your name wrong in my other post. The hundreds of millions you talked about have been told and continue being told over and over that they owe “big” for what the bad guys did to the Jews. I feel very bad for what happened to them, but I feel no “guilt of the fathers” thing whatever for it because I and anyone related to me from near and far had nothing to do with it and neither did most of the people being indoctrinated to feel guilty. The popping-up of about 60 museums all over the world is part of the campaign to keep them tongue-tied. In 2008, it was written in The Washingtonian:
“… Nestled between Raoul Wallenberg Place and 14th Street SW is one of D.C.’s most important museums. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is a destination site that every Washingtonian and visitor to the area should see once in their lifetime. Since its doors opened in 1993, more then 23.1 million people have visited.
The museum encourages visitors to walk through the exhibits at their own pace so that they can take everything in without being rushed by tour guides. Despite the large amount of visitors that often walk these halls there is a constant respectful quiet that envelopes the museum.
Before entering the museum’s permanent exhibit each visitor is given an identification card that tells the story of a real person who lived through the events of the Holocaust. Everyone is encouraged to follow their foot steps so that the experience becomes more personal.
The museum’s “visitor becomes victim” approach is humbling as you find yourself standing in a dimly lit railcar once packed with Jews being transported to Nazi concentration camps. From there you face reconstructed bunks from a barracks in Auschwitz wondering how six or more men once slept in these cramped spaces.
Everything from the architecture, lighting, testimonials and exhibits are meant to lend to the haunting atmosphere, an amazingly effective way to engage the visitor in the emotional experience.
The amount of information found under this museum’s roof, both written and visual, can be overwhelming…”
I think that is true, and it shows the basic decency of many people people in not wanting to appear antisemitic is being abused by the zionists to push their agenda.
I think it is interesting that DC has a museum devoted to this European crime, but nothing similar regarding the equally criminal offense of chattel slavery and genocide against the Native Americans.
There is a Museum of Native American history in DC that is large, thoughtfully designed, and informative. It does not, however, engage the viewer’s emotion by design in the way that Walid’s post describes the Holocaust Museum doing.
I read in utne reader that there are over 56,000 native american skeletons in the possession of the US Government and in US museums. Nice.
There is, but the museum is not about the slow genocide of the Native Americans. It is more like the equivalent to the National Museum of American Jewish History than the Holocaust Museum.
The USHMM is essentially dishonest. When the Fires of Hate exhibit came through Boston, I asked the USHMM historian that accompanies the exhibit why nothing in the materials mentioned that the German Nazis were only burning books while predominantly ethnic Ashkenazi Soviet secret police were shooting the authors. The historian told me that the USHMM did not address context and that to a large extent to do so would violate the mission.
There should be many more museums to the African Holocaust. This was a terrible crime that must not be forgotten.
While I appreciate the native American museum there really is not much detail about the brutal genocide committed. Scratch the surface
of course it’s dishonest, but I wouldn’t blame this exclusively or even primarily on Jewish interests and influence. It is in US interest as well to justify the alliance with their former and later prime ideological enemy, the Soviet Union, during WW II, when the SU was ruled by Stalin, and much more entitled to the title of ‘evil empire’ than at any later point during the Cold War. For that reason alone, Nazi Germany must be presented as the ultimate, and the Stalinists, Jewish or not, as the lesser evil. Also helps to justify a host of despicable war crimes, ethnic cleansing and violations of sovereignty and the principle of self-determination and the Atlantic charter committed against Germany before, during and after WW II.
Hello, Joachim Martillo, didn’t realize you are back. Again twisting facts to fit into your narrative?
Ashkenazi Soviet secret police would hardly have shot the authors of the books the Nazis burn. Is that too difficult to understand?
So what’s this argument good for?
The ones that do exist (the one I’m aware of in the city I grew up in at any rate) is in danger of closing.
I asked the USHMM historian that accompanies the exhibit why nothing in the materials mentioned that the German Nazis were only burning books while predominantly ethnic Ashkenazi Soviet secret police were shooting the authors.
Where do you guys come up with this stuff?
amen, finally
the Obama Administration’s current negotiations with Prime Minister Netanyahu
lol! abrams said it…sweet. this cracks me up.
It was by bringing both Egypt and Syria under his rule that Saladin put himself in a position to be able to defeat the Crusader States and retake Jerusalem.
of course he jumped on this like “a duck on a junebug” (great phraseology phil)..abrams is probably jumping up and down for more ammo to claim ‘no partners for peace!’ never mind israel has had every opportunity to negotiate up til now and has failed to do so (palestine papers..) never mind netanyahu had no intention of ‘leaning forward’ at all, much less lean far forward. he just approved a hole slew of new housing in itmar. palestinians need to make their conversation w/the international community in the future because the cat is already out of the bag about israel ever having any intention of negotiating, they won’t. period.
Israel has negotiated for years. Just not willing to negotiate their suicide with people who cannot maintain the peace.
Whether this deal between Fatah and Hamas hurts the ability of the PA to function remains to be seen.
Yeah right Hophmi,
And we have the Palestine Papers to prove it. NOT
how about delegitimization of Israel by the end of this year!
“Israel has negotiated for years” Ha ha, if you believe that you will believe any of the acres of crud that comes out of Propaganda Central.
“Just not willing to negotiate their suicide with people who cannot maintain the peace.”
Gee the progress of the Jewish State has been pretty dismal, considering you started out with a lot of good will and a UN mandate. And now the only thing you’ve got to negotiate is your suicide.
Good stuff, that Zionism, real sucessful outcomes.
You should start a blog Hophmi.
On it, you can keep telling yourself that Israel wants peace but is under siege by terrorists. Israel bends over backwards, but blah blah terrorists. Israel loves peace, but blah blah terrorists. Israel negotiates and reasons and oh did I mention, loves peace? Terrorists terrorists.
And by “negotiate,” hophmi means “take more land, bomb schools and hospitals, take more land, wage an international assassination campaign, take more land, kidnap and imprison Palestinian government officials, take more land, attack a whole flotilla of relief ships, and take more land.”
Israel has negotiated for years
maybe you missed the horse’s mouth leaked video? bibi bragging about how he swindled the accords?
spare us hasbara drivel
terror terror suicide
bla bla blather lies
“… Just not willing to negotiate their suicide.”
You guys just love to repeat this dramatic pap.
Hophmi, you mean not willing to negotiate peace with people who cannot maintain the ever-expanding Israeli settlements. Let’s stick to the facts on the ground, not fly to empty hasbara in the air.
Netanyahu hasn’t been slow in responding either: Ha’aretz: Netanyahu: Palestinian Authority must choose – peace with Israel or Hamas: Premier lambastes Abbas’ Fatah movement for agreeing to reconciliation deal with rival movement; Hamas: Israel was an impediment to Palestinian unity.:
Bibi’s visit to Washington next month may now be more interesting.
Well, now we know the excuse that the Zios (both those in the Zionist entity itself and the traitors and fifth-columinsts here in the US of A) are going to use in an attempt to defeat the UN recognition.
Netanyahu believes he get get a bigger “piece” from Abbas than from Hamas.
I don’t think it will be more interesting. I think it will be even more predictable.
Up till now it was: “How can we deal with Abbas, when he can’t bring along Hamas?”.
Now it’s going to be: “How can we deal with Abbas, when he’s reconciled with Hamas?”
Palestinian leaders realize they have a time bomb of youth who have never known equality, justice, freedom, peace who are coming of age and who are inspired by the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and Egypt. They also know that the “Arab world” supports Palestinian freedom and equality, time is running out for them, they can’t keep milking the status quo or they’ll end up as delivery in al-saudia/ Saudi Arabia.
Lydda
You knew one day that things would change but when you read the Palestine papers did you imagine that things would move so quickly and you would be posting such an expression of positivity for your long suffering people within 3 months ?
“Omar is laughing because he never even received his basic rights: His last salary was NIS 50 for a full workday – slightly more than a third of minimum wage, which is NIS 145 a day. And he didn’t get vacation or sick leave. According to Omar, the most workers could earn in Gush Katif was NIS 60 for a full workday. But even if it is NIS 80, as Israeli inspectors in Gush Katif reported, it is still a lot less than minimum wage.”
What is wrong with Western Jewry that American, British, European, Australian and Canadian Jews WILLINGLY move to Israel to support a political state/ zionist ideology when the above is the face of Israel that Palestinians know?
Is the weather and price of Real Estate so bad in Chicago, London, NYC, Sydney that you hit a “values detour” and ignore/ excuse/ explain away the reality and systematic mistreatment of Palestinians? You stand for democratic values in the West but in Israel you play by another set of rules?
I have asked myself this same question regarding Western Jewry and can only conclude that for some Jews, they are simply irreparably racists. Others claim to be progressive, but are only really so when it benefits them or other Jews or when Jews’ autonomy isn’t affected. And then there are the ones who understand that a principle you don’t apply to yourself and your people is not one which you actually have. Those are the ones fighting for Palestinian human and political rights and equality.
“Others claim to be progressive, but are only really so when it benefits them or other Jews or when Jews’ autonomy isn’t affected. And then there are the ones who understand that a principle you don’t apply to yourself and your people is not one which you actually have.”
well said. two excellent points Woody.
i wish there was a Nefesh B’nefesh unplugged website where people describe real Israeli society/ mentality without the “aliyah” rainbows and sunshine and ponies spin.
i’m real cautious about whatever is transpiring, it’s not like Israel and friends just sit back and wait, there is constant machinery working to rig, destroy, co-opt and collaborate. on the other hand just because there’s a butt load of machinery/ influence working against bringing about FULL and IMMEDIATE (not this sequential bull- it’s been 63 years or negative sequencing – we need to push for FULL and IMMEDIATE Equal Rights now, no more waiting around for pie in the sky to be served by the occupier) Palestinian equality i always get up when i fall. it’s the Palestinian comeback kid story. if you’ve seen the original Karate Kid film you know what i’m talking about.
i’m real cautious about whatever is transpiring, it’s not like Israel and friends just sit back and wait
i completely agree and anticipate massive (continued) shinigans.
Indeed, annie and Lydda; everyday now American political leaders in the limelight are painting our walls with the idea that any Arab change they’ve been paid to not like is the result of creeping MB, of opportunistic radical Islam in terrorism’s quest against the forces of good. The key to this opera is the same slick key, the one that says it works for both the US and Israel, and everytime.
If Israel were truly sincere about negotiations for a just and mutually beneficial peace, it would encourage – not discourage – the unification of Palestinian representation into a single body. Such unification would ensure that agreements reached with that body would be acceptable to the vast majority of Palestinians by virtue of the breadth of that body’s representation.
But Israel will likely work to undermine this unification because it has proven not to be interested in sincere negotiations for a just and mutually beneficial peace.
Meanwhile, its ON-GOING campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder continues unabated.
acceptable agreements? what are those? Israel has always been about agreements that are solely on its terms and that are shoved down a groveling, begging Palestinian enemy’s throat (with a boot at the throat all the while).
>> acceptable agreements? what are those?
Should a unified body of Palestinian representatives succeed in entering with Israel into sincere negotiations for a just and mutually beneficial, then whatever agreements are reached by that Palestinian body should be (must be) acceptable to the vast majority of Palestinians by virtue of the breadth of Palestinian population represented by that body.
Whether Israel is or will be interested in sincere negotiations for a just and mutually beneficial peace is another matter entirely.
Mazel tov! I think this is a positive development. I think negotiating solely with Fatah, instead with a unity Palestinian coalition, was never going to be accepted by either side.
Do I think this Fatah-Hamas unity is going to present a negotiating team that will accept an Israeli offer? No. But it will raise the conditions for the Palestinian political landscape to evolve for the better.
“But it will raise the conditions for the Palestinian political landscape to evolve for the better.”
Different day, same crap from these guys, it never ends.
Mooser, don’t you think this will help Palestinian civil society? And greater Palestinian involvement in politics rather than fighting a mini-civil war?
“Do I think this Fatah-Hamas unity is going to present a negotiating team that will accept an Israeli offer? No.”
What “offer” other than “let us keep destrying your lives, killing your children and stealing your land” have the Israelis every made??
Woody, what about the offer Abbas made according to the Palestine Papers.
Last time I checked Abbas was not an Israeli, so I don’t see how any offer by him is relevant to the point that the israelis have yet to make a reasonable offer and have steadfastly refused the Arab Peace Plan, which constitutes such a reasonable plan.
Let’s wait to see the policy of the new Palestinian government. If it accepts the Quartet conditions, this means Hamas has changed 180 degrees and this could be a good thing. If not, this only means that the Palestinians will have problems with the international community.
Israel and the Israel Lobby are the ones who are going to have a problem with the international community if they try to sink this thing.
What the hell are you babnling about? The Quartet has has already issues their report cards. Fatah have fulfilled their obligations under Phase of the Road Mapand Israel have failed miserably.
Try to keep up.
LOL Shingo
I think what he’s babbling about is the line the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Breakfast program interviewer took with a Fatah representative this Australian morning. The interviewer kept going on about how Hamas was refusing to recognise Israel and this would mean that if they were part of a unity government then Israel would have no negotiating partner. The ABC is not known for its lack of bias in this matter – as I keep reminding them – and the interviewer didn’t seem to understand the interviewee from Fatah who was pointing out that Israel did not recognise any Palestian rights, let alone a separate state for Palestinians. The interviewee did an excellent job in time and time again stating the inconsistency and one-sidedness of the quartet’s position to an interviewer who steadfastly refused to get it. The nuanced point that Hamas refuses to recognise Israel “as a Jewish State” would have been totally lost on the interviewer. I despair!
Can you remember who the interviewer was straightline?
The ABC is far from independent when it comes to the I/P conflict. When they aired that trashy BBC doco on the flotilla, it was revealed that they had rejected a doco made by an Isreali peace activist because it was pro Palestinian.
I think it was Fran Kelly, Shingo.
link to abc.com.au
Agreed re ABC bias – I send them the occasional email about it.
oh heck i have to speak up. abc was the one who ran that kerry vietnam hit job right before the election and also the 9/11 ‘recap’ that completely blamed clinton or something perverse like that. abc is completely in the rightwing bag.
That’s no surprise. She’s a prop Israeli stallwart. She never shows Antony Lowenstein much respect when she has him on her program.
Different ABC, annie. Straightline and Shingo are talking about the AUSTRALIAN Broadcasting Company.
You’re right straightline, it was Fran Kelly and she interviewed Hanan Ashrawi. It’s available online to listen here:
link to abc.net.au
The particular clip you want is from Thursday 28 April, 6.45AM.
Ashrawi (who is a member of Fayyad’s Third Way Party, rather than Fateh) did an excellent job of swatting Kelly’s hasbara and pointing out the hypocrisy of the Quartet’s conditions – which nearly every Israeli political party, including those in government, would fail to satisfy if the same conditions were imposed on them.
I had to chuckle when Ashrawi said Israelis would have to understand the “only way ahead is to respect Palestinian democracy”.
More like the United States and Israel.
The international community has no real power.
And the Palestinian leadership should focus on what is just not on what Zionists have been rigging with their partner in crime.
I’m sure you’ll find somewhere else to move the goalposts if that happens, eee. You always do.
You are right 3e, therefore to be fair I suggest that the new Palestinian government accepts the Quartet conditions as soon as Israel withdraws its 14 reservations.
And by the way, in my book, adding 14 reservations means not accepting the conditions …
And by the way, in my book, adding 14 reservations means not accepting the conditions …
In historical terms the Government of Israel and the Jewish Agency have always used reservations to avoid acceptance of proposals for the peaceful settlement of the Question of Palestine.
In 1943 the representatives of the Jewish Agency admitted to US government officials that they had no intention of accepting a negotiated settlement with the Arabs:
In October of 1947, the representative of the Jewish Agency testified that both the minority and majority UNSCOP proposals were unacceptable to the Jewish people. For example, he said that the Jewish section of modern Jerusalem outside the Walled City should have been included in the Jewish State. He falsely claimed that Transjordan had been severed from Palestine, and that establishing a second Arab state resulted in a Jewish National Home representing less than one eighth of the territory “originally set aside for it”. He stated that he would be willing to recommended acceptance of the plan by Va’ad Leumi – subject to further discussion of constitutional and territorial provisions – if that would make possible the immediate re-establishment of the Jewish State with sovereign control of its own immigration. See “(3) Viewpoint of the Jewish Agency for Palestine” in the “Yearbook of the United Nations for 1947-48.
So, the Ad Hoc Committee of the General Assembly went to work re-negotiating the UNSCOP majority plan with the Jewish Agency. It added 60 percent more territory (the Negev) to the proposed Jewish state; eliminated the requirement that a constitution be adopted prior to independence; and included provisions for Jewish control of a seaport and sufficient territory for substantial immigration no later than 1 February 1948. The Jewish Agency accepted the modifications, but never withdrew their reservations. As we all know, the British did not agree to Jewish or Arab control of territory or immigration prior to the termination of their mandate. The “further discussion” of Israel’s constitutional and territorial reservations regarding Jerusalem and constitutional protection of Arab minority rights has been going on non-stop ever since. However the fundamental position on negotiations with the Palestinians has really never changed, since the threat or use of force was adopted as the “only realistic line of action” in 1943.
The most telling line of Abrahms note:
Whose “lawyers at the Treasury and State Departments”, may I ask? Whose lawyers?
Did I just hear a dog whistle go off?
Yep. The zionist American hounds are already at the cupboard, barking for those sticky magical terrorist labels.
Eliot Abrams – Iran-Contra felon and avowed-Jewish-supremacist (“Outside the land of Israel, there can be no doubt that Jews, faithful to the covenant between God and Abraham, are to stand apart from the nation in which they live. It is the very nature of being Jewish to be apart-except in Israel- from the rest of the population.”) … signals the knee-jerk, obvious, hysterical and overwrought response to this entirely logical and long long overdue development … we all know the flow of zionist logic (if you can call it that) Hamas: terrorists, so if Hamas+PLO must mean PLO = terrorists … any supporter of the merger then means: terrorist, all those sympathetic to the merger: terrorists, Mondoweiss readers: terrorists, all non-zionist, non-rabid-israel supporters: terrorists. So being burned alive, especially if you’re a child, with white phosphorus is appropriate punishment for being a “terrorist”
Aww, they just need to “evolve” a little.
Yep, Mooser. That’s the key word. Gotta make sure everyone knows who the apes are.
A couple of months after Mubarak goes and they manage to agree to a peace deal. Makes you wonder how much the Mubarak’s government (and by extension…) wanted an agreement between the two parties.
Oh I am quite certain that Egypt — specifically the tireless “go-between” Suleiman — was instrumental in ensuring that this agreement was always just out of reach. In accordance with the directives from his partners in crime, Israel and the US.
mubarak stepped out of line once and the americans snapped him back into position. it came out in the palestine papers. meshaal said they were close before but the US/IS demanded hamas concede everything for the unity to go thru or they threatened to pull the money from the PA if fatah joined. let them pull the funding. it’s israel’s obligation anyway.
Yep, annie. Uncle Sam sure has been a big dupe all these years; paying Israel so boldly direct and simultaneously going along with every Israeli program to pay Israel indirectly as well, Egypt and the PA being mere conduits for the Israeli gravy train, decade after decade. And Iraq and Afghanistan two more conduits. How long before Iran is the next conduit Uncle Sam can spend his full big oaf self on, to feed Israel some more? Has there every been a more needy baby than Israel?
First they say there is no-one to negotiate with. Then, when there is, there will be more foot-dragging and myriads of excuses offered, dark mutterings, military operations and acres of self-serving hypocritical verbiage. The aim is to keep doing nothing which is fine and dandy for Israel, as they keep taking more land and resources while keeping Palestine under the heel.
Hopefully the Palestinians will press ahead and declare Palestine statehood, since Israel doesn’t like that one bit – they are worried that their occupation will therefore be transformed (officially) into colonialism. LOL
I think that if this holds it is an enormous opportunity for the US to encourage future and final negotiations.
Sadly I am also of the opinion that my Prime Minister is a self-aggrandizing moron who wouldn’t know an opportunity for peace if it jumped up and down on his chest screaming, “look at me, I’m an opportunity for peace”.
I am fully aware of the irony that Palestinian democracy holds more hope and optimism for me right now than my own.
I pray that this brings peace.
gf, bib recognizes what an opportunity for peace looks like, always has ans always will. he is not interested in peace, he is interested in expansion. this is a delay waiting game. that’s a tactic that has been used for decades and they always expand. it peace broke out what would be the framework from which to expand?
you have to stop buying into this mindset bibi is interested in peace. unless it is the kind of peace where the palestinians pack up their bags and leave, not going to happen but that is a peace bibi would get behind.
Looks like Hamas beat Bibi to the punch:
link to jpost.com
This will not help Palestine’s declaration in September and I think Hamas knows it.
Why should Hamas be interested in talking peace with Israel? The last time Hamas engaged in a cease fire, they wound up with Israel slaughtering, among others, 350 children.
Who’s going to trust Israel not to murder recklessly? They always do, no matter what.
Yes, annie, and Bibi’s attitude about the latest new settlements is captured in the March World News interview video available on YouTube.
When asked if the 500 new settlement buildings are yet another block to peace and the end of violence, Bibi says that’s not the issue, that few hundred buildings going on land everybody already knows will be Israel’s forever. The issue is that Palestinians don’t want peace, that Israel is ready and willing, but it has no partner to make peace with. Radical Islam is the enemy of the civilized world, says Bibi, and he’s afraid the democratic world will not wake up in time, that it will sleep until too late, as it did with Hitler. That’s Bibi’s POV. He think’s he is like Churchill crying wolf for real but the great powers are not listening, once again. Israel is the sole stable and real true democracy in an otherwise vast black ME wasteland, see?
Bibi, and he’s afraid the democratic world will not wake up in time, that it will sleep until too late, as it did with Hitler. That’s Bibi’s POV.
nah, that’s only his shtick, his propaganda. he doesn’t believe it himself.
The settler entity’s PM has it backwards. He’s Hitler reaching out to rght-wing racist elements in other nations, hoping they’ll pressure their governments to support his National Socialist government.
Ha, annie; yes, he is on record as telling his people “America is easy to move.” It’s still 1938 and Jews have no pushy, greedy nuclear armed state funded and otherwise fully supported by the only superpower in the world. Radical Islam is the Nazi. The Palestinians don’t exist.
“my Prime Minister is a self-aggrandizing moron who wouldn’t know…”
Pretty standard for Prime Ministers. Ask anyone in any country which has got a PM.
I’m always suspicious of governments formed by deals among old guards (who are wintry rather than springlike figures) and not by elections. Presumably the Abbas plan to declare statehood and involve the UN General Assembly is going well, at least in its own terms, and Hamas wants a part of it. On the other hand Israel has a reason, which Mr.Abrams is busy circulating and which despite what the likes of us may say will be widely believed, for going even slower than it was already going with the offer it was never really going to make. The Salafists, as we now seem to call them, have an opportunity to peel off some discontented and desperate people from supporting Hamas and will then be better placed to assemble the resources for an attack of some kind, which will become yet another reason for not making a settlement. So maybe we should not be surprised if the situation is much the same, on balance, next year as it is now.
None of that really matters – the tides sweeping the region will brush all these twigs out of the way in the path of the tornado of change.
My reading on what has happened is that the Palestinians learned the very, very hard way that independence can only be earned through unity and strength. For an entire generation they deeply, deeply believed that if only all the stars aligned right and they just got the US’s ear and played by all the rules, the US would bring Israel along. And that all played right out the past year to an utter and total dead end. And the Palestinian leadership, aided by the humiliating exposure from the “Palestine Papers” episode and wikileaks, realized that they were groveling to Uncle Sam for absolutely nothing — it was all a charade, a ruse, the ever-receding chimeric bar that somehow kept inching higher, higher, higher. Then along came Tunisia and Egypt and BAM, the Palestinians seem to have all suddenly grasped the power they held all along but never realized — the power of unity of popular will, of moral justice, and of demography.
Add to that the possible uncertainty Hamas now feels with all that may or may not happen in Syria, and the fact that the Egyptian leadership is genuinely interested in Palestinian unity rather than disunity, and the fact that the US Congress has completely handcuffed its nation from doing anything meaningful whatsoever, and you have the magic potion — a realigning of all the cards in the region in just a few short months.
This unity agreement comes on the heels of arab spring-like demonstrations a few weeks ago in both gaza and the west bank. Coincidence? Or did the PA & Hamas get the message that the demonstrators were sending? It’s not as if Palestinians don’t know the power of unity. That’s what the Intifadas were about, at least for Palestinian youth. What will happen if the Palestinian power brokers renege on this agreement? Intifada III, that’s what.
yourstruly, hamas and fatah have been on the edge of a unity deal over and over, it was egypt in the role of negotiator preventing this. once mubarak was out it became doable. this is why IS/US wouldn’t let turkey be mediator. it has always been fatah who reneges under threat of loosing funding. my guess is they have some other backers lined up. if they do not they should because israel will just tighten the noose around the pa and west bank as well as hamas.
Fatah and Hamas: Palestinian reconciliation will end Israeli occupation
Wow, great news. So from this redivivus Palestinian government of National unity can we expect soon the official recognition of Israel, the renunciation of attacks against Israeli civilians, the resumption of serious peace talks? This could actually be the beginning of a ‘Palestinian spring’, and – made peace with the Israeli neighbors – the ‘end of occupation ‘. I wish good luck ….
>> Fatah and Hamas: Palestinian reconciliation will end Israeli occupation
>> Wow, great news.
Palestinian reconciliation *may* end Israeli occupation. A lot depends on Israel, which – although it has the power to do so unilaterally, immediately, completely and forever – refuses to halt its ON-GOING campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder.
Oh no, eljay, you are putting the cart before the horse. The new government of unity must show willingness to engage in peace talks and work toward a reconciliation between both peoples. Israel is not eager to commit suicide by unilaterally handing over territories to an hostile entity. And up to date there is not doubt about the veracity of the latter – no matter whether with or without handshake between the two Palestinian factions:
Hamas: We won’t negotiate peace with Israel
Mahmoud al-Zahar says peace with Israel not on new Palestinian government’s agenda.
link to ynetnews.com
>> Israel is not eager to commit suicide by unilaterally handing over territories to an hostile entity.
1. I didn’t say anything about handing over territories. Are you unable to read, unable to comprehend, or merely deflecting?
2. Very “victimhood” of you to equate relinquishing that which does not belong to Israel with “suicide”.
3. Israel – aggressor, oppressor, thief, colonizer, et cetera – is also a hostile entity. Love how you Zio-supremacists keep glossing over that small detail.
>> The new government of unity must show willingness to engage in peace talks and work toward a reconciliation between both peoples.
Israel must do the same.
“Mahmoud al-Zahar says peace with Israel not on new Palestinian government’s agenda.”
Has peace with Palestine ever been on the Israeli agenda??
“Has peace with Palestine ever been on the Israeli agenda??”
That’s the goal of the whole agenda. It goes like this.
1. Conquer all Palestine.
2. Drive out all Palestinians and other untermenschen
3. Fill with Jews.
4. Peace with all Palestine.
ha. Thats exactly right.
The main thing is Hamas’ stance towards Israel. If they accept it, the Israeli public will demand a peace treaty, even if that means an ouster of Netanyahu.
The Israeli public are composed of conscripted mercenaries and settlers. I find that a little hard to believe.
“can we expect soon the official recognition of Israel, the renunciation of attacks against Israeli civilians, the resumption of serious peace talks?”
Can we soon expect from the Zionist entity an official recognitionof Palestine and Palestinians rights, the renunciation of attacks agaisnt Palestinians and the resumption of serious peace talks (which would, of necessity, require an end to the settlement project and an end to the illegal Gaza blockade)??
“Can we soon expect from the Zionist entity an official recognitionof Palestine …..”
In other words, you are convinced that the fullfilment of these demands by Israel will bring a lasting peace with the Palestinians. Good! What makes you believe that?
Good point Jonah. It’s not like the recognition of Israel by Arafat did any good is it?
Jonah tells us:
fullfilment of these demands by Israel will bring a lasting peace with the Palestinians. Good! What makes you believe that?
That is a good question. I also am very skeptical. As long as Israel continues to steal WB lands from the Palestinians, steal their water, bull doze their communities, destroy their olive groves, shoot them on sight and continue their oppression lasting peace with the Palestinians is not possible.
I am not Palestinian but if I lived under those conditions, I would be in the resistance. Hopefully, it will be a non-violent resistance that gains the support of the rest of the world in the BDS campaign.
Israeli Jews really have no choice at this point– Israel submits to these demands or they will perish under international economic sanctions. It is up to you bub, how do you want it to end?
“Israeli Jews really have no choice at this point– Israel submits to these demands or they will perish under international economic sanctions. ”
The opposite is true. The Palestinian unity government will rather lose its international support as long as it will not accept the Quartet’s conditions. And it will not. The first clouds are already on the horizon: link to jpost.com
Very eloquent to see who as first praises the reached unity deal: link to www2.irna.ir
jonah :
“accept the Quartet’s conditions”
++++ And what are those conditions ?
“In other words…” Don’t put words in my mouth?
My point was simply that the Palestinians should not be expected to fulfill any demand that Israel is not prepared to meet on the opposite side.
After all, wasn’t Israel recently insisting on negotiations “without preconditions”?? These Quartet demands sure sound like Israel is demanding preconditions.
Or have we always been at war with Eastasia?
“The first clouds are already on the horizon: ”
Is anyone shocked or surprised that a fifth columnist like Ackerman would hold this position??
“My point was simply that the Palestinians should not be expected to fulfill any demand that Israel is not prepared to meet on the opposite side.”
If both sides don’t want preconditions from each other,
they should sit down all together and negotiate without preconditions. So simple is that. This is what Israel has been proposing for the past two year now. But Abbas is still claiming a full and unconditional freeze of any settlement activity as ….. let’s say …. point of arrival? for the resumption of talks, on the mere basis of a vague promise of peace that he obviously knows not to be able to mantain. In truth the first step towards Israel’s equally full and inconditional withdrawal behind the “Auschwitz” borders.
With the current development towards a pact of unity with Hamas, Abbas’ position – but in fact the entire Palestinian political enterprise – is becoming more and more grotesque and schizophrenic. He still desperately tries to save the appearance of willingness to pursue peace (that he is in fact stalling for two years), while his new coalition partner Al-Zahar is openly spitting on the table of any kind of negotiations with Israel.
Fact is that all this wonderful exercise of political contortion has no other purpose than to try to get their papers in order to gain international endorsement of an independent Palestinian state. Al-Zahar is indeed absolutely right: peace is not the priority of the Palestinians.
link to ynetnews.com
Your last sentence seems just done on purpose to sum up this open secret: “Or have we always been at war with Eastasia?”
Of course – not.
But Abbas is still claiming a full and unconditional freeze of any settlement activity as ….. let’s say …. point of arrival? for the resumption of talks, on the mere basis of a vague promise of peace that he obviously knows not to be able to mantain.
no, it is bibi&israel insisting on the precondition of israel’s expansion during negotiation. on the mere basis of a vague promise of expanding into areas they claim ‘everybody knows’ will end up w/israel in any settlement something he obviously knows he’s not to be able to maintain.
With the current development towards a pact of palestinian unity, bibi’s position – but in fact the entire Israeli political enterprise – is becoming more and more grotesque and schizophrenic. He still desperately tries to save the appearance of willingness to pursue peace (that he is in fact stalling for over twenty years), while his ‘coalition partners’ are strengthening their position for international recognition essential for any kind of future negotiations with Israel.
“accept the Quartet’s conditions”
++++And what are those conditions ?
to acquiesce to israel conditions. wasn’t it livni would said it best in the palsetine papers? something about agreeing to let israel be in control. just more of israel’s pre-conditions along with their precondition of constant expansion while they keep blathering they have no pre conditions.
ha!
jonah calls political reconciliation ‘political contortion’ and looks down on getting their papers in order to gain international endorsement of an independent Palestinian state.
phff
“If both sides don’t want preconditions from each other, they should sit down all together and negotiate without preconditions.”
Except that the Zionists don’t want to sit down and negotiate without preconditions. They assert that there should be no “preconditions” when it comes to themselves, but insist that the other side abide by “preconditions.” Who can negotiate with such bad-faith actors as this?
“…the ‘Auschwitz’ borders.”
Oh, please. Give it a rest with this nonsensical bullshit. Go see a therapist. I am sick and tired of you people using something that happened 65 years ago, on another continent, as an excuse for your continued inhumane and criminal actions against the Palestinians today. It’s evil and irrational.
“With the current development towards a pact of unity with Hamas, Abbas’ position – but in fact the entire Palestinian political enterprise – is becoming more and more grotesque and schizophrenic.”
No, the Palestinians are attempting to break free of the divide-and-conquer machinations of the Zionists and not a moment too soon.
“He still desperately tries to save the appearance of willingness to pursue peace (that he is in fact stalling for two years), while his new coalition partner Al-Zahar is openly spitting on the table of any kind of negotiations with Israel.”
The Zionists have been spitting on the table for three generations. Anyone who isn’t brain dead understands that when the Zionist talks about “pursuing peace,” the “peace process” and the like, he is merely using a euphemism for “putting Palestinian rights on ice while Zionists steal more land.” Why anyone in his right mind would even consider such a process is beyond me. Who knows, maybe Abbas has been a puppet so long he doesn’t notice the strings anymore.
“Fact is that all this wonderful exercise of political contortion has no other purpose than to try to get their papers in order to gain international endorsement of an independent Palestinian state.”
And not a moment too soon. Hopefully international sanctions against the Zionist criminals will follow thereafter. Regardless, the record has shown with certainty that the “peace process” has been nothing but a big, giant joke, and a dagger stabbing in the back the Palestinians who’ve engaged in the process in good faith.
“Al-Zahar is indeed absolutely right: peace is not the priority of the Palestinians.
link to ynetnews.com
Why do you make false statements when clicking on the link exposes it as a lie?? Nothing in Al-Zahar’s statement supports your libel against the Palestinian people. He said he would not engage in the sham “peace process.” That is not the same as saying that “peace is not the priority of the Palestinians.”
“Your last sentence seems just done on purpose to sum up this open secret”
No, but it does sum up the Orwellian nature of the Zionist enterprise.
>> “…the ‘Auschwitz’ borders.”
Never let it be said that Zio-supremacists don’t know how to “Remember the Holocaust!”
RW needs to chime in here to remind us all that genocide is “currently not necessary” and that “the PRESENT is what matters”.
Abba Eban also coined the phrase “no business like shoah business.” Now if that’s not a phrase I’d spout at a gathering of Holocaust survivors, I don’t know what is.
If both sides don’t want preconditions from each other,
they should sit down all together and negotiate without preconditions. So simple is that. This is what Israel has been proposing for the past two year now.
Jonah, Israel is demanding through its proxies, the Quartet that the Palestinians accept the terms of agreements that were previously negotiated with Israel. But Netanyahu has specifically refused to accept PM Olmert’s Annapolis negotiations as a starting point, much less to abide by the terms of the 1995 Gaza-Jericho agreement. So please stop insulting everyone’s intelligence.
The Oslo Accords prohibited either side from taking any unilateral steps that would effect the final status issues. The Palestinians had declared their statehood in 1988 and “statehood” was neither included nor enumerated in the list of final status issues. Israel objects to Palestinians seeking international recognition and has responded by threatening the unilateral annexation of the settlements – which actually is one of the final status issues. Israel recently decided, on a unilateral basis, that it could construct 500 additional units in settlements located in areas that it has unilaterally determined will be annexed to Israel in any final settlement.
US funding, recognition, and negotiations with the PA are legally conditioned upon the exclusion of any members of the democratically elected Hamas party from positions of effective control, unless Hamas has “publicly acknowledged the Jewish state of Israel’s right to exist”. That virtually guarantees that the United States role in the “peace process” is to prevent any direct negotiations.
“… I am sick and tired of you people using something that happened 65 years ago, on another continent,…”
And which of course never could happen to Israel, since Arab-Muslim world and Palestinian leaders never spoke of destroying the Jewish-Israeli people, at most just denied that Auschwitz ever existed …. Maybe you should give a look in some speech of Hamas leaders …..
“The Palestinians are attempting to break free of the divide-and-conquer machinations of the Zionists and not a moment too soon.”
Where can you find such “machinations” in the Israeli peace& land offers in 2000 and 2008? They were brusquely rejected by the Palestinian leaders.
“The Zionists have been spitting on the table for three generations.”
You mean this?
“the “peace process” has been nothing but a big, giant joke, and a dagger stabbing in the back the Palestinians who’ve engaged in the process in good faith.
In good faith, you say? So maybe that’s why between the Oslo accords in 1993 and Camp David 2000 the suicide bombings of Israeli buses and crowded spaces were a regular tactic, and why after Camp David Hamas waged the next round of terror bombings against the Israeli cities. Not to mention the Palestinian good faith demonstrated after the Israeli pull-out from Gaza, with thousand of rockets …
“Nothing in Al-Zahar’s statement supports your libel against the Palestinian people. He said he would not engage in the sham “peace process.”
Again, you can not give me that Hamas are nothing but doves of peace. Try to be a little honest, at least in this regard.
Do you have any links that don’t come from Israeli PR outlets?
It is simply inconceivable to me how anyone who wishes for a two-state, peaceful solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians within the framework established in the Oslo Accords could possibly greet this news with anything other than a scream of horror.
The Hamasification of the Palestinian Authority has now begun.
Elliot Abrams is absolutely right. How can this do anything but bode ill for any possibility of compromise between Israel and the Palestinians? Can someone please explain this to me? Will the rapproachment with Hamas make peace even slightly more likely? Who in their right mind can possibly believe this?
Of course, there are plenty of people here who see nothing negative at all about Hamas, and even defend them vigorously. They seem to see them as a kind of Palestinian Tea Party of some sort.
Hamas is a violent, murderous terrorist organization whose regime exists, and whose terrorist actions have occurred, in total defiance of every conceivable application of international law.
A compromise peace is now probably dead; I can hardly hide my pessimism anymore. A peace process can only work if both sides make painful compromises and sacrifices toward a common goal. Like the Anglo-Irish peace process of 1921-1922 and the Egypt-Israel process of 1979. A lot of the problem here rests with the Palestinian leadership. They have had no Michael Collins, Anwar al Sadat, or Nelson Mandela. All they’ve had is Arafat and his rejectionist flunkies. And, of course, Hamas.
Indeed, the Palestinians have been one of the worst led people in history: their leaders sided with the Germans in World War one, with Hitler in World War two, with the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and Sadamm Hussein in the Gulf War. Needed: a leadership who will put the needs of the Palestinian people first and compromise to make the peace.
A leadership that includes Hamas will only give Israel the peace of the grave.
Despite the depressing news of the past decade, I have always believed in my heart that the Arafat/Hamas era of violent hatred and maximalist rejection would someday give way to more humane and responsible leaders that would put aside the old atavistic hatreds, and lead the long-suffering Palestinian people to a responsible statehood in which they could harness all of their energies and talents into building a state, rather than destroying another one.
But I am beginning to see this as the illusion that it appears to be. The era when compromise seemed at least possible appears gone. In future, the Palestinian leadership, with Hamas at their side, will simply be singing ever louder to Israel their favorite one-word song: no.
After all, what have they compromised or sacrificed in the last 18 years, or before? Nothing, absolutely nothing. They have moved not one inch on any issue and have rejected all serious offers put to them.
All of this is beyond dispute.
“And which of course never could happen to Israel”
No, it can’t. And thinking that it could is nothing but paranoia and delusions. If you think it is possible, get therapy. The Palestinians can’t protect fishing boats 3 ½ miles off shore, and you think that Auschwitz is possible?? Are you out of your mind??
“Maybe you should give a look in some speech of Hamas leaders …..”
After Israel killed two of his children and tried to kill him, are you surprised? But, so what? A lot of people say a lot of things. Saddam Hussein said he was going to beat the US military. That doesn’t mean there was any realistic chance of it ever happening. Same here.
“Where can you find such ‘machinations’ in the Israeli peace& land offers in 2000 and 2008?”
There were different machinations at issue in 2000. And, remind me, the offer in 2008, did that come before or after Israel slaughter 1300 Gazans, including hundreds of children??
“You mean this?”
No, I mean the settlements, the occupations, and the “peace offers” that amount to nothing more than the Palestinians rotting in Bantustans.
“… between the Oslo accords in 1993 and Camp David 2000… and why after Camp David…”
At no point in this time did Israel abandon the occupation, evacuate all of its settlers from occupied Palestine lands or even agree to cease the increase in the settlement areas. So why do you expect that the Palestinians wouldn’t fight back?
“Not to mention the Palestinian good faith demonstrated after the Israeli pull-out from Gaza, with thousand of rockets …”
You’re blockading them and regularly killing them for tending their crops. What the hell do you expect?
“Again, you can not give me that Hamas are nothing but doves of peace.”
Who said they were? But that doesn’t address your libel against the Palestinian people, or the lie about the peace process. When are you going to be honest about that?
“After all, what have they compromised or sacrificed in the last 18 years, or before? Nothing, absolutely nothing. They have moved not one inch on any issue and have rejected all serious offers put to them.”
You are literally out of your mind crazy. The Palestinians have already offered the loss of, what, 78% of their homeland, including offering the Zionists the “greatest Jerusalem” and made unprecedented concessions, and what was the Israeli response?? The finger.
So go sell your lies among Zionist morons who might believe it.
Roberto Weirdine:
“”It is simply inconceivable to me how anyone who wishes for a two-state, peaceful solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians within the framework established in the Oslo Accords could possibly greet this news with anything other than a scream of horror.”"
++++ Now let us hear that girlish scream. After that try to focus.
“”The Hamasification of the Palestinian Authority has now begun. “”
++++ Because they signed agreement ?
“”Elliot Abrams is absolutely right. How can this do anything but bode ill for any possibility of compromise between Israel and the Palestinians? Can someone please explain this to me?”"
++++ I think that i could, but i dont. Waist of time.
“”Will the rapproachment with Hamas make peace even slightly more likely? Who in their right mind can possibly believe this?”"
++++ Quite lots of people.
“”Of course, there are plenty of people here who see nothing negative at all about Hamas, and even defend them vigorously.”"
++++ Yeah, we are adults and we are not so scared teenagers any more.
“”They seem to see them as a kind of Palestinian Tea Party of some sort.”"
++++ Coffee party. Wanna join ?
“”Hamas is a violent, murderous terrorist organization whose regime exists, and whose terrorist actions have occurred, in total defiance of every conceivable application of international law. “”
++++ Actions against IDF aint terrorism. Never heard ?
“”A compromise peace is now probably dead; I can hardly hide my pessimism anymore.”"
++++ Oh, yes you can. Easily. Just stop writing it. And try to act like a man.
“”A peace process can only work if both sides make painful compromises and sacrifices toward a common goal. Like the Anglo-Irish peace process of 1921-1922 and the Egypt-Israel process of 1979.”"
++++ In Egypt-Israel peace treaty israel give Sinai back to Egypt. I havent heard similar towards to palestinians….
“”A lot of the problem here rests with the Palestinian leadership.”"
++++ And santa claus.
“”They have had no Michael Collins, Anwar al Sadat, or Nelson Mandela. All they’ve had is Arafat and his rejectionist flunkies.”"
++++ Ahem. Arafat is dead. Just woke up from coma ?
“”And, of course, Hamas.”"
++++ Aaaah, the Hamas. Hamas hamas hamas, terror terror terror.
“”Indeed, the Palestinians have been one of the worst led people in history: their leaders sided with the Germans in World War one,”"
++++ So was Turks, Bulgaria, Hungary….so ?
“”with Hitler in World War two,”"
++++ So was Hungary, Italia, Romania, Bulgaria and Japan…so ?
“” with the Soviet Union in the Cold War,”"
++++ Eh, are we gonna go all wars, who sided who – quiz ?
“”and Sadamm Hussein in the Gulf War.”"
++++ God damn.
“”Needed: a leadership who will put the needs of the Palestinian people first and compromise to make the peace.”"
++++ Dunno why, but your this statement sounds so hollow…
“”A leadership that includes Hamas will only give Israel the peace of the grave.”"
++++ So you have been in deep coma. Few years now has hamas called palestine state with -67 borders.
“”Despite the depressing news of the past decade, I have always believed in my heart that the Arafat/Hamas era of violent hatred and maximalist rejection would someday give way to more humane and responsible leaders that would put aside the old atavistic hatreds, and lead the long-suffering Palestinian people to a responsible statehood in which they could harness all of their energies and talents into building a state, rather than destroying another one.”"
++++ Ahem part 2. Arafat IS STILL DEAD.
“”But I am beginning to see this as the illusion that it appears to be.”"
++++ What have you been smoking ? Tsik tsik, bad for your health….
“”The era when compromise seemed at least possible appears gone. In future, the Palestinian leadership, with Hamas at their side, will simply be singing ever louder to Israel their favorite one-word song: no.”"
++++ Ah, progress. No 3 no’s anymore.
“”After all, what have they compromised or sacrificed in the last 18 years, or before? Nothing, absolutely nothing. They have moved not one inch on any issue and have rejected all serious offers put to them.”"
++++ Their land. Which one someone is stealing in this very moment as we blog here. And they indeed rejected all not so serious “offers”, LOL, i cant continue. Laughing so much…
“”All of this is beyond dispute.”"
++++ Magic word “dispute” said. Now hand your adress so we can send ” the clown of the week” diploma. With fanfare and kisses & hugs.
Robert Werdine, I’m curious about how your attitudes developed, considering your claimed Arab heritage. Did you always feel this way, or were you raised in an environment more critical of Israel but changed your mind once you started thinking for yourself? If so, which speakers/writers have been the most influential in your shift?
While I completely disagree with virtually everything you say, I am in effect your mirror image, having been raised in a thoroughly pro-Israel environment. What changed my mind was reading Benny Morris, Chomsky, Said, Finkelstein, etc. So I have no bias against people who shed what was taught to them and go their own route, but I am curious as to what makes you tick. Your endorsement of Abrams, and your historical narrative which essentially puts the blame solely on the Palestinians and not at all on Israel, appears much more extreme than most other Zionist commenters.
No, it can’t.
Well, Woody, the Palestinian terrorists – supported, financed and armed by countries and groups like Iran, Syria and their proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon – can’t do it yet, but this doesn’t mean they don’t have the intention to do it. It is an open secret that their goal is the destruction of the state of Israel, whether by diplomatic means, demographic invasion, terror or war. The ‘liberation of Palestine’ has always been the ‘liberation of all Palestine’, as euphemistically stated in the PLO-Charter (“Article 2: Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.”) or bluntly in the Hamas-Charter (“Article Six: Peculiarity and Independence
The Islamic Resistance Movement is a distinct Palestinian Movement which owes its loyalty to Allah, derives from Islam its way of life and strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine. “). Not exactly ‘Auschwitz’, but destruction and dissolution of the Jewish state and its people, possibly in stages on the middle-long term, yes – no doubt.
After Israel killed two of his children and tried to kill him, are you surprised? But, so what?
You are trying to rationalise appeals to genocide.
A lot of people say a lot of things.
But Israel has the duty to take those threats very seriously: the Hamas terrorists have repeatedly shown their total disregard for the lifes of civilians, without distinction whether Israelis and their own (as pawns to be sacrificed).
“And, remind me, the offer” in 2008″ came long before the Gaza war, on 31 August 2008. Strange that Abbas is now so eager to exhume the same offer as starting point which then he rejected so hastly as “waste of time”, isn’it?
At no point in this time did Israel abandon the occupation, …..
Israel fullfilled all its obligations under the Oslo accords – not the PA. Read carefully, Woody:
link to jewishvirtuallibrary.org
What the hell do you expect?
True committment to peace and recognition of the right to exist of the Jewish state of Israel. There are a lot of ways and gestures to show it, yet in all these years I’ve seen very little from the Palestinians.
errata corrige:
quote:
At no point in this time did Israel abandon the occupation, …..
reply:
Israel fullfilled all its obligations under the Oslo accords – not the PA. Read carefully, Woody:
link to jewishvirtuallibrary.org
David Samel,
I am an Arab-American Muslim (half-Arab) of Lebanese descent who is and always has been deeply concerned about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Like many Arab-Americans, I grew up believing that Israel was the obstacle to peace in the Holy Land. (This view is, almost without exception, still the consensus with most of my Arab relatives on my mother’s side of the family). As a teenager, I was re-enforced in this view by books I read from authors like Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Norman Finkelstein, Robert Fisk, and John Pilger. Said’s “Orientalism” about Western bias toward Arabs, and Fisk’s “Pity the Nation” about the war in Lebanon were a particular influence on me. In the 1990′s, however, as I began to broaden my reading and study of the issue, I began to notice a pattern with these authors: on virtually every controversial issue, the actions of the Palestinians were always portrayed in the most noble, virtuous, and sympathetic light, and those of the Israelis in the harshest, bleakest, most evil terms. All of these authors routinely compared the Israelis to the Nazis, and worse. Authors who challenged or disputed their assertions or criticized their work were tarred by them with the vilest of epithets and accused of spreading “Zionist propaganda.” I realized that many of the assertions of Chomsky, Said, and others had were based on thin evidence and sometimes on no evidence at all. I soon became weary of their crude, simplistic, and predictable caricatures and began to recognize these authors for the partisan, ideological thugs that they were.
I began to read serious scholars of the issue, like Bernard Lewis, Walter Laqueur, Fouad Ajami, Efraim Karsh, Joseph Esposito, Karen Armstrong, and Benny Morris. “The Seige” by Irish Historian/diplomat Conor Cruise O’Brien, was also an influence. At the same time (1990′s), under the Oslo Accords, I began to see Israel making withdrawals and concessions, Arafat making none in return, and raising his price for peace with every Israeli concession he pocketed. I saw him talking peace with Western audiences and, sometimes within the same day, making blood-curdling speeches against the “Zionist enemy” to Arab ones. Also, many Palestinians living in our local Arab community were telling me stories from relatives living in the West Bank about how unbearable life was becoming under Arafat. The unpopular Israeli occupation gave way to the terrorism, corruption, oppression, and human rights abuses of Arafat and Hamas.
However, it took Arafat’s rejection of a Palestinian state in 2000/2001 to make me realize the true cause of the conflict: the continued rejection by the Arabs of any sovereign, independent Jewish entity on any of the land between the Jordan river and the sea, historically known as Palestine. I saw how this Arab rejectionism ran like a black, sinister thread through the whole conflict: their rejection of the 1937 and 1948 partitions, Nasser’s “three no’s” of 1967, Arafat’s rejection of autonomy in the territories in 1979, his denunciation of the Egypt/Israel peace agreement, his multiple rejections of a sovereign, contiguous state in 2000 and 2001, and Abbas’s rejection of the West Bank in 2008. These rejections and denunciations are all a matter of record and are beyond dispute, though I am aware that many on this blog do dispute them.
As are the compromises and concessions made by the Israelis: the willingness to compromise in 1937, and 1947; the return of the Sinai to Egypt after the 1956 war and the second return of the Sinai to Egypt in 1981 along with the withdrawal of all Israeli settlements there; the offer of autonomy to the Palestinians in 1979; the withdrawal of Israel from 98% of all Palestinian population centers and the release of scores of Palestinian prisoners (some of them hardened terrorists) in the 1993-2000 period; the unprecedented offers in 2000-2001 of a Palestinian state in some 97% of the West Bank, all of Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the removal of all Israeli settlements contained therein; the offer of the return of the Golan to Syria in 2000; the unilateral withdrawals of all Israeli troops, citizens and settlements from South Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005; the offer of the West Bank to Abbas in 2008, the 10-month settlement freeze in 2009-2010, the repeated willingness, to this very day, to negotiate directly and without any preconditions which has been met with the Palestinian’s usual intransigence and refusal to reciprocate.
I am well aware of the vast disagreement here with everything I have just said. But you asked me how I came to the views I hold, and there it is.
Efraim Karsh? L O L
If you’re ‘Arab credentials’ are ‘legit’ you’re about as ‘Arab’ as Walid Shoebat.
If I had a dime for every time a Zionist pretends to be an Arab (or a US veteran, or a loyal US citizen), I could single-handedly outspend AIPAC for a presidential election
“They have had no Michael Collins, Anwar al Sadat, or Nelson Mandela. All they’ve had is Arafat and his rejectionist flunkies. And, of course, Hamas. ”
There’s a few qualitative differences between Sadat on the one hand vs. Collins and Mandela.
Sadat took a bribe (US aid) to free up Israel’s southern front. I don’t know as much about Ireland but off hand at least the Anglo-Irish treaty didn’t free the British to occupy something else they coveted. Not to mention that the Irish free state didn’t help the Brits occupy Northern Ireland while Sadat and Mubarak joined in imprisoning the Palestinians.
It’s most ridiculous with Mandela. He led a paramilitary that killed civilians, albeit not as many as the apartheid state. For him to be equivalent to Arafat, he’d have to accept apartheid in the Cape and just take the Bantustans. The Palestinian Mandela are people like, well, pretty much anyone who isn’t leading Fateh or Hamas.
“their leaders sided with the Germans in World War one, with Hitler in World War two, with the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and Sadamm Hussein in the Gulf War.”
Another good reason not to take you seriously is the loose way you write about the Palestinian leadership regarding WWI, WWII, the Cold War and Gulf War I. Especially in WWII, what leadership, dude? The 1936 revolt decimated any leadership the Palestinians might’ve had; the Mufti was part of this and although he had whatever respect the old feudal class carried, he was not a leader in a popular sense.
As for the Cold War, uh, the ANC was backed by the Soviet Union and a certain Muammar al-Qadhdafi. So on that score your counterposing of Arafat and Mandela is sorely lacking in coherency.
The Irish Independence Movement sided with the Germans in WWI (By the way, which side did you root for, the Czar or the Kaiser?).
Then there’s the Gulf-War: Notice how you didn’t mention who sided with Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war. Because that would involve questioning the simplistic worldview (Good Americans and Israelis vs. Bad Palestinian leadership) you’re spreading around here.
Plus, your willingness to trash whoever sides with the official enemies of America is cheap demagoguery anyway, as if the US govt. with its own bloody record is the arbiter of who’s good to side with.
Robert, frankly I find everything you say impossible to believe. I cannot understand how someone who is able to string together coherent sentences can parrot such a staunchly pro-Israel line, after having been exposed to brilliant writers and analysts, especially if you have no tribal identification with the Jewish people. How could you possibly credit the likes of Lewis and Karsh over Chomsky and Said? Moreover, you say you learned from Benny Morris. Here’s a guy who acknowledges that Zionists committed two dozen massacres in 1947-8, which he thinks was unfortunate because they did not go far enough!!! You agree?
Some here think you are an impostor, a professional hasbarist faking an Arab background. That certainly would be a reasonable explanation. If you are honestly stating your ancestry, you are an extremely unusual person. Don’t you believe that non-Jewish Arabs, who share some heritage with you, should be entitled to full and equal rights in the land of their birth, or do you accept their inferior rights and status, even to diaspora Jews like myself? I usually think that people who spout your nonsense honestly believe what they say, but in your case, I have huge doubts. No one can disprove your claimed ethnicity, but your opinions are plainly depraved regardless of your background.
You claim that you became disenchanted with some writers because “on virtually every controversial issue, the actions of the Palestinians were always portrayed in the most noble, virtuous, and sympathetic light, and those of the Israelis in the harshest, bleakest, most evil terms.” Aside from the fact that you are grossly and deliberately misstating these authors, who are far more nuanced, that would be a precise description of your analysis, with the parties reversed. Your mantra of Arab rejectionism embraces every nonsensical example regularly trotted out by Dershowitz & co. The Peel Commission of 1937? You really believe that the Palestinians should have accepted plan that called for ethnic cleansing of 225,000 of them?
The accusation of self-hating Jew is dishonestly hurled at people such as myself, but if you are who you say you are, self-hating Arab’s not far from the mark. Your gullible acceptance of virtually every item of hasbara nonsense that you’ve come across is incomprehensible.
“I am in effect your mirror image,”
Only in a superficial sense. There’s no merit in merely going against one’s background unless there are good reasons for it. You’d be Werdine’s mirror image if you denied that any Palestinian group or individual had ever committed an atrocity or done anything harmful to an Israeli Jew.
“You claim that you became disenchanted with some writers because “on virtually every controversial issue, the actions of the Palestinians were always portrayed in the most noble, virtuous, and sympathetic light, and those of the Israelis in the harshest, bleakest, most evil terms.” Aside from the fact that you are grossly and deliberately misstating these authors, who are far more nuanced, that would be a precise description of your analysis, with the parties reversed”
Yeah. For instance, nobody who has actually read “Pity the Nation” could honestly claim that Fisk portrayed the PLO in the noblest and most sympathetic light. As you say, he’s just describing his own position with names changed.
Agreed David Samel & Walid – Robert Werdine doesn’t gel with me either. Comes across as a zionist pretending to be an arab.
Israel fullfilled all its obligations under the Oslo accords
The Jewish Virtual Library is a propaganda web site. I don’t know where Mitchell Baird read the law, but Article 1 of the Oslo Accord Declaration of Principles called for a transitional period not exceeding five years leading to a permanent settlement based on the implementation of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.
The UN Security Council emphasized that the prohibition against the threat or use of force contained in Article 2 of the UN Charter and the jus cogens norm regarding the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war would govern any acceptable settlement. See the analytical table of Security Council decisions (Chapter 8) for 1966-1968, IV Measures for Settlement, A. and E. 1. “Enunciation or affirmation of principles governing settlement” (a) (b) and (c) for resolution 242 on page 5 of the “Repertoire of the Practice of the Security Council”. link to un.org
Articles 7 , 8 and 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention do not permit local officials to surrender the protected rights of the population of the occupied territory against colonization, displacement, or deportation (i.e. demographic changes) to the Occupying Power. Articles 52 and 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties stipulates that any treaty obtained through coercion or the violation of a jus cogens norm is null and void. That means Israel has to withdraw its armed forces from the territory and stop interfering in the election of representatives before there can be any “agreed swaps”.
Please don’t pretend that Israel complied with the announced aims of the Oslo Accords by unilaterally implanting hundreds of thousands of illegal settlers and maintaining belligerent claims against the land outside its 1967 borders.
Translation:
“All the voices in my head are in agreement.”
You claim to have read serious scholars of the issue, and yet you repeat this Hasbara crap?
Do yourself a favor Robert (if indeed you are who you say you are and not some Hasbara poseur pretending to be an Arab-American Muslim) and read some facts about Camp David before wasting anyone’s time on this forum.
Nicholas Kristof: Arafat and the Myth of Camp David
link to robat.scl.net
The Myth of the Generous Offer
Distorting the Camp David negotiations
link to fair.org
compensation for refugees and their descendants remained unresolved), but Barak, facing elections, resuspended the talks.[7] The increased violence of the Second Intifada led to a sharp swing to the right in Israeli politics; Ehud Barak was defeated by Ariel Sharon in 2001.
link to en.wikipedia.org
FYI. The Israelis under Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, stated that he woudl have rejected Camp David had he been a Palestinian.
Ehud Barak admitted that he went to the 2000 Camp David talks intent on having them fail. He needed to lift the pressure off of him due to the Israeli elections that were to follow some 8 months later. Ehud Barak knew that should the talks fail, a second Intifada would break and that would give him the chance he needed to blame Arafat and use that to boost his numbers in the polls.
Elliot Abrams is a pathological liar and Zionist spin doctor.
Are you for real? Israel was founded by violent, murderous terrorist organizations. Israel even elected the leaders of these organizations to the highest office in the land.
Israel occupation, settlements, colletive punishment and wars of agression are all violatinos of international law.
Way to go Einstein, except that you’re about a decade too late in comming to that conclusion. The Palestine Papers revealed once and for all that the Peace Process was nothign but a charade that Israel was exploiting to change the facts on the ground.
Have you not been listening to Avigdor Liberman? He decalred repetaedly that peace is stil decades away, and that was before this annoucenment was made.
Right from the Likudnik songbook. None of their leaders sided with the Germans in World War one.
Wow, there’s that Hasbaratic term “maximalist” again.
Hey Robert. Game’s up buddy. You’ve been outed.
Since everyone is in a sharing mood, I’d like to tell my story.
I’m in fact Elvis Presley. I never actually died. You see, for the last 33 years since I faked my death I have been living under an assumed name, but have now decided to come out and reveal myself, especially after some hacks decided to remix my songs and sell them as what passes for all this modern crap nowadays.
“It is an open secret that their goal is the destruction of the state of Israel”
Don’t be an idiot. The Palestinians, and the Arab world as a whole have bent over backwards to offer peace plans to give the Israelis everything they claim that they want within the 1967 borders, but the Israelis are too stupid, or paranoid, or evil, or all three, to accept it. So you can concoct whatever fairy tales you want from whatever documents you want, but in the real world, your paranoid delusions mean nothing.
“Not exactly ‘Auschwitz’,”
Then shut the hell up about Auschwitz. Its use here is idiotic and libelous. And further, it’s a disgusting insult for you to use six million dead Jews as rhetorical human shields to make yourself feel better about Israel killing Palestinian children.
“You are trying to rationalise appeals to genocide. “
Not in the least. I’m trying to explain to you why someone in that position might wish to do harm on your people. Didn’t some fictional Jew say something along the lines of “And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that…. The villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.”? Don’t you think other people might feel the same way when they’re wronged to the extremes of depravity the Zionist pigs have inflicted on the native people of Palestine??
“the Hamas terrorists have repeatedly shown their total disregard for the lifes of civilians,”
And the Israeli terrorists (in uniform and out) have done far worse than the Palestinians could ever hope to do. So why should the Palestinians care about dead Jewish civilians when the Jews don’t care about dead Palestinians civilians?
“Strange that Abbas is now so eager to exhume the same offer as starting point which then he rejected so hastly as “waste of time”, isn’it?”
Missed the point completely, didn’t you?
“Israel fullfilled all its obligations…”
As I said, at no point in this time did Israel abandon the occupation, evacuate all of its settlers from occupied Palestine lands or even agree to cease the increase in the settlement areas. So why do you expect that the Palestinians wouldn’t fight back?
You think a hasbara propaganda site like “jewishvirtuallibrary” is a valid citation for anything?? LMAO.
“True committment to peace”
When is Israel going to do the same, (which would entail the removal of the settlements, the end of the occupation, and the withdrawal into the 1967 lines)??? It was, you’ll recall, the Palestinians who conceded just about everything there is to concede, and it was the Israelis who rejected it, as the Palestine Papers established without doubt. Or is this commitment to peace only something that is owed to Jews, and not something that Jews must give in return?
“…and recognition of the right to exist of the Jewish state of Israel.”
There is no such right; it’s a hasbara myth. But as the Palestinians have said: the Israeli can call their country whatever they want; that’s their business. But they must uphold their obligations under international law, which they’ve refused to do for generations.
“…yet in all these years I’ve seen very little from the Palestinians.”
Because you’ve got your head up your… under a blanket… shaking like a frightened kitten, scared of the paranoid Auschwitz delusions that exist only in your head.
“Robert Werdine doesn’t gel with me either. Comes across as a zionist pretending to be an arab.”
To me he comes across as someone sitting in a basement in Tel Aviv somewhere, in the English Language section of the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Hasbara, or whatever the Zios call their propaganda outfit.
Indeed Sumud,
The guys entire lexicon is lifted from the Hasbara cook book. The guy is a obvious fraud.
Superb rebuttal David,
You succindtly and efficiently encompassed everything I would have said but far mroe elegantly. It’s sometimes difficutl to know where to start when a new commenter posts such a verbose diatribe, because one has to wonder if the effort is even worth it.
How can it be beyind dispute when all you’ve done is post a long hyperbolic diatribe bereft of any facts?
Excellent rebuttal Hostage.
Frankly, I’m amazed that the hasbara Mother Ship released such a poorly prepared and ill informed stooge onto this blog. Have they no compassion?
Elvis inda haaaaaaaaaaaouse!
LOL Avi – now I have this image of you as being some smart guy walking around with a shiny quiff!
Paparazeeeeeehaaaaaw!
I began to read serious scholars of the issue, like Bernard Lewis, Walter Laqueur, Fouad Ajami, Efraim Karsh, Joseph Esposito, Karen Armstrong, and Benny Morris.
I do give him credit for having a sense of humor, since Karsh and Morris have a running feud and have essentially called each other frauds and propagandists. Hey, but they are BOTH “serious scholars” so who cares that they disagree about pretty much everything but the inferiority of Palestinians. That’s all that’s necessary to know to swallow the propaganda. Jews wonderful, Palestinians terrible. Its an easy lesson to learn as long as you aren’t too particular about knowing the truth… or thinking.
And citing Karen Armstrong? The writer of books on comparative religion? My guess is that Robert learned everything he knows about his self-professed religion (Islam) from reading her books.
They are either ill informed hasbarists of the eee class or well informed but dishonest ones in the Guilty Feat one. Werdine, the phony Arab is of the eee group.
My guess is that Robert learned everything he knows about his self-professed religion (Islam) from reading her books.
bingo..a fraud
And lookie here. Karsh has a feud with Armstrong as well. From Wikipedia:
Israeli right and many neoconservatives take a dim view of Armstrong’s ecumenism, accusing her of being unduly positive about Islam. In a review published in the conservative New York Sun, historian Efraim Karsh dismissed her her book, Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time, as “thinly veiled hagiography”, calling her treatment of the controversial issue of the Banu Qurayza tribe “a travesty of the truth”.[15]
Gee all of Robert’s “serious scholars” are accusing each other of writing hagiography. Hilarious.
And here’s Armstrong on Israel/Palestine:
link to en.wikipedia.org
Sounds like the kind of viewpoint that Robert would vehemently disagree with, doesn’t it.
Since she is does not write books about the conflict, and she is most well known as the author of a few books on Islam, her inclusion on Robert’s list makes no sense, but then neither does anything else he writes.
David – Robert Werdine is as Arab as an apple pie. Just as Avi is Elvis (who never died, but went underground to fight I/P battles…and is now resurfacing as his true self), and I am the one and only true incarnation of Catherine the Great (who channeled Cleopatra, who was but a resurrected danaa – MHughes knows all about that little history…). Some day I should really research that ancestry – gotta be some semi-nice Jewesses in there, somewhere….
Danaa, don’t spoil it; I’ve been telling people here that you’re Lebanese.
Rubbish. The PA have already met the Quartet’s conditions years ago and Israel has rejected them completely. Remember that Phase 1 required Israel to stop building settlements in 2003. The US is 1 member of the Quartet BTW.
Thanks for the laugh in any case Jonah.
Again, you can not give me that Hamas are nothing but doves of peace. Try to be a little honest, at least in this regard.
Again, you can’t give me a guarantee that the Palestinians somewhere in the back of their minds intend to do to us exactly what we did to them.
Johna’s logic would have us take Israel’s stance as it comes from the greedy rascist mouth of the most rabid Israeli settlers and rabbis.
I began to read serious scholars of the issue, like Bernard Lewis
I have the same impression as Cliff about “the serious” scholar Bernard Lewis, who in the 80′s made a turn away from serious scholarship to a political propagandist with his meme of the New Antisemitism, the Arab antisemitism. I am not saying there isn’t any, but it wipes away the sources of the conflict. Both sides use the Nazi analogy.
I’d suggest you read: Gilbert Achcar, The Arabs and the Holocaust. The Arab-Israeli war of Narratives, NY 2009
Mondoweiss comment rules:
Moderators, please take note.
Jesus, you’re the one who brought up the demands made by the Quartet and now you’re asking me to explain them to you?
The Road Map is divided into three Phases, and nobody has a right to down-tools WITHIN A PHASE for any reason.
Or, put another way: even if the other side *is* dragging its feet all you can do is put your head down and power on to the end of Phase I, at which point you refuse to go to the next Phase until the other dude has caught up to you.
That’s what Abbas has done, becasue the Quartet fond that the PA met their obligations under Phase 1.
This is how it was written: “In each phase, the parties are expected to perform their obligations in parallel, unless otherwise indicated.”
Got that?
This is what Phase I required of the PA.
Palestinian leadership issues unequivocal statement reiterating Israel’s right to exist in peace and security and calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire to end armed activity and all acts of violence against Israelis anywhere. All official Palestinian institutions end incitement against Israel.
That “Palestinian leadership” is The PLO/PA i.e. it is Abbas And His Bunch. It most definitely is not Hamas, nor it is Islamic Jihad.
In fact, so long as Abbas And His Bunch are committed to non-violence then that provision has been fulfilled.
Q: Why?
A: Because the only group recognized as the “Palestinian leadership” is Abbas And His Bunch.
Israel’s obligations under Phase I reads as follows:
Israel also freezes all settlement activity, consistent with the Mitchell report.
GOI takes no actions undermining trust, including deportations, attacks on civilians; confiscation and/or demolition of Palestinian homes and property, as a punitive measure or to facilitate Israeli construction”
GOI immediately dismantles settlement outposts erected since March 2001
Consistent with the Mitchell Report, GOI freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements).
Hostage -
The Oslo accords
Your reading:
“Article 1 of the Oslo Accord Declaration of Principles called for a transitional period not exceeding five years leading to a permanent settlement based on the implementation of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.”
Verbatim:
“The aim of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations within the current Middle East peace process is, among other things, to establish a Palestinian Interim Self-Government Authority, the elected Council (the “Council”), for the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, for a transitional period not exceeding five years, leading to a permanent settlement based on Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.
It is understood that the interim arrangements are an integral part of the whole peace process and that the negotiations on the permanent status will lead to the implementation of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.”
It appears that you have omitted the concluding paragraph of article 1 which clearly states that the implementation of Resolutions 242 and 338 will take place through negotiations between the parties. Thus, the interim arrangements are to be considered transient by virtue of substantial progress in negotiations on the permanent status and do not imply at all, as you incorrectly suggest distorting the original message, an almost automatic transition to the permanent status. Your selective biased reading of the accords is evident.
“Please don’t pretend that Israel complied with the announced aims of the Oslo Accords by unilaterally implanting hundreds of thousands of illegal settlers and maintaining belligerent claims against the land outside its 1967 borders.”
Article V of the Oslo accords about “The transitional period and permanent staus negotiations” (2) and (3):
“(2) Permanent status negotiations will commence as soon as possible, but not later than the beginning of the third year of the interim period, between the Government of Israel and the Palestinian people representatives.
(3) It is understood that these negotiations shall cover remaining issues, including: Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security arrangements, borders, relations and cooperation with other neighbors, and other issues of common interest.”
In other words: there’s no mention of any unilateral dismantling of the Jewish settlements prior to permanent status negotiations – none, nichts, nada, niente, rien along the whole text of the accords.
More typical anti-Israel distortion of the original message by the anti-Israel propaganda machine:
IV Geneva convention
Your wording:
Articles 7 , 8 and 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention do not permit local officials to surrender the protected rights of the population of the occupied territory against colonization, displacement, or deportation (i.e. demographic changes) to the Occupying Power.
Verbatim:
“article (7) … the High Contracting Parties may conclude other special agreements for all matters concerning which they may deem it suitable to make separate provision. No special agreement shall adversely affect the situation of protected persons, as defined by the present Convention, nor restrict the rights which it confers upon them. Protected persons shall continue to have the benefit of such agreements as long as the Convention is applicable to them, except where express provisions to the contrary are contained in the aforesaid or in subsequent agreements, or where more favourable measures have been taken with regard to them by one or other of the Parties to the conflict.”
“Article 8) Protected persons may in no circumstances renounce in part or in entirety the rights secured to them by the present Convention, and by the special agreements referred to in the foregoing Article. ”
No mention of phrases such as not permit local officials to surrender the protected rights of the population of the occupied territory against colonization, displacement, or deportation, not in the articles nor in the commentary. Why not? Because it’s indeed your own coinage, these articles of the convention don’t refer with one single word to situations like the Israeli settlements – but if they did, can you cite me in full a single sentence of the original text that would provide a shred evidence to your claim?
Often is cited article 49 (6) of the same convention to assert that the settlements are illegal according to the international law.
Verbatim: ” The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
The international lawyer Prof. Eugene V. Rostow, a former dean of Yale Law School and Undersecretary of State, stated in 1990:
“The Convention prohibits many of the inhumane practices of the Nazis and the Soviet Union during and before the Second World War – the mass transfer of people into and out of occupied territories for purposes of extermination, slave labor or colonization, for example….The Jewish settlers in the West Bank are most emphatically volunteers. They have not been “deported” or “transferred” to the area by the Government of Israel, and their movement involves none of the atrocious purposes or harmful effects on the existing population it is the goal of the Geneva Convention to prevent.”
Similarly, international lawyer Prof. Julius Stone, in referring to the absurdity of considering Israeli settlements as a violation of Article 49(6), stated:
“Irony would…be pushed to the absurdity of claiming that Article 49(6), designed to prevent repetition of Nazi-type genocidal policies of rendering Nazi metropolitan territories judenrein, has now come to mean that…the West Bank…must be made judenrein and must be so maintained, if necessary by the use of force by the government of Israel against its own inhabitants. Common sense as well as correct historical and functional context excludes so tyrannical a reading of Article 49(6.)”
Ergo: the Geneva Convention provisions regarding transfer of populations cannot be considered relevant in any event to the Israeli-Palestinian context, and your claims in that directions are nothing but forgeries repeated ad libitum like a mantra by the anti-Israel propagandists. To avoid negotiations and impose a false spurious peace agreement.
Persistent liars and forgers – I have no other terms for the likes of you.
i think you are being willfully obtuse. maybe if hostage or someone more qualified than me doesn’t come back and smack down your perverse logic i will take a stab at it. right now i don’t have the inclination or feel like putting out the effort.
seriously tho, get a grip. there are enough holes here to sink a barge.
“But you asked me how I came to the views I hold,”
If there’s a Zionist “Penthouse Magazine” your comment belongs in the “Penthouse Forum”.
Shingo, i guess that you answered to jonah with this ? ;)
jonah :
You can stop right now from citing things that you cant undestand. Including Rostow. Come back with this issue lets say after 10 years, after you have done some study to international law.
Hostage is waaaay up of your class.
Hostage is a serious info guru.
I could read him for 5 minutes and feel 10 years smarter for it!
agreed, now if only i could retain all that information!
Just a little hint about jonah’s Julius Stone a’la wikipedia ( i have read similar from other sources, and wikipedia isnt reliable ).
“”This early experience of anti-Semitism influenced his lifelong commitment to justice, according to his biographer, Leonie Star (Star 1993).”"
“”Stone has been described by his official JSIJ biography as having “a life-long commitment to Israel” and in the Sydney Law Review as having an emotional and “fierce loyalty to the State of Israel” that led some of his colleagues to “express fear even to discuss Israel with him”.”"
“”Oslo Accords
Similarly, international lawyer Prof. Julius Stone, in referring to the absurdity of considering Israeli settlements as a violation of Article 49(6), stated: Irony would…be pushed to the absurdity of claiming that Article 49(6), designed to prevent repetition of Nazi-type genocidal policies of rendering Nazi metropolitan territories judenrein, has now come to mean that…the West Bank…must be made judenrein and must be so maintained, if necessary by the use of force by the government of Israel against its own inhabitants. Common sense as well as correct historical and functional context excludes so tyrannical a reading of Article 49(6.)”"
#tyrannical a reading of Article 49(6.)#
So here we have ” so called professor of international law”, who starts to mock same international law which he teach. But that doesnt ring any bell to you ?
link to en.wikipedia.org
And E. Rostow claims i can destroy easily. So can hostage.
“seriously tho, get a grip. there are enough holes here to sink a barge.”
“If there’s a Zionist “Penthouse Magazine” your comment belongs in the “Penthouse Forum”.”
” i guess that you answered to jonah with this ? ;)”
“Hostage is waaaay up of your class.”
“Hostage is a serious info guru.”
“agreed, now if only i could retain all that information!”
Well said, buddies. Nice convenient way to make a wide curve around the contradictions exposed. Let’s see if at least your super genius of international law has some more convincing argument ….. subject prior mondo-censorship approval, of course ;-)
Jonah,
The armistice borders were the result of an international armistice agreement; a Chapter VII Security Council resolution; and a jus cogens norm reflected in the UN Charter that remain in effect pending the final negotiated settlement. Resolution 242, the Charter obligations, and the Fourth Geneva Convention have immediate legal consequences that are not in abeyance pending a negotiated settlement or the Oslo Accords as you’ve suggested above.
“Ergo” is a conclusion that logically flows from some previous argument. The Geneva Conventions are treaty agreements between States, not between Mr. Rostow and Mr. Stone. Neither of the two were speaking on behalf of their own States, or the international community of States in the material that you cited above.
During one of Rostow’s many terms at Yale, the Law Journal published a review “Israel And Palestine: Assault on the law of Nations? by Anthony D’Amato (91 Yale Law Journal, p 1725, 1982), which concluded by saying “Stone is betraying a life of scholarship to peddle a political position.” Stone’s arguments about the applicability of Article 49(6) of the Geneva Convention that you cited above were not based upon the law of nations, the terms of the convention, or the specific WWII events that were mentioned in the travaux préparatoires. In fact, Stone consciously avoided any mention of the Official Commentary on Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention. It has always provided that the article contains a “safeguard” for the protected persons against being colonized by the nationals of the occupying power:
“PARAGRAPH 6. DEPORTATION AND TRANSFER OF PERSONS INTO OCCUPIED TERRITORY
This clause was adopted after some hesitation, by the XVIIth International Red Cross Conference (13). It is intended to prevent a practice adopted during the Second World War by certain Powers, which transferred portions of their own population to occupied territory for political and racial reasons or in order, as they claimed, to colonize those territories. Such transfers worsened the economic situation of the native population and endangered their separate existence as a race. The paragraph provides protected persons with a valuable safeguard. It should be noted, however, that in this paragraph the meaning of the words “transfer” and “deport” is rather different from that in which they are used in the other paragraphs of Article 49, since they do not refer to the movement of protected persons but to that of nationals of the occupying Power. ”
The Reconvened Conference of the High Contracting State Parties to the Geneva Convention issued a declaration which rendered the interpretations of the terms of the agreement by Rostow and Stone a moot point:
“12. The participating High Contracting Parties call upon the Occupying Power to fully and effectively respect the Fourth Geneva Convention in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and to refrain from perpetrating any violation of the Convention. They reaffirm the illegality of the settlements in the said territories and of the extension thereof.”
The International Court of Justice confirmed the meaning of the treaty in its 2004 Advisory Opinion:
“120. As regards these settlements, the Court notes that Article 49, paragraph 6, of the Fourth Geneva Convention provides: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” That provision prohibits not only deportations or forced transfers of population such as those carried out during the Second World War, but also any measures taken by an occupying Power in order to organize or encourage transfers of parts of its own population into the occupied territory.
…
The Court concludes that the Israeli settlements in the Occupied
Palestinian Territory (including East Jerusalem) have been established in breach of international law.
During the negotiations concerning Security Council resolution 242, Rostow served as a subordinate (Under Secretary for Political Affairs) to Secretary of State Dean Rusk. The documentary record contained in Volumes XIX & XX of Foreign Relations of the United States revealed that Secretary Rusk personally made clear to Foreign Minister Eban that US support for secure permanent frontiers did not mean the US supported territorial changes. Secretary Rusk advised the Government of Israel that the transfer of civilians to occupied areas, whether or not in settlements which are under military control, is contrary to Article 49 of the Geneva Convention. He also said settlements violated the terms for the final negotiated settlement mentioned in resolution 242: “no matter what rationale or explanation is put forward by the GOI [Government of Israel], the establishment of civilian settlements in the occupied areas creates the strong appearance that Israel, contrary to the principle set forth in the UNSC Resolution and to US policy expressed in the President’s speech of June 19, does not intend to reach a settlement involving withdrawal from those areas.”
Since you’ve raised the issue of liars and forgers, the Israeli government knew from the outset that it was deliberately violating the terms of the Geneva Convention by creating civilian settlements in the territories under IDF administration. As the legal counsel of the Foreign Ministry, Theodor Meron was the Israeli government’s expert on international law during the Six Day War and its aftermath. On September 16, 1967 Meron wrote a memo to Mr. Adi Yafeh, Political Secretary of the Prime Minister regarding “Settlement in the Administered Territories” which said: “My conclusion is that civilian settlement in the Administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”
Defense Minister Moshe Dayan masterminded the Nahal settlements and was the first Israeli official to introduce the disingenuous term “disputed territories” during a speech to the UN General Assembly in 1977. He authored a secret memo in 1968 proposing massive settlement in the territories which said “Settling Israelis in administered territory, as is known, contravenes international conventions, but there is nothing essentially new about that.” See Israeli State Archives 153.8/7920/7A, Document 60, dated October 15, 1968, cited in Gershom Gorenberg, “The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977″, Macmillan, 2007, page 173. Dayan had no intention of negotiating “agreed swaps”. He claimed that “Boundaries are not delimited on maps, rather they are drawn through establishing settlements.”
So, please stop pretending to be so stupid, unless of course it is not an act.
jonah :
The Legal Status of Israeli Settlements under IHL
By settlements, one understands areas within the OPT inhabited by civilians of Israeli nationality. It includes those that have been authorized by the Government of Israel (the majority), and those not so authorized (the minority, all small). The purpose of this brief is not to present a definite determination of the legal status of these settlements, but rather to review the legal arguments put forward by the various parties to the conflict and other actors in this debate.
On the Law of Occupation
The law of occupation provides rules regulating the relationship between the Occupying Power and the population of the occupied territory (including refugees and stateless people); it also regulates the relationship between the Occupying Power and the state whose territory has been occupied. The law of occupation comprises a vast array of norms, in particular Articles 42 to 56 of the Hague Regulations annexed to the 1907 Fourth Hague Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and Articles 27 to 34 and 47 to 135 of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, as well as specific provisions contained in legal instruments such as Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (1977) and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It also includes customary norms, derived from the general practice of a majority of states over time. (For more information, see Applicable IHL Instruments.)
From the outset, one should note that all parties agree that the situation in the OPT falls, at least to some extent, under the legal regime of governing occupation. There are however substantive disagreements about which international legal instruments are applicable to the OPT. In particular, Israel does not recognize the overall de jure applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the OPT, even though the Israeli High Court of Justice does admit the applicability of certain of its provisions as representing customary international law. This position has been strongly criticized by the rest of the international community. (For a discussion of Israeli objections to the applicability of the Geneva Conventions, the reader should consult the policy brief on the Applicability of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) to the OPT.)
Despite its objections to the overall application of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the OPT, Israel does however recognize the application to the OPT of the rules on occupation contained in the Hague Regulations, on the grounds that the Hague Regulations are now part of international customary law. Finally, since Israel ratified neither the Additional Protocol I nor the Rome Statute of the ICC, these instruments are not formally applicable to the OPT (albeit only to the extent that various provisions therein do not form a part of international customary law).
Main Elements of the Debate
The Israeli government has been engaged for more than 35 years in the relocation of Israeli nationals to the territories it occupied as a result of the 1967 war through various programs facilitating, supporting, encouraging and enabling the establishment of Israeli settlements in the OPT. The legality of these settlements has been challenged by the other parties to the conflict, other High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions and international organizations such as the United Nations. Among all aspects of Israeli policy in the OPT, the establishment of Israeli settlements has generated the most significant tensions between the parties, and in particular it has been a constant source of tension with the occupied population itself.
Paragraph 6 of Art. 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that:
“The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
This provision implies that:
· This obligation suffers no exception. No circumstances can justify the Occupying Power’s deportation or transfer of its population to the occupied territory;
· This obligation applies only to the Occupying Power. It does not prohibit voluntary migration of the Occupying Power’s nationals toward the occupied territory; it only forbids the Occupying Power’s participation in or contribution to this process.
Article 49 was adopted with the objective of preserving the basic demographic and social configuration of the occupied territory. According to the ICRC Commentary, the purpose of Article 49 was precisely:
“…to prevent a practice adopted during the Second World War by certain Powers, which transferred portions of their own population to occupied territory for political and racial reasons or in order, as they claimed, to colonize those territories. Such transfers worsened the economic situation of the native population and endangered their separate existence as a race”.
Furthermore, Article 49 must be interpreted in the context of other rules applicable to occupation. The Hague Regulations of 1907 constitute another set of rules imposing obligations on the Occupying Power. Although the Hague Regulations do not address the transfer of civilians specifically, they do require maintenance of the “public order and safety”—l’ordre et la vie publics—of the occupied population (Article 43 of the Hague Regulations). This too can be seen in the context of preserving the basic demographic and social configuration of the occupied territory.
The Hague Regulations also require that the Occupying Power administer public lands, but only under the rules of usufruct, i.e. title to the public land is not transferred to the Occupying Power. The Occupying Power only acquires control over the “fruits” of the land, and may engage in profitable use of public lands only for the benefit of the local population, as well as to cover the cost of the occupation itself (Article 55 of the Hague Regulations, see also Article 48 and Article 49 of the Hague Regulations).
The Occupying Power may not destroy public or private property unless such actions are rendered absolutely necessary by military necessity (Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention). Further, an Occupying Power cannot requisition or seize private property on grounds other than security, unless such action is undertaken in accordance with local legislation in the occupied territory, i.e. legislation that predates the occupying force assuming control (Article 43 and Article 46 of the Hague Regulations, as well as the ICRC Commentary to Article 53 the Fourth Geneva Convention).
To sum up these obligations:
· The Occupying Power is prohibited from taking any action that would result in the transfer of part of its population to the occupied territory, including taking any measures aimed at facilitating in whatever way the migration of its nationals toward the occupied territory;
· In particular, it cannot confiscate land in the occupied territory for the sole purpose of establishing settlements for its nationals;
· The Occupying Power is obliged to preserve and maintain the demographic and social configuration of the occupied territory, which may entail restricting even voluntary migrations if such migrations threaten to upset the demographic and social configuration of the occupied territory.
Israel’s Argument for the Legality of the Settlements in the OPT
Notwithstanding the earlier denial by Israel of the applicability of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the OPT, the Israeli government has developed an interpretation of Article 49 which implies a distinction between the forcible transfer of the occupier’s population and the voluntary migration of individuals from the Occupying Power. According to the Israeli interpretation, only forcible transfers of population are prohibited. Under this argument, the settlers themselves established the settlements, with no pressure on the part of the Israeli government. Therefore, Israel did not violate Article 49 paragraph (6) as it did not forcibly “transfer” parts of its population to the OPT. According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the settlements do not violate IHL:
“The provisions of the Geneva Convention regarding forced population transfer to occupied sovereign territory cannot be viewed as prohibiting the voluntary return of individuals to the towns and villages from which they, or their ancestors, had been ousted…It should be emphasized that the movement of individuals to the territory is entirely voluntary…”
As one Israeli scholar writes, “one should differentiate between the transfer of people – which is forbidden by Article 49 – and the voluntary settlement of nationals of the occupant, on an individual basis, in the occupied territory. Such settlement, if not carried out on behalf of the occupant’s Government and in an institutional fashion, is not necessarily illegitimate.”
Furthermore, some Israeli scholars have argued that although they do not disagree with the wider interpretation of Article 49 prohibiting basic demographic change in the occupied territory’s population structure, this limitation should be interpreted narrowly. According to this argument, “voluntary settlement, little by little, of civilians of the Occupying Power in the occupied territory” is not necessarily illegal.
In the 1970s, the Israeli government justified the building of settlements – specifically the requisitioning of private Palestinian land on which to build settlements – on the grounds of security. Under this argument, the settlements strengthened Israeli security by creating an Israeli presence in sensitive sectors, such as the Jordan Valley, and on key topographical features of the terrain (i.e. hilltops, etc.). At the time, the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled that such requisitions were justified under Article 52 of the Hague Regulations, as long as the government paid compensation for the land, and as long as the settlements served a military purpose and were temporary in nature – i.e. the settlements might some day end as the result of international negotiations.
The government’s policy of requisitioning private land on which to build settlements ended in 1979, when for the first time the Court declared a settlement project illegal, on the grounds that the settlement in question was not intended to meet military needs, and in fact was intended to be permanent. After this ruling, the government stopped requisitioning private land on security grounds, and instead began to build settlements on “state” or “public” lands. Roughly two-thirds of the land in the West Bank is held in unclear tenure, insofar as there are insufficient records (with ownership instead resulting from long-term possession). Over the past two decades, the Israeli government has declared much of this land to be “state-owned,” on the grounds that when a question arises as to land ownership, it is considered public land until proven otherwise.
Today, the Israeli government argues that the settlements also do not violate Article 49 since they are built on public lands, and so do not displace Arab inhabitants of the OPT:
“[Article 49 does not] prohibit the movement of individuals to land which was not under the legitimate sovereignty of any state and which is not subject to private ownership. In this regard, Israeli settlements have been established only after an exhaustive investigation process, under the supervision of the Supreme Court of Israel, designed to ensure that no communities are established on private Arab land…the settlements themselves are not intended to displace Arab inhabitants, nor do they do so in practice.”
The Palestine Liberation Organization’s Argument for the Illegality of the Settlements
The Negotiation Affairs Department (NAD) of the Palestine Liberation Organization takes the position that the distinction made by Israel between forcible and voluntary transfers is irrelevant in terms of Article 49. According to the NAD, Article 49 forbids the Occupying Power from using population transfers to alter the demographic composition of the occupied territory. The NAD argues that Article 49 clearly distinguishes between deportations, evacuations and transfers of protected (i.e. occupied) persons on the one hand, and the transfer by the Occupying Power of its own civilian population on the other. The first five paragraphs of Article 49 deal with deportations, evacuations and the transfer of protected population; while only the sixth and final paragraph prohibits the transfer of the Occupying Power’s civilian population into the occupied territories. Therefore, the fact that the first five paragraphs speak of “forcible” transfers, while the sixth paragraph does not so explicitly limit itself, is deliberate – the sixth paragraph covers not only forcible transfers of the Occupying Power’s civilian population, but also situations where the Occupying Power positively encourages the settlement of its own people in the occupied territory in a way that could potentially alter that territory’s demographic composition.
According to the NAD, Israel’s settlement policy also violates other provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Hague Regulations:
“Since in most cases the establishment of the colonies has required the expropriation or destruction of private property, the colonies also violate article 53 of the Fourth [Geneva] Convention and article 46 of the Hague Regulations…Furthermore, the establishment and operation of the colonies is hardly consistent with the limited rights that the Occupying Power has under article 55 of the Hague Regulations to administer the properties under occupation in accordance with the rules of usufruct. This applies in particular to depriving the local population of valuable natural resources such as water for the benefit of the colonies.”
The International Community’s Response to the Settlements
Both the UN and the EU have stated that the Israeli settlement policy violates IHL, with the UN stating specifically that the Israeli settlements in the OPT violate Article 49.19 The ICRC has also stated that Israel’s settlement policy violates IHL. Further, a Conference of High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention (held in 2001) issued a Declaration stating: “The participating High Contracting Parties . . . reaffirm the illegality of the settlements in the said territories and extension thereof.”
link to icrc.org
The Israeli position has also not been found persuasive by other states, partially because of the government’s involvement in promoting and financing the settlements. For instance, many of the settlements in the West Bank (as well as disadvantaged communities within Israel) are defined as “national priority areas,” which results in increased government funding compared to other communities, including housing subsidies. The Israeli Ministry of Housing was reported at one period to be devoting 20% of its budget to housing for settlers. There are also various tax incentives and discounts available to individuals living in the settlements, as well as to businesses located there. Further, the Israeli government pays significantly more per capita to local government councils for settlements than it does to local government councils for municipalities in Israel itself. According to a recent news report, the Israeli government spends over NIS 10,000 more per capita on settlers than on citizens living with Israel. This governmental support serves to undermine the Israeli argument that “the movement of individuals to the territory is entirely voluntary.”
The State Department of the United States took the position in 1978 that to the extent Israeli civilian settlements involve the transfer of Israeli civilians into the OPT, they are inconsistent with international law. Later statements by President Reagan and Secretary of State James Baker cast doubt on this position, but the United States has made no recent statement asserting the legality or illegality of the settlements. In vetoing draft Security Council resolutions that condemned the settlements as illegal, it has not taken the position that settlements are legal but rather has explained its vetoes as based on the principle that the issues that remain need to be addressed in negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians, and therefore should not be the subject of UN resolutions.
Final Observations and Conclusions
The purpose of this note was to review the IHL implications of the settlements. Several points need to be underlined:
1. Israel argues that the Geneva Conventions are not applicable to the OPT, but that even if they were applicable, the settlements would not violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. According to the Israeli interpretation, Article 49 does not prohibit the voluntary transfer of the population from the occupying state to the occupied territories.
2. The international community at large and the PLO ( Also ICJ, on the other hand, hold that Israeli settlements in the OPT do violate IHL, and in particular Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, since Israel’s policies of promoting and facilitating the transfer of population have been instrumental in the creation and expansion of Israeli settlements in the OPT. In addition, the Hague Regulations and the Fourth Geneva Convention together prohibit any transfer of the Occupying Power’s population, even voluntary transfers, that would alter the demographic composition of the occupied territory.
3. Among the Occupying Power’s actions and programs prohibited under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, one may include subsidizing mortgages for housing construction in the OPT, building access road to facilitate the movement of settlers, and building water and electricity infrastructure for the sole purpose of servicing the settlements, insofar as these activities actively facilitate and encourage the settlement process.
4. Under the Hague Regulations and the Fourth Geneva Convention, private property may not be confiscated, and may only be destroyed if such destruction is rendered “absolutely necessary” by military operations. Since much of the land in the OPT did not have clear title, Israel claims that most settlements were built on public (i.e. state-owned) as opposed to private property. The building of settlements on public land is not acceptable under the Hague Regulations since such use of the public land violates the rule of usufruct which limits the use of public land by the Occupying Power to the “fruits” of the land and prohibits invasion of other property rights.
link to avalon.law.yale.edu
link to diakonia.se
I think that might be a tough request for Jonah to fulfill. With regard to teh Road Map (and the expectations of the Quartet) and the GC, Jonah seems to have a habbit of biting off more than he can chew.
Sorry Mig,
I was indeed directing that post to Jonah, who clearly is on a roll with tackling topics he has no undersatnding of.
“The Geneva Conventions are treaty agreements between States, …”
Little slip of the tongue, I suppose, Hostage. Israel is a state, Jordan is a state, but the Palestinians? They were and are definitely not – yet. This is the de jure objection to the application of the IV Geneva convention to the Israeli-Palestinian issue. But de facto Israel has agreed to them through the Oslo Accords – the interim agreements – which regulate the relations between the occupying power and the occupied territories and people living there. It is revealing once again that you do not feel it necessary to mention the contents of the Oslo accords. In fact, in them, the issue of the settlements is reserved for permanent status negotiations, which are to take place in the concluding stage of the peace talks. Negotiations that the Palestinians and their supporters try to circumvent invoking, inter alia, the Fourth Geneva Convention. Various international instances have indeed come to their aid, as you rightly pointed out, changing the original wording and sense of the resolution to the detriment of the Israeli position, but this is not surprising at all given the prevailing bias against Israel, specifically in the UN.
So again, please stop pretending you are not distorting, unless of course, it is not an act.
The intolerance and the crude, narrow, hostile prejudice expressed here is simply a sight to behold. If I had known that my post simply explaining my views and how I came about them would have sparked such a torrent of slander, vilification, and abuse, I might have thought twice about responding. But then again, I might not have; the opportunity to witness the above paroxysm of spluttering, incoherent hate was mildly instructive to say the least, and indicative of the caliber of what passes for discourse on the issue: thuggish name-calling and schoolyard taunts. I’ll say one thing: you people are the true disciples of Chomsky and Said; they have taught you well. This lock-step groupthink is symptomatic of people so infatuated with their own views and so dominated by their prejudices that a mere opposing view sends them into a panic, and the person with the incorrect—er, opposing point of view is seen as not just wrong, but evil. Watching the sheer, mind-unhinging hysteria that a dissenting viewpoint can provoke here is like watching a frightened old woman leap on a chair after sighting a mouse. It is worse than intolerant; it is totalitarian. And it is very, very, ugly.
It is hardly a pleasure to have to speak this way to anyone, but, considering the vomiting of venom I have been subject to, I am somewhat less than sympathetically inclined; and any displeasure incurred here by my remarks thus meets with my complete satisfaction.
I couldn’t possibly hope to answer the whole string of screeds, but I would love to select just one in particular that so perfectly encapsulates the blindness and the useful idiocy of the left: mig’s answer to my statement: ”Of course, there are plenty of people here who see nothing negative at all about Hamas, and even defend them vigorously.” To which he replied:
“Yeah, we are adults and we are not so scared teenagers any more.”
Oh. Well then, a few of the Hamas Charter’s greatest hits:
–“Moreover, if the links have been distant from each other and if obstacles, placed by those who are the lackeys of Zionism in the way of the fighters obstructed the continuation of the struggle, the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:
“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Muslim)”
–“Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.”
–“Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Abusing any part of Palestine is abuse directed against part of religion. Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion. Its members have been fed on that. For the sake of hoisting the banner of Allah over their homeland they fight. “Allah will be prominent, but most people do not know.”
–Now and then the call goes out for the convening of an international conference to look for ways of solving the (Palestinian) question. Some accept, others reject the idea, for this or other reason, with one stipulation or more for consent to convening the conference and participating in it. Knowing the parties constituting the conference, their past and present attitudes towards Muslim problems, the Islamic Resistance Movement does not consider these conferences capable of realising the demands, restoring the rights or doing justice to the oppressed. These conferences are only ways of setting the infidels in the land of the Muslims as arbitraters. When did the infidels do justice to the believers?
“But the Jews will not be pleased with thee, neither the Christians, until thou follow their religion; say, The direction of Allah is the true direction. And verily if thou follow their desires, after the knowledge which hath been given thee, thou shalt find no patron or protector against Allah.” (The Cow – verse 120).
There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with. As in said in the honourable Hadith:
“The people of Syria are Allah’s lash in His land. He wreaks His vengeance through them against whomsoever He wishes among His slaves It is unthinkable that those who are double-faced among them should prosper over the faithful. They will certainly die out of grief and desperation.”
What could be more innocent these wholesome expressions of peace and brotherly love? Nothing rejectionist, exterminationist, or genocidal about this crowd, right? Just some rowdy, ne’er do well malcontents looking for a good time and a fair shake. No doubt under all of that brutal, medieval intolerance and rejection, a group of peaceful, Jeffersonian democrats is struggling to break free.
How “adult.”
As to David Samel, your reply to my answer to your question, such as it is, can be summed up in to two points:
1) That I am probably “an impostor, a professional hasbarist faking an Arab background” and that this would be a “reasonable explanation.”
and…
2) Your professed incredulity of how anyone with an Arab/Muslim heritage and with “no tribal identification with the Jewish people” could possibly believe in such “pro-Israel/hasbara nonsense” and, even if I am being honest about my ancestry, I am, well, “an extremely unusual person” whose opinions “are plainly depraved regardless of [my] background.”
Well, that certainly clarifies things.
As to the authenticity of my Arab ancestry, your skepticism is understandable because you don’t know me, but utterly groundless. My mother’s maiden name is Eidy, and my Sito’s, (my maternal grandmother’s) maiden name is Mohammed. Do these sound like non-Arabic, or even Jewish names to you? If the people on this blog wish to continue their campaign of shame impugning my ethnic identity, that is up to them. Allow me, however, to settle the matter once and for all. I believe that the editors of this blog have every right to know if someone is misrepresenting themselves in any way here. The Mondoweiss rules state:
“4. No imposture. You can use any pseudonym you like, but if you represent yourself as someone you’re not, you’re outta here.”
I had a brief correspondence with Adam Horowitz earlier this month and he has my e-mail address. If he or Phil have any doubts I will be more than happy to furnish them with proof of my ethnicity. I wouldn’t mind it in the least and I would be happy to oblige. I think it is only fair to keep the discussion here honest.
As to your second point, I am, in all honesty, almost speechless. Is there not an unsubtle kind of racism in your contention that all Arabs (and Muslims) must all toe a certain line or be risk being slandered as “self-hating”? I am not calling you a racist; but your assertion that my views render me “an extremely unusual person” has racist implications: that any Arab who fails to share your view that Israel is a nation of murderous, racist, apartheid practicing land thieves cannot, or is unlikely to be, an Arab. How did you ever come to this medieval point of view? I am not and never have been of the opinion that Jews who are critical of Israel are all “self-hating.” It simply never even occurred to me to ever think such a thing.
You asked me: “Don’t you believe that non-Jewish Arabs, who share some heritage with you, should be entitled to full and equal rights in the land of their birth, or do you accept their inferior rights and status, even to diaspora Jews like myself?”
I am, again, almost speechless. On what grounds do you even presume to think that I think Palestinian Arabs shouldn’t “be entitled to full and equal rights in the land of their birth”? Or that I “accept their inferior rights and status”? Because I believe in peaceful co-existence between Jews and Arabs? Because I am critical of the rejectionism (and it is rejectionism) of Arab leaders in the past century, and the horrible consequences that this has had for the Palestinian people? Because I am critical of what I think to be the irresponsible, disingenuous, and well documented intransigence of Arafat and his successors in the last decade? Because I recognize Hamas for the violent, murderous, cut throat terrorists that they are? Because I think the Arab states (along with the PA and Hamas) continue to mistreat the Palestinian people while claiming to care about them? Because I believe that Israelis like Eban, Weizmann, Rabin, Peres, and Barak have made sincere and praiseworthy attempts to compromise, and to solve and end the conflict? Tell me something David, do you really believe that Hamas ever has or ever will grant Palestinians “full and equal rights”? Well, yes; young girls who, through no fault of their own, are raped, will have the right to be killed by their fathers, and other women seen in the company of men not their husbands will have the “right” to be left to the tender mercies of Hamas’ “vice and virtue” units.
David, I carry no brief for deranged Israeli settlers who wish to carve out a “greater Israel” in the West Bank anymore than I do for the American Fundamentalist Christian preachers who come crawling out of their open sewers and over to Israel to tell the Palestinians that they are “living in Israel” and to “go home” to Jordan or elsewhere. But I think we do the Palestinian people no favors if we fail to recognize the unhelpful behavior of the PA with regard to negotiating with Israel in good faith, or if we deny or downplay the lawlessness or the murderousness of Hamas, and the impediment that they constitute to the Palestinians’ aspirations for peaceful, democratic statehood, among other things.
The clock can never be turned completely backward and every wrong and injustice that the Palestinians have suffered by both Jews and Arabs can never wholly be set right. Do you not see that the multiple, past refusals to compromise by their leaders has played any role in their sufferings? Or is it all Israel’s fault? How can you possibly argue that the refusal of Arab nations to even recognize any sovereign Jewish state, no matter how small, has played in prolonging the conflict over the years? Or was it Israel that refused to recognize and make peace with them?
David, the core of our disagreement here, I think, is that you look at the history of the conflict and see an attempt, motivated by racism and imperialism, by Jews to immorally build a state on the planned, deliberate dispossession of the Palestinians, and I believe that the historical record, looked at in an objective, non-ideological manner, simply does not. You look at the wars between Israel and the Arabs from 1948 to Cast Lead, as wars of Israeli terror, aggression, ethnic cleansing, and territorial expansion, and I do not. There is no bridging this disagreement and there is simply no getting around it. I am fully capable of respecting your point of view, though I strongly dispute it; you are incapable of even accepting my beliefs in any good faith whatsoever, and can only see a “plainly depraved” pro-Zionist/hasbara propagandist attempting to justify racism, genocide, ethnic cleansing, theft, dispossession, apartheid etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.,.
Whatever.
Thanks for showing me the revised text of the Geneva Fourth Convention (next time the link should be enough).
I’m now waiting impatiently for a couple of links about IHL relating to the Palestinian terrorism and the wars waged by the Arab countries against Israel. Can you provide?
BTW mig -
You write: “So here we have so called professor of international law”, who starts to mock same international law which he teach. But that doesnt ring any bell to you ?”
He is not mocking international law at all, he is explaining it in its true meaning, which the Palestinians and Arab states try to distort and reinterpret to their advantage since the return of Jews in ‘Judea and Samaria’ (or ‘West Bank’ if you like more the name given by the Jordan occupation).
Another scholar (not Jewish, no record to be Zionist, to your relief), Professor Stephen M. Schwebel, former judge on the Hague’s International Court of Justice (1981-2000), writes in his “Justice In International Law”, Chapter “What Weight to conquest”):
“… appreciation of the fact that Israel’s action in 1967 was defensive, and on the theory that, since the danger in response to which defensive action was taken remains, occupation – though not annexation – is justified, pending a peace settlement.
…. the distinctions between aggressive conquest and defensive conquest, between the taking of territory legally held and the taking of territory illegally held, become no less vital and correct than the central principle itself.
Those distinctions may be summarized as follows: (a) a State acting in lawful exercise of its right of self-defense may seize and occupy foreign territory as long as such seizure and occupation are necessary to its self defense; (b) as a condition of its withdrawal from such territory, that State may require the institution of security measures reasonably designed to ensure that that territory shall not again be used to mount a threat or use of force against it of such a nature as to justify exercise of self-defense; (c) where the prior holder of territory had seized that territory unlawfully, the State which subsequently takes that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense has, against that prior holder, better title.…
The facts of the June 1967 “Six Day War” demonstrate that Israel reacted defensively against the threat and use of force against her by her Arab neighbors. ”
Clear enough?
it is clear enough that is his opinion. it is not clear it is the law or the law interpreted or applied correctly.
wiki:
Stephen Myron Schwebel is an American jurist and expert on international law. He is well known for his separate and dissenting opinions as a Judge of the International Court of Justice 1981-2000 and for his involvement in many cases of the ICSID and Permanent Court of Arbitration.
Where can you find such “machinations” in the Israeli peace& land offers in 2000 and 2008? They were brusquely rejected by the Palestinian leaders.
For crying out loud, are you Hasbarats ever going to stop barfing this BS?
Shlomon Ben Ami debunked the myth about Palestinian rejection in 2000 and Tzipi Livni debunked the BS about 2008.
Do you seriously expect thus crap to sell here Jonah? All you are achieving is to confirm in the minds if the rest of us that you will sink to any depths to sneak lies into the debate.
Jonah,
The hasbara fellowship always try to salvage or recycle outdated material, like Elihu Lauterpacht, Jerusalem and the Holy Places, Anglo-Israel Association, Pamphlet No. 19 (1968) and pretend it is somehow still relevant. They should be writing a “Where are they now? episode for TruTV. Let me give you a hint. After Israel annexed Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, and started building non-military settlements both Lauterpacht and Schwebel stopped writing editorials about the subject.
In his 1986 article on “The International Status of Jerusalem”, Prof. Antonio Cassese wrote that Robert Jennings (author of “The
Acquisition of Territory in International Law”, Manchester University Press, 1963 and editor of several volumes of Oppenheim’s International Law, London, Longman) was recognized as the great authority on the acquisition of territory in international law. Jennings explained in 1963 (see pages 54-57) that as a result of developments in customary international law and the adoption of the UN Charter “conquest as a title to territorial sovereignty had ceased to be a part of the law.” Jennings cited Judge Hersh Lauterpacht’s work on the International Law Commission (ILC) in which he had explained that, even when force is used against an aggressor, the fact of aggression itself is irrelevant in deciding the legal remedies. They do not include acquisition of title to territory through a treaty settlement imposed by or as the result of force or the threat of force. Cassese wrote that it does not follow from Schwebel’s premise that either Jordan or Israel had acquired sovereignty over any territory through the use of military force.
Stephen M. Schwebel’s “Justice In International Law” is a collection of reprinted essays. “What Weight to conquest” was originally published in The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 64, No. 2 (Apr., 1970), pp. 344-347. It was clearly labeled as an “Editorial Comment”. ASIL policies on Editorial Comments are not the same as those for scholarly articles. They are short unrefereed articles about current events. See 3. Editorial Comments and 4. Referees in “The American Society of International Law’s First Century: 1906-2006″, By Frederic L. Kirgis & The American Society of International Law, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2006, ISBN: 9004150684
The 1970 article was obviously written before Israel adopted the Basic Law Jerusalem, the Golan Heights Law, and extended its in personam jurisdiction to Israeli settlers living in the occupied Arab territories. So, the distinction between “military” occupation and annexation became largely a moot point. Schwebel (Aggression, Compliance, and Development), Yuhuda Blum (Missing Reversioner), and Allan Gershon (Trustee-Occupant: The Legal Status of Israel’s Presence in the West Bank) each cited articles in which Judge Rosalyn Cohen Higgins had complained that some authors deliberately blurred the legal difference between unlawful acquisition of territory and legal military occupation. See “The Place of International Law in the Settlement of Disputes by the Security Council, 64 Proceedings of the American Society of International Law, 7-8 (1970); note 131 at page 7 and “The Development of International Law by the Political Organs of the United Nations”; Yale Law Journal (1966), 75. However, in the 2004 Wall case Higgins agreed with the majority opinion that the Israeli settlements, including East Jerusalem, had been established in breach of international law. In her separate opinion (para 38), she cited the Namibia case and wrote “It follows from a finding of an unlawful situation by the Security Council, in accordance with Articles 24 and 25 of the Charter entails “decisions [that] are consequently binding on all States Members of the United Nations, which are thus under obligation to accept and carry them out”. So, Elihu Lauterpacht’s old pamphlet about the differences between lawful and unlawful military occupation would not apply to instances where the Security Council has decided that Israel’s attempts to change the status and demographic composition of the territory constitutes a “flagrant” violation of international law.
Schwebel cited a speech by Secretary of State Rogers and labeled an explicit statement it contained regarding conquest as a “questionable” conclusion. Rogers said that “any changes in the pre-existing [1949 armistice] lines should not reflect the weight of conquest.” You actually have to dig through the footnotes to discover that Rogers was quoting a foreign policy statement delivered by President Johnson during a speech to the B’nai B’rith. BTW, the President and the Secretary weren’t simply restating a principle of customary international law, they were stating a US foreign policy determination. While Schwebel’s editorial asserted that it was a “fact” that Israel acted in self-defense, he didn’t bother to share any of the evidence with us. Judge Theodor Meron was the legal advisor to the government of Israel in 1967. He has always emphasized the fact that responsibility for the outbreak of the Six Day War has never been authoritatively established. See “Henry’s wars and Shakespeare’s laws”, Oxford University Press, 1993, page 45-46.
A few months after the Schwebel article appeared, the ILC finished work on its codification of the rules of law contained in the UN Charter. Shortly after that, the General Assembly incorporated them in the Declaration of Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation Among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, 24 October 1970″ It said “The territory of a State shall not be the object of military occupation resulting from the use of force in contravention of the provisions of the Charter. The territory of a State shall not be the object of acquisition by another State resulting from the threat or use of force. No territorial acquisition resulting from the threat or use of force shall be recognized as legal.” In 1986, the ICJ (including Judge Schwebel’s separate opinion paras 237 & 238) cited the Declaration and held (para 188 of majority opinion) that the principle of non-use of force should be regarded as a principle of customary international law that was not as such conditioned by the provisions on the treaty-law plane of the UN Charter.
The American Society of International Law created a President’s Task Force on Terrorism in 2002. Society Vice President, Mary Ellen O’Connell, published a report “The Myth of Preemptive Self-Defense”. O’Connell said that in the past commentators had defended Israel’s attack on Egypt on the grounds that it was anticipatory self-defense. She cited contrary evidence, like General Rabin’s remarks in the now infamous Le Monde interview, and said: “Israel stated that it had convincing intelligence that Egypt would attack and that Egyptian preparations were underway. We now know that the Israel acted on less than convincing evidence. Thus, the 1967 Arab-Israeli war does not provide an actual example of lawful anticipatory self-defense.”
In “Assessing Claims of a New Doctrine of Preemptive War Under the Doctrine of Sources”, James Thuo Gathii says that many scholars and state officials do not support the notion that customary law permits the unilateral use of preemptive force without UN approval. He notes that State practice, opinio juris, and some legal scholars do distinguish between preemptive wars (which are illegal) and preemptive strikes under certain rare circumstances, i.e. anticipatory self-defense when a threat is imminent. He says ‘there has yet to be a good case in which the very limited and contested notion of anticipatory self-defense met the Caroline test. The closest case that might have, but is now regarded as not having met the criteria, was Israel’s first strike against Egypt in the 1967. Few regarded it as a good example of a permissible anticipatory attack, especially after it became clear following the attack that there was no overwhelming threat that justified the measure to ensure Israel’s survival. Many States criticized the attack, which made it clear that the attack would not serve as a precedent to legitimize “a general right of anticipatory self defense.” see Osgoode Hall Law Journal, Vol. 43, No. 1, pp. 1-34
Those are a few of the highlights. If you require the full course I think you should make a donation to offset the additional bandwidth.
Thank you for you accademical elucidations, hostage. Simply more diverting accademical controversial stuff – not really worth to be countered. Why don’t you stick to your first quote ever about the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians? Why don’t you elucidate the contents of the Oslo accords, in which the two sides agreed to address and resolve the contentious issue of the settlements in the final stage of negotiations on permanent status? These bilateral agreements have now become waste paper? Your embarassed silence on this regard appears much more eloquent than all your smoke circumlocutions on controversial issues of international law, to the same extent as the Palestinian unilateral efforts aimed at avoiding direct negotiations demonstrate their willingness to arbitrarily break the original agreements of Oslo.
Wow, that complete evisceration of Jonah’s pathetic atgument was almost painful to watch.
Get over yourself you fraudulent blowhard. You “view” became fair game when you stupidly decided to tack on the claim that they were beyond dispute . Did you think your so called ahem “Arab-American Muslim” credentials would grant your sophomoric hasbara immunity from scruitiny? You demonstrated utter contempt by posting recycled Zionist propaganda to this forum and you got the reponse you deserved.
Did you seriously believe you are the first Ziocaine Kool aid drinking “Muslim” to post dissenting views on this blog? Did you seriously think that just citing names like Karsh, Lewis and Morris would granted you immediate credibility or authority on this topic? Your stupid and ianane comments demonstrate that not onely have you read none of these authors, but you don’t even have a grasp of their fundamental arguments.
Oh how uttely predictable. Do you really want to get into a he said/she said slugging match over infaltmatory language from both sides? You clearly don;t have a slue about any aspect of Islam. As usual, the Hamas Charter features among Hasbarats like you despite the fact that it contains a qualifier that forbids members harm to those who have not “borne arms against you on account of religion, nor turned you out of your dwellings”
No such qualifier is seen in the founding documents of organisations like Likud, Shas and Betar all of which pledge the clearance of Palestinians from at least the Jordan to the sea.
The leader of Shas is well known for his pronouncements calling for the “annihilation of Arabs”.
Betar has some interesting ideas, not dissimilar from Sheik Yassin:
“Betar supports the concept of a Jewish state with a Jewish Majority in its biblical-homeland.” “The entire land of Israel as given to the Jewish people by G-d with it’s eternal capital Jerusalem.”
“100% Jewish Labor in all Jewish enterprises.”
“Every great colonization in history, has always entailed a revolt of the natives.”
“Our aim is to make Betar such a world organism which, at a sign from the center, will be able simultaneously to move tens of thousands of hands in the cities of all countries.”
“Discipline is the subordination of a mass to one leader”
“every Jew is a “prince” ”
link to www.betar.co.uk
The King’s Torah is also illuminating:
link to www.countercurrents.org
all that proves is that you know how to use Google.
I had a brief correspondence with Adam Horowitz earlier this month and he has my e-mail address.
And how would your e-mail address testigy to your “Muslim heritage” is your name is Robert Werdine?
Face it Robert. You came to this blog unprepared and with an erroneous assumption that your so called heritage would make you untouchable. You were wrong and you’re outraged about it.
Build a bridge son and read some of those books you mentioned. You might actualy learn somethig.
must be read: academic
Why don’t you elucidate the fact that Israel agreed to stop building settlements in 2002, when it signed and ratified the Road Map agreement?
Ask Liberman, who declared that all prior written agreements were null and void when he came to office.
but in fact: “accademical” sounds better for that kind of sophistry.
“…the fact that Israel agreed to stop building settlements in 2002, when it signed and ratified the Road Map agreement?”
Clear Shingo, in your dreams. Maybe you need to brush up your files:
link to haaretz.com
Try reading your own links before making a further idiot of yourself Jonah.
The following is the text of the 14 reservations that Israel attached to the road map, which the U.S. has promised to “fully and seriously address,” but this promise was not an assurance that all of Israel’s demands would be met.
Rservations were not conditions uponi signing of the Road Map and the Quartet did not amend the Road Map with respect to settlements.
Sorry to burst your hasbara bubble.
Israel is a state, Jordan is a state, but the Palestinians?
Jonah, never ask a question unless you already know the answer.
JCPA Fellow Ruth Lapidot has explained that statehood is a political, not a legal question. “The Palestinians, she said, have already unilaterally declared statehood, and they did not need to do it again. Recognition of statehood is a political act, and every state has the right to decide for itself whether to recognize another state.”
So, you aren’t really making a “de jure” objection. In 1949 the International Law Commission decided after much discussion not to attempt to write a legal definition for the word “State” or to attempt to establish any legal criteria for statehood. It’s just an ordinary dictionary word that the numerical majority of other states employ to describe Palestine. For info on the ILC decision see James Crawford, Creation of States in International Law, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, USA, page 31.
On three occasions Israel has signed international agreements with belligerent governments that publicly claimed to represent the Arab state of Palestine. Only states have the competence to negotiate borders. On each of those occasions, Israel recognized the competence of those governments to define international borders. See John Quigley, The Statehood of Palestine, Cambridge University Press, 2010, Part II “Statehood in Turmoil” starting at page 83, and “Palestine in the Peace Process” starting at page 172. The Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States § 205 Comment a. explains “A state cannot recognize or accept a regime as a government without thereby accepting the statehood of the entity which the regime claims to be governing.”
In 1949, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion indicated to the UN Palestine Conciliation Commission that Israel was willing to recognize the status of Arab Palestine in the settlement through the device of a federal union with Transjordan.
Israel did sign an international armistice agreement with the new entity “Jordan”, not Transjordan. Footnote 24 of Yehuda Blum’s “Missing Reversioner” says “The name of the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan was changed in 1949. The reason for this change was that the country now includes a large part of Arab Palestine, thus extending geographically to both banks of the Jordan [River]. The official announcement of the Jordan Government of June 2 1949 reproduced in [1948-50] Kessings Contempoaray Archives 10050. In view that the official announcement was only made on 2 June 1949, it is not clear why the Armistice Agreement with Israel was signed on April 3 1949 by Jordan rather than by Transjordan.
Unfortunately Blum was “suspending mountains on a hair” and Kessings was mistaken about the timing and number of announcements after the Jericho Congress. Edmund Jan Osmanczyk, and Anthony Mango (eds) and the “Encyclopedia of the United Nations and international agreements”, Vol. 4, Routledge, 3rd edition, 2004, ISBN 0-415-93924-0, page 2354 advises that the name of Transjordan was officially changed on 21 January 1949 to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
In international jurisprudence, “Once the decision has been taken to recognize an insurgent government as belligerent, the legal consequences of the decision are not limited to its concession of belligerent rights. So long as it maintains an independent existence, the insurgent government is considered to have all the normal rights and liabilities of a State. Its legal position is not merely that of a military occupant as defined by the Hague Convention No. IV, of 1907.” — See Ti-chiang Chen, “The international law of recognition, with special reference to practice in Great Britain and the United States”, Nabu Press, 2010, page 307-308.
So, it was not a mere coincidence that Great Britain and the US recognized the union of Arab Palestine and Transjordan and “Jordanian” sovereignty over the new territory – after the two belligerent governments had signed the armistice agreements which recognized the competence of the other government to negotiate a final settlement. See Jordan and Israel (GOVERNMENT DECISION) HC Deb 27 April 1950 vol 474 cc1137-41 and “Memorandum of Conversation, between Mr. Stuart W. Rockwell of the Office of African and Near Eastern Affairs and Mr. Abdel Monem Rifai, Counselor, Jordan Legation in Washington, June 5, 1950″ which documents the US recognition of the union between Arab Palestine and Transjordan in Foreign relations of the United States, The Near East, South Asia, and Africa, Volume V (1950), Page 921 FYI, there is no legal difference between the consequences of de facto and de jure recognition. See for example “The Tinoco Arbitration (1932-1934) 2 Annual Digest of Public International Law Case 34.” That’s why the use of those terms is deprecated and they are no longer employed in the Restatement of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States.
During the 62nd Sitting of the first Knesset, 1 August 1949, Prime Minister Ben Gurion stated that neither the UN nor the countries that recognized the statehood of Israel had recognized its expanded borders, but lo and behold Egypt and Jordan had given in and recognized them. He said he would not pointlessly argue about who gave into whom and stated quite openly that Israel had given-in too. The 135th Sitting of the Knesset, on 3 October 1950, was convened by the opposition parties when the government failed to label the annexation of the West Bank by Jordan as “illegal” in its public responses. Foreign Minister Shertok and Prime Minister Ben-Gurion ended the debate without ever claiming that the annexation was violated international law. Israel had long since extended its own municipal law to the territory it occupied beyond the boundaries contained in the partition plan. See the verbatim minutes in Major Knesset Debates, 1948-1981, Volume 2, Netanel Lorch, University Press/JCPA, 1993 on page 542 (62nd sitting) and starting on page 571 (135th sitting).
When the General Assembly adopted “Definition of Aggression”, UN GA Res. 3314 (XXIX) (1974), it allowed for very broad usage of the term “State”. Communities may not be targeted for aggression or threats simply because they are “unrecognized”. According to an explanatory note in Article 1 of the definition, any entity which is the target of aggression may be legally regarded as a State – without regard to recognition or UN membership. According to Grant even illegal entities like the Turkish Republic of Cypress can benefit from the protections contained in article 2(4) of the UN Charter. That article reflects a norm of customary international law which prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of “any state” or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations. See Thomas D. Grant, The recognition of states: law and practice in debate and evolution, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999, ISBN 0275963500, page 21.
Judge Schwebel served as the United States representative on the UN Special Committee on the Question of Defining Aggression. In an essay written before the General Assembly adopted the resolution, he cited the example of Israel’s disputed statehood in 1948 and said there was nothing to prevent members, and everything to compel them, to interpret “States” as embracing entities whose statehood is disputed. He said it would be pedantic literalism to maintain that an entity whose statehood is disputed is excluded from the reach of Article 2, paragraph 4 of the Charter. He said that was amply demonstrated by the events of the postwar years. The two largest armed conflicts of the time had involved violation of internationally agreed lines of demarcation – and there had been no lack of charges of aggression in those conflicts. Other actual and potential conflicts had involved entities not recognized as States by all concerned, sometimes, by any concerned. He said to exclude this kind of conflict is to ignore both history and current events. Schwebel said that such cases could be easily resolved by referring to the explanatory note in the General Assembly’s definition of aggression which says that the term “State” is used without prejudice to questions of recognition or to whether a State is a member of the United Nations. See “Justice in international law”, Cambridge University Press, 1994, ISBN 0521462843, page 573-574
Subsequently the ICJ cited a portion of Article 3 of the Definition of Aggression, which contains two occurrences of the term “State”, and said that it reflected customary international law. The Court said that “It is also clear that it is the State which is the victim of an armed attack which must form and declare the view that it has been so attacked.” See para 195 of the majority opinion in Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America)
The Statute and rules of procedure of the ICJ only allow States to participate in oral pleadings. The ICJ invited “Palestine to participate in the Wall Case. In addition the Commentaries on the crime of aggression in the Draft Code of Offences against the Peace and Security of Mankind and the Draft Statute on the International Criminal Court the ILC said: An individual cannot incur responsibility for this crime in the absence of aggression committed by a State. Thus, a court cannot determine the question of individual criminal responsibility for this crime without considering as a preliminary matter the question of aggression by a State.” See Regina v Jones para 16
Judge Higgins pointed out that attacks against Israel by Palestine had to be treated as attacks from another state:
“33. …”Article 51 of the Charter thus recognizes the existence of an inherent right of self-defence in the case of armed attack by one State against another State.” There is, with respect, nothing in the text of Article 51 that thus stipulates that self-defence is available only when an armed attack is made by a State. That qualification is rather a result of the Court so determining in Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicurugua v. United States of America) (Merits, Judgment, I. C.J. Reports 1986, p. 14). It there held that military action by irregulars could constitute an armed attack if these were sent by or on behalf of the State and if the activity “because of its scale and effects, would have been classified as an armed attack . . . had it been carried out by regular armed forces” (ibid., p. 103, para. 195). While accepting, as I must, that this is to be regarded as a statement of the law as it now stands, I maintain all the reservations as to this proposition that I have expressed elsewhere (R. Higgins, Problems and Process: International Law and How We Use It, pp. 250-251).
34. I also find unpersuasive the Court’s contention that, as the uses of force emanate from occupied territory, it is not an armed attack “by one State against another”. I fail to understand the Court’s view that an occupying Power loses the right to defend its own civilian citizens at home if the attacks emanate from the occupied territory – a territory which it has found not to have been annexed and is certainly “other than” Israel. Further, Palestine cannot be sufficiently an international entity to be invited to these proceedings, and to benefit from humanitarian law, but not sufficiently an international entity for the prohibition of armed attack on others to be applicable. This is formalism of an unevenhanded sort. The question is surely where responsibility lies for the sending of groups and persons who act against Israeli civilians and the cumulative severity of such action.”
In the 2004 Wall case, Israel raised the objection that it did not agree that the Geneva Convention is applicable to the occupied Palestinian territory, citing the lack of recognition of the territory as sovereign prior to its annexation by Jordan and Egypt and, therefore, not a territory of a High Contracting Party as required by the Convention. See Annex 1 to the Secretary-General’s report, “Summary legal position of the Government of Israel”
The new entity called “Jordan” was created as a result of the political union between Transjordan and Arab Palestine after the Jericho Congress. Jordan was a widely recognized UN member state. A number of countries entered into treaty relations with it and expressed no reservations regarding the annexation of Arab Palestine. The General Assembly accepted its credentials and the Security Council condemned Israeli attacks on the Hebron area as premeditated acts of aggression on “Jordanian territory”. The union was dissolved after the Israeli occupation began, so Israel cannot renounce its GC IV treaty obligation. The King renounced Jordan’s territorial claims in favor of the successor state of Palestine at the same time that Egypt and the Arab League of States recognized the PLO as the provisional government. Palestine was promptly recognized by 104 other countries. The details of the political union, credentials, and Security Council resolutions were contained in Jordan’s 230 page written statement” to the Court (para 2. 19 -2.21.)
The Court held that Jordan was a high contracting party and that the conflict was between two high contracting parties. It also noted that Switzerland as depositary state considered Palestine’s undertaking to apply the Geneva Conventions to be valid. See para 91 of the majority opinion.
Subsequently the UN Human Rights Council and General Assembly have required Palestine to conduct independent investigations within the framework of the laws applicable to international armed conflicts. Israel routinely files complaints with the UN regarding attacks that emanate from the Occupied Territories as if Palestine had the obligations of a state. The follow-up to the Goldstone report was conducted under the auspices of a Decree signed by the President of the State of Palestine. The Follow-up reports and resolutions indicate that “Palestine*” is an HRC non-member state. See for example HRC resolution A/HRC/16/L.31
So, you can say that Palestine is definitely not a state, but 112 other existing states disagree.
Give it up Jonah. You’ve been mopped up by the FACTS of history. Or “academics”. Or “academicals”. Your pick.
But you’ve been INDEED thoroughly mopped by the astounding Hostage, fair and square.
And whining about it in spitz ‘n spatz won’t change that denouement one iddy-biddy bit .
So are IDF Rabbis.
An overview of some of the army rabbinate’s publications made available during the fighting reflects the tone of nationalist propaganda that steps blatantly into politics, sounds racist and can be interpreted as a call to challenge international law when it comes to dealing with enemy civilians.
Haaretz has received some of the publications through Breaking the Silence, a group of former soldiers who collect evidence of unacceptable behavior in the army vis-a-vis Palestinians. Other material was provided by officers and men who received it during Operation Cast Lead. Following are quotations from this material:
“[There is] a biblical ban on surrendering a single millimeter of it [the Land of Israel] to gentiles, though all sorts of impure distortions and foolishness of autonomy, enclaves and other national weaknesses. We will not abandon it to the hands of another nation, not a finger, not a nail of it.” This is an excerpt from a publication entitled “Daily Torah studies for the soldier and the commander in Operation Cast Lead,” issued by the IDF rabbinate. The text is from “Books of Rabbi Shlomo Aviner,” who heads the Ateret Cohanim yeshiva in the Muslim quarter of the Old City in Jerusalem.
The following questions are posed in one publication: “Is it possible to compare today’s Palestinians to the Philistines of the past? And if so, is it possible to apply lessons today from the military tactics of Samson and David?” Rabbi Aviner is again quoted as saying: “A comparison is possible because the Philistines of the past were not natives and had invaded from a foreign land … They invaded the Land of Israel, a land that did not belong to them and claimed political ownership over our country … Today the problem is the same. The Palestinians claim they deserve a state here, when in reality there was never a Palestinian or Arab state within the borders of our country. Moreover, most of them are new and came here close to the time of the War of Independence.”
The IDF rabbinate, also quoting Rabbi Aviner, describes the appropriate code of conduct in the field: “When you show mercy to a cruel enemy, you are being cruel to pure and honest soldiers. This is terribly immoral. These are not games at the amusement park where sportsmanship teaches one to make concessions. This is a war on murderers. ‘A la guerre comme a la guerre.’”
This view is also echoed in publications signed by Rabbis Chen Halamish and Yuval Freund on Jewish consciousness. Freund argues that “our enemies took advantage of the broad and merciful Israeli heart” and warns that “we will show no mercy on the cruel.”
In addition to the official publications, extreme right-wing groups managed to bring pamphlets with racist messages into IDF bases. One such flyer is attributed to “the pupils of Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg” – the former rabbi at Joseph’s Tomb and author of the article “Baruch the Man,” which praises Baruch Goldstein, who massacred unarmed Palestinians in Hebron. It calls on “soldiers of Israel to spare your lives and the lives of your friends and not to show concern for a population that surrounds us and harms us. We call on you … to function according to the law ‘kill the one who comes to kill you.’ As for the population, it is not innocent … We call on you to ignore any strange doctrines and orders that confuse the logical way of fighting the enemy.”
link to haaretz.com
did anyone read this over 40 paragraph rant of robert W’s? can we dump this drama queen? i only made thru the first two paragraphs which i must admit was somewhat entertaining, one of the most elaborate hypocritical ad hominems i’ve ever read. it is not everyday we are accused of thuggish name-calling …the whole string of screeds while simultaneously being labeled:
vomiting of venom
intolerance
crude,
narrow,
hostile prejudice
torrent of slander
vilification,
abuse
paroxysm of spluttering
incoherent hate
infatuated with their own views
dominated by their prejudices
totalitarian
very, very, ugly.
if this is not a ‘whole string of screeds/thuggish name-calling’ i don’t what is. how does this crap make it thru moderation?
Hopefully international sanctions against the Zionist criminals will follow thereafter.
This could start in September.
‘If indeed the international community recognizes a Palestinian state, the question whether officers in the Israel Defense Forces who are involved in assassinations, shooting at unarmed demonstrators and using phosphorus bombs will be interrogated and brought to trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague and the question of whether international human rights treaties (and other treaties) will obligate Israel during action in the territories, will no longer be decided in the government offices in Jerusalem but rather in the corridors of the Muqataa in Ramallah.
Together with the diplomatic “tsunami” that Defense Minister Ehud Barak has forecast, Israel can expect a legal tsunami, which for the first time will claim a price for violating human rights in the occupied territories.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the prolonged occupation of the Palestinian territories that Israel conquered in 1967, are not an internal Israeli issue. This is an international conflict in which the international community has a legitimate interest.
However, during the years of the occupation the state of Israel has repelled the professional legal mechanisms of the United Nations, that deal with protecting human rights, from discussing its actions there. Thus, for example, Israel refrained from granting authority to the UN Committee on Human Rights to discuss complaints from Palestinians against the IDF. ’
link to haaretz.com
but in fact: “accademical” sounds better for that kind of sophistry.
this is the third time you’ve spelled academical wrong. the first 2 i ignored but you keep pumping it w/bravado. i had to say something.
ANNIE- Be fair. His obnoxious rant did have one small silver lining: “I’ll say one thing: you people are the true disciples of Chomsky and Said ….” How about that? All the folks here who have in the past referred to me and others as “Chomskyites.” are now referred to as “Chomskyites.” I’m savoring the moment! Other than that, allowing this comment destroyer to continue is prima facie evidence of masochism. Not too smart either.
ANNIE- I am, of course, referring to rW’s rant. I thought my comment would be directly below yours, but it seems to have slipped down a bit. Cheers.
Annie,
Glad you liked my post.
yespam,
“The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the prolonged occupation of the Palestinian territories that Israel conquered in 1967, are not an internal Israeli issue. This is an international conflict in which the international community has a legitimate interest.
However, during the years of the occupation the state of Israel has repelled the professional legal mechanisms of the United Nations, that deal with protecting human rights, from discussing its actions there. Thus, for example, Israel refrained from granting authority to the UN Committee on Human Rights to discuss complaints from Palestinians against the IDF. ’
It is an issue to be settled between the parties, not dictated by the UN. The multiple rejections of statehood that you and Annie persist in apologizing for/denying have been the principle obstacle.
As for the UNHRC, are you kidding? The UNHRC, as is well known, is paneled by representatives of the world’s most gruesome dictatorships and worst human rights abusers (Iran, Cuba, Sudan) and its activities are almost solely dedicated to the passing of anti-Israeli resolutions. Indeed, the UNHRC carries a standing resolution to castigate Israel in every session, while studiously steering clear of the genocide in Darfur, and other chronic human-rights abusers like Iran, Syria, and countless others. It recently congratulated Sri Lanka on its brutal crackdown on the Tamil Tigers, involving the deaths of some 20,000, and paid a fulsome parting tribute to Libya’s high scoring “human rights.”
hostage, don’t ever leave us. my gratefulness knows no bounds.
The multiple rejections of statehood that you and Annie persist in apologizing for/denying have been the principle obstacle.
oh bla bla bla
;) of course keith!
not really worth to be countered.
Jonah, Israel used your “winning arguments” regarding the non-applicability of the Geneva Conventions in the 2004 ICJ Wall case and lost. You’re beginning to sound like Charlie Sheen.
In 1993, concurrent with the Security Council adoption of the Criminal Statute for the ICTY it adopted the Secretary General and expert panel reports which concluded that, beyond any doubt, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 had passed into the body of customary international law that is binding on all non-signatory parties that engage in armed conflicts. It did all of that under the auspices of a Chapter VII resolution that is binding on all UN member states. That put the IV GC on par with the 1907 Hague rules. They both have been enforced against non-signatories by several international criminal tribunals.
When Israel subsequently signed the Gaza Jericho agreements it said that it would exercise its jurisdiction through the military commander “in accordance with international law”. Among other things, that constituted a new undertaking to apply the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention, not merely the Hague rules that Israel had formerly chosen to apply. See Geoffrey R. Watson, The Oslo Accords: international law and the Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements, Oxford University Press, (2000) “Palestinian Human Rights Obligations” starting at page 252.
Unsurprisingly, the post-2004 decisions of the Israeli High Court of Justice say that Judea, Samaria, and Gaza had been held in a state of belligerent occupation since 1967 and that the authority of the IDF commander is anchored in public international law – including the Fourth Geneva Convention. See paragraph 23 “The Normative Framework” in Beit Sourik Village Council v. The Government of Israel HCJ 2056/04 and especially the cite to HCJ 1661/05 The Gaza Coast Regional Council v. The Knesset et al in paragraph14., “B. The Normative Outline in the Supreme Court’s Caselaw, 1. Belligerent Occupation”, in “Zaharan Yunis Muhammad Mara’abe et al v The Prime Minister of Israel et al, HCJ 7957/04”
After Operation Cast Lead, the MFA admitted that the Supreme Court had ruled that Israel must comply with the rules and principles of the Fourth Geneva Convention under the terms of international and Israeli law. See paragraph 31 of “The Operation In Gaza: Factual And Legal Aspects, 29 Jul 2009, III. The Applicable Legal Framework” FYI, Schwebel and Lauterpacht did not claim that the IV GC did not apply. These decisions render the Rostow and Stone articles that you cited irrelevant. Neither man can publish a rebuttal, because they are both deceased. You haven’t mentioned Rostow’s “continuing mandate” theory, but the High Court of Justice render that moot before it was ever written. In Shimshon Palestine Portland Cement Factory Ltd. v. Attorney-General and Sifri v. Attorney-General, the Court proceeded from the proposition that Israel is not the successor of the Government of Palestine and that “When the Mandate came to an end the appellant’s right also came to an end. If there is doubt how far a successor State is bound by the contracts and concessions of its predecessor, how much the more is this so as regard a State which is not a successor.” See para 211 of Digest of Decisions of National Courts relating to Succession of States and Governments, UN Document A/CN.4/157.
I had already explained for you that Israel and the Palestinian leadership cannot agree to violate a “peremptory” norm of international law in either the Oslo or final settlement agreement and that Articles 7, 8, and 49(6) of the Geneva Conventions cannot be held in abeyance. The World Court held that Israel was already in breach of those obligations in 2004. If you can counter that finding, then you should contact the ICJ, the HCJ, and MFA, so they can let the IDF off the hook;-)
Any treaty that conflicts with a peremptory norm simply becomes null and void “ab initio” – “from the beginning”. Please read the links I gave you earlier to Jennings long quote from Hersh Lauterpacht’s work on the ILC draft of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties or read the links I gave you to Articles 52 and 53 of the final (1969) version of the Convention.
The international criminal courts have stated time and again that it is a universal principle of international law that a State cannot invoke its municipal law as the reason for the non-fulfillment of its international obligations. Any attempt to excuse non-fulfillment of an international obligation on the basis of municipal law constitutes a breach of those obligations. See for example André Klip, Göran Sluiter, Annotated leading cases of International Criminal Tribunals: The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia 1997-1999, Intersentia nv, 2001, ISBN 9050951414, page 134, paragraph 39
If you still don’t understand the legal principle of preemption after reading all of that, then you are built too close to the ground plane and “the good stuff” is simply going over your head. Since the MFA and HCJ say the IV GC applies under both municipal and international law, who are you to disagree with their interpretation?
The Palestinians are free to gain recognition of their statehood by the UN within the armistice lines of 1967. But – regardless of the fact that the future border should, according to the agreements above, be defined through peace negotiations with the Israelis, not to mention the outstanding issue of settlements – if their government of Palestinians unity persists in not recognizing Israel’s right to exist and doesn’t renounce terrorism, thus doesn’t want to negotiate a peace treaty, choosing instead to stay at war with Israel – well, how we can easily imagine, this will very likely not lead to peace but rather exacerbate the conflict. And Israel will have to take specific action to deal with the constant threat of a neighboring state that is openly hostile.
Chose the right decisions or face the consequences.
It is an issue to be settled between the parties, not dictated by the UN. The multiple rejections of statehood that you and Annie persist in apologizing for/denying have been the principle obstacle._
The alleged rejections of statehood do not affect Israel’s refusal to give Israeli Palestinians and the Palestinians in the OPT their human rights. But if you are really concerned then you should get your excuses ready because from September it will not be us but the UN that you will have to convince. Unless you can convince Israel to accept the best offer it has ever had, as shown in the Palestine papers.
In your condemnation of the UN’s record of human rights, you forgot to mention the US’s record of vetoing anything that condemns Israel.
PS An issue to be resolved between the parties? When has Israel ever shown any respect to the Palestinian ‘party.’
not recognizing Israel’s right to exist and doesn’t renounce terrorism, thus doesn’t want to negotiate a peace treaty, choosing instead to stay at war with Israel – well, how we can easily imagine, this will very likely not lead to peace but rather exacerbate the conflict. And Israel will have to take specific action to deal with the constant threat of a neighboring state that is openly hostile
Well, the UN has prepared a harsh, harsh punishment for Syrian strongman Bashar al Assad’s slaughter of some 500 or more unarmed protesters: they are warming a seat for the Syrian regime on the UN Human Rights Council.
That’s right, the gang who gave you the Goldstone report may be getting a new member. The UN Sec. Council not only couldn’t work up enough votes to condemn the Assad regime’s slaughter of innocents, they could not even collect enough votes to issue a press release condemning it; Russia, China, and India apparently thought it bad manners to do so.
Some people mistakenly thought that Syrians were risking their lives seeking freedom and democracy, protesting a corrupt, bloodstained tyranny; not true, we were told. The Syrian ambassador to the UN, Bashar Jaafari, fingered the real villain behind the protests: America.
Also, Yukiya Amano, chief of the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency, testified that the device that the Israelis bombed several years back was “a nuclear reactor under construction,” something the Syrians have been denying for some time. Not surprisingly, the Syrians just haven’t found time to pencil in an appointment with the UN agency since June 2008. Busy, Busy!
Well, in any case, the joke that is the UNHRC is about to get a lot unfunnier.
I mean of course “Make the right decisions” –
Hostage -
So what are your conclusions from the abstract legal aspects of the ME conflict on a practical level, after considering the fact that international law is applicable primarily on conflicts between states, as well – although despicably to far a more limited extent – on acts of protracted terrorism, perpetrated by belligerant groups to the detriment of a sovereign state and their citizens (worth some profound thoughs too, don’t you think)?
Maybe try not to express yourself in a too blinkered one-track jargon, thanks.
sorry, not despicably but deplorably
I see you still need your training wheels to get around.
*The Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States
*§ 202 covers Recognition or Acceptance of States.
*§ 203 covers Recognition or Acceptance Governments. *Note that most countries no longer make public declarations recognizing the legitimacy of other regimes.
*§ 204 covers Recognition and Maintaining Diplomatic Relations
The fact is those are separate subjects. Every government has the right to terminate diplomatic recognition of any other country that refuses to comply with the customary rules of law governing friendly relations and cooperation between states. Those rules and principles prohibit the military occupation of the territory of another state for the purpose of imposing an illegal blockade in its territorial waters or the refusal to respect international lines of demarcation such as armistice lines.
For example, in 1987 the United States repeatedly criticized the Soviet Union for withholding “recognition” of Israel. Diplomatic recognition in this context referred to the unwillingness of the Soviet Government to re-establish diplomatic relations which had been severed in 1967. The USSR had been the third State, after the USA and Guatemala, to “officially” recognize the State of Israel and its Provisional Government on 17 May 1948 –a recognition that had never been withdrawn. –See Stefan Talmon, Recognition of Governments in International Law: With Particular Reference to Governments in Exile (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998) page 111
Regarding your fixation with possible changes to the borders. UN Security Council resolution 73 requires Israel to observe and execute the armistice agreements pending any final settlement. That resolution was adopted under the auspices of Article 40 (Chapter VII) of the UN Charter.
Security Council resolution 330 required Israel to implement 242 immediately. Sidney A. Freifeld was the legal advisor to the Canadian delegation, including the representative on the Security Council during the negotiations on resolution 242. He wrote a letter to the editors of Commentary Magazine in response to an article authored by Eugene V. Rostow in the October 1989 issue, “A False Start in the Middle East”. He explained that Israel does not have any inherent right to occupy or administer the territories: “Mr. Rostow describes as a “startling new proposition” a point that he discerns in Secretary Baker’s speech to AIPAC, “namely, that Resolution 242 requires Israel to withdraw to the armistice demarcation lines as they stood in 1967. . . .” That was not a “startling new proposition” but the intent and the language of 242 which specified, inter alia, the application of the following principle: “Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.” The word “territories” was deliberately not preceded by “the” or “all the,” thus leaving open the possibility of border rectifications. With that proviso, 242 indeed called for “Israel to withdraw to the armistice demarcation lines as they stood in 1967,” i.e., to relinquish (most of) the West Bank and Gaza.
Mr. Rostow claims that “Israel is vested by Resolution 242 with the authority to administer the occupied territories until the Arab states of the region make a just and lasting peace.” Regrettably, there is no such specific language in Resolution 242. What it does contain, deliberately, is a balance, viz, that (a), on the one hand, Israel should withdraw and (b), on the other hand, belligerency claims should be terminated and the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political independence of every state in the area should be acknowledged. That balance indeed implies that Israel not be required to withdraw until (b) is fulfilled, but 242 does not specify what Israel would or could do on the West Bank pending withdrawal. . . .
I find myself in sympathy with the political thrust and intent of Mr. Rostow’s article and wish only that he had put forward an unblemished argument to support his theses.”
In the North Sea Continental Shelf case the ICJ noted that “There is no rule that the land frontiers of a State must be fully delimited and defined, and often in various places and for long periods they are not, as is shown by the case of the entry of Albania into the League of Nations (Monastery of Saint Naoum, Advisor): Opinion, 1924, P.C.I.J., Series B, No. 9, at p. 10).” See the respective ICJ pdf file link to icj-cij.org and the PCIJ pdf file link to icj-cij.org
That same legal principle applied to the entry of both Israel and Jordan into the United Nations. The fact that they had no delimited borders for decades had nothing to do with their statehood. The UN resolution which requested the 2004 Advisory Opinion cited the fact that the construction of the Wall was “in departure from the Armistice Line of 1949 (Green Line) and which has involved the confiscation and destruction of Palestinian land and resources”.
Paragraphs 72-78 of the ICJ opinion cited the earlier Chapter VII UN Security Council cease fire resolution 62 and the Armistice Agreements. Resolution 62 was recalled and replaced by resolution 73. Those paragraphs of the opinion also explain that the Green Line boundary still has agreed upon legal consequences under both conventional and customary international law until such time as the parties “might” agree to rectifications. The Palestinians are not required to accept any changes.
False. Israel declaration of independence and statehood was not settled between the parties, and was legitimized by the UN. Israel doesn’t want the UN getting involved becasue that would mean involving having the deal brokered by an independent body and havign the attentikon fo the international community on the proceedings.
False again Mr Likudnik. Israel rejected Palestinian statehood in 1988 and are doing so now. I Likid Charter, which you probably have emblazened on a banner over your bed, explicitly rejects the creation of a Palestinian state.
As usual, the Hasbarats have no problem with Israel rejecting prior agreements or sticking to their obligations, but when the Palestinians do it, it’s an outrage.
FYI. Jonah, there is no law that requires anyone to recognize Israel’s right to exist. No one has formally recognized Israel’s right to exist or recognized Israel as a Jewish state.
Ok, ok, Mr. law-pundit, now you are becoming a bit (but only a bit) more concrete. Anyway enough for the moment ….
Your reading of resolution 242 ….
“Mr. Rostow claims that “Israel is vested by Resolution 242 with the authority to administer the occupied territories until the Arab states of the region make a just and lasting peace.” Regrettably, there is no such specific language in Resolution 242. What it does contain, deliberately, is a balance, viz, that (a), on the one hand, Israel should withdraw and (b), on the other hand, belligerency claims should be terminated and the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political independence of every state in the area should be acknowledged. That balance indeed implies that Israel not be required to withdraw until (b) is fulfilled,….”
… in addition to your quibbling legal ruminations above to prove that the Palestinians have already a state (“So, you can say that Palestine is definitely not a state, but 112 other existing states disagree.”) ….. how this get along with the fact that the Palestinians (or at least the main faction in the government) do not want to make any peace with Israel, but actually deny its legitimate existence? How can the Palestinian position of open hostility towards Israel (“Their presence on our land is illegal and cannot be recognized,” the Hamas leader said. ) be compatible with the very message of Resolution 242, which – you remind it -, a) calls for the withdrawal from territories occupied b) claims belligerency should be terminated and the sovereignty, territorial integrity, political independence and every been in the area of should be acknowledged?
Does your deep knowledge of international law not suggest you anything in this regard?
Thus, for example, Israel refrained from granting authority to the UN Committee on Human Rights to discuss complaints from Palestinians against the IDF. ’
It is an issue to be settled between the parties, not dictated by the UN.
Israel and the Palestinians are bound by the terms of a UN minority rights agreement that both parties have accepted. It placed the rights of women, religious, and minority groups in Palestine under the protection of the UN and subjected any disputes regarding the terms to the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ. You can read about that right here
It recently congratulated Sri Lanka on its brutal crackdown on the Tamil Tigers, involving the deaths of some 20,000…
The last report was actually submitted to the Security Council in May of 2009. It was limited distribution and concerned the request for an emergency special session that had been received from Germany. link to securitycouncilreport.org
It welcomed the dispatch of the Secretary-General and two members of the Secretariat. It condemned the taking of hostages by the Tamil Tigers and reminded the government of its own responsibilities under international law and the undertakings contained in the joint communique issued by the Secretary. That resulted in the dispatch of a panel of experts. FYI, that is exactly the same way the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was established. Sure enough there is a 214-page Secretary-General’s Panel of Expert’s report on Accountability in Sri Lanka, dated 31 March 2011 calling for investigations and prosecutions for widespread war crimes on both sides and reconsideration of the HRC Special session report based upon the new findings.
Here we go again. this is a small collection of material gathered from comments scattered around the site:
*Ahdut Ha’avodah (Unity of Labor) was established in 1919. Its founding Charter called for a Jewish Socialist Republic in all of Palestine, and demanded “the transfer of Palestine’s land, water, and natural resources to the people of Israel as their eternal possession.” See Ben Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs, Shabtai Teveth, page 99.
*In by Vladimir Jabotinsky, “The Iron Wall (We and the Arabs)”, first published in November 1923 the author wrote:
Thus we conclude that we cannot promise anything to the Arabs of the Land of Israel or the Arab countries. Their voluntary agreement is out of the question. Hence those who hold that an agreement with the natives is an essential condition for Zionism can now say “no” and depart from Zionism. Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population. This colonization can, therefore, continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population – an iron wall which the native population cannot break through. This is, in toto, our policy towards the Arabs. To formulate it any other way would only be hypocrisy.
Not only must this be so, it is so whether we admit it or not. What does the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate mean for us? It is the fact that a disinterested power committed itself to create such security conditions that the local population would be deterred from interfering with our efforts.
All of us, without exception, are constantly demanding that this power strictly fulfill its obligations. In this sense, there are no meaningful differences between our “militarists” and our “vegetarians.” One prefers an iron wall of Jewish bayonets, the other proposes an iron wall of British bayonets, the third proposes an agreement with Baghdad, and appears to be satisfied with Baghdad’s bayonets – a strange and somewhat risky taste – but we all applaud, day and night, the iron wall. We would destroy our cause if we proclaimed the necessity of an agreement, and fill the minds of the Mandatory with the belief that we do not need an iron wall, but rather endless talks. Such a proclamation can only harm us. Therefore it is our sacred duty to expose such talk and prove that it is a snare and a delusion.
*The Irgun committed acts of violence against Arabs from its very inception. In “A History of Zionism” (3rd Ed., Tauris Parke, 2003, page 375) Walter Laqueur said that Jabotinsky was unhappy about the murder of women and children, and asked the Irgun leaders to warn the Arabs in time for them to evacuate the areas that were to be attacked. The Irgun commanders replied that they were not willing to do that. John Quigley traces the “Collapse of the Mandate” to the period of the 1936-39 Arab revolt. see page 23 of The Case for Palestine. Quigley, Simha Flapan, David Hurst, and a host of others cite the Irgun bombing of an Arab bazaar in 1937. J. Bowyer Bell cites an incident on 14 March 1937 when Arieh Yitzhaki and Benjamin Zeroni tossed a bomb into the Azur coffee house outside Tel Aviv. He also cites a meeting in Alexandria in July 1937 between Jabotinsky and Irgun commander Col. Robert Bitker and chief of staff Moshe Rosenberg. Ze’ev listened, while the two explained the need for indiscriminate retaliation due to the difficulty of limiting operations to only the “guilty”. see Terror Out of Zion, pages 35-36.
*Benny Morris said that both Chaim Weizmann and David Ben Gurion saw partition as a stepping stone to further expansion and the eventual takeover of the whole of Palestine. See “Righteous victims: a history of the Zionist-Arab conflict, 1881-1999″, by Benny Morris, Knopf, 1999, ISBN: 0679421203, page 138
*Yossi Katz outlined the details of a partition plan that was developed by the Jewish Agency Executive in 1937. See “Partner to Partition: The Jewish Agency’s Partition Plan in the Mandate Era”, Yossi Katz, Routledge, 1998, ISBN-10: 0714644013 Katz says the partition plan that the Jewish Agency deleloped in 1937 was not pursued by political action alone. The Agency directed its land purchases and settlement activity to securing the borders it had set out in the plan. link to books.google.com
*Uri Ben-Eliezer describes settlements that were established in lightining operations with the assistance of the Palmach in areas that would be outside the Jewish zone in the event of partition. link to books.google.com See The making of Israeli militarism
*Ben Ami says Plan D, was a push to extend the frontiers of the future Jewish state beyond the partition lines by linking Jewish population hubs to the settlements established in outlying areas. link to foreignaffairs.com
*Ben Eliezer discusses Plan D link to books.google.com
*Morris cited a letter that Ben Gurion wrote in 1937 which said that he was in favor of partition because he didn’t envision a partial Jewish state as the end of the process. He said that “What we want is not that the country be united and whole, but that the united and whole country be Jewish.” He explained that a first-class Jewish army would permit the Zionists to settle in the rest of the country and complete the historic task of redeeming the entire land with or without the consent of the Arabs. See Letters to Paula and the Children, David Ben-Gurion, translated by Aubry Hodes, University of Pittsburg Press, 1971, page 153.
*Former Israeli Foreign Minister and historian Schlomo Ben Ami writes that 1937 was the same year that the “Field Battalions” under Yitzhak Sadeh wrote the “Avner Plan”, which anticipated and laid the groundwork for what would become in 1948, Plan Dalet. It envisioned going far beyond any boundaries contained in the existing partition proposals and planned the conquest of the Galilee, the West Bank, and Jerusalem. See Scars of war, wounds of peace: the Israeli-Arab tragedy, By Shlomo Ben-Ami, Oxford University Press, USA, 2006, ISBN: 019518158, page 17
*Wahlid Kahlidi wrote that partition was simply the first step in Ben Gurion’s plan for Palestine. According to Kahlidi, the official Hagganah history says that in the summer of 1937, ten years before the UN Partition plan David Ben Gurion directed the Haganah Commander of Tel Aviv, Elimelech Avnir, to draw up a plan to take over the country after the British withdrawal. See link to palestine-studies.org Revisiting the UNGA Partition Resolution and link to palestine-studies.org Plan Dalet Revisited
**Ben Gurion explained that his acceptance of the principle of partition was an attempt to gain time until the Jews were strong enough to fight the Arab majority. He pledged to Mapai’s Central Committee that the borders of Jewish independence as defined by the UN Plan were by no means final and Yigal Allon said …’the borders of partition cannot be for us the final borders … the partition plan is a compromise plan that is unjust to the Jews. … We are entitled to decide our borders according to our defence needs.’ See “Scars of War”, page 35
*Israeli Military historian David Tal says the Jewish leadership did not accept the internationalization of Jerusalem as it was stipulated by the partition resolution. He also says “the Jews initial acceptance of the Partition resolution was not mere rhetoric; the strategic planning of the war against the Palestinians was based upon it.” See David Tal, War in Palestine, 1948: strategy and diplomacy, Routledge, 2004, ISBN 071465275X, page 471.
*The British High Commissioner, General Sir Alan Cunningham, noted in his reports that by late April the Jewish attacks had led to a crisis with ominous and intolerable implications for the British: ”’Recent Jewish military successes (if indeed operations based on the mortaring of terrified women and children can be classed as such)”’ have aroused extravagant reactions in the Jewish press. . . .Jewish broadcasts, both in content and in manner of delivery, are remarkably like those of Nazi Germany. . . .on the roads, Hagana armoured cars are increasingly impudent and intrusive. . . . The Arabs of the large towns, who have borne the brunt of recent Jewish offensive action are . . . bitter against the British. . . .They must pin the blame on someone, and who [are] more deserving than the British? See Theory and practice in the history of European expansion overseas, By Robinson, et.al, Routledge, 1988, ISBN 0714633461, page 142 link to books.google.com
*Here is a link to an internal US State Department memo written after the Deir Yassin massacre which explained that the Jewish militias were the real aggressors against the Arabs, but that they would come running to the Security Council and try to spin the story the other way.
I’ve posted a few accounts about the many Arabs that accepted Zionist proposals and attempted to coexist peacefully, but I guess its time to collect some of those and post the material in one of these lists.
Hostage,
Jonah earlier asked you to clarify the legal issues involving the ME conflict and you answered him. I think. I am still such an amateur at these complex legal issues and am still so confused!
Could you clarify the following for me?
Earlier you said:
“Israel and the Palestinian leadership cannot agree to violate a “peremptory” norm of international law in either the Oslo or final settlement agreement and that Articles 7, 8, and 49(6) of the Geneva Conventions cannot be held in abeyance. The World Court held that Israel was already in breach of those obligations in 2004. If you can counter that finding, then you should contact the ICJ, the HCJ, and MFA, so they can let the IDF off the hook;-)”
Who has or is arguing that Israel and the Palestinians can “agree to violate a “peremptory” norm of international law in either the Oslo or final settlement agreement”?
I take it the “‘peremptory’ norm of international law” here is the Geneva Convention. Who has or is arguing that the cited articles of the GC can or should be held in abeyance?
Paragraph 120 of the 2004 ICJ opinion you reference states that:
“As regards these settlements, the Court notes that Article 49, paragraph 6, of the Fourth Geneva Convention provides: ‘The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.’
“In this respect, the information provided to the Court shows that, since 1977, Israel has conducted a policy and developed practices involving the establishment of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, contrary to the terms of Article 49, paragraph 6, just cited.”
The opinion speaks of “information provided to the Court [that] shows that, since 1977, Israel has conducted a policy and developed practices involving the establishment of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, contrary to the terms of Article 49, paragraph 6, just cited.”
What was this “information”? Can you cite any?
The ICJ applies the concept of unlawfully “occupied Palestinian territories” de jur in its application of Article 49 (6). Please explain the validity of this application in the context of Res. 242, and any other authorities that firmly establish the illegality of Israel’s presence.
If Israel’s presence is not unlawful, where does that leave the court’s ruling?
Do you believe that Israel used “deportation” and “forced transfer” of its own population into “occupied territories”?
The opinion further states:
“That provision prohibits not only deportations or forced transfers of population such as those carried out during the Second World War, but also any measures taken by an occupying Power in order to organize or encourage transfers of parts of its own population into the occupied territory.”
Can you cite any law or legal authority to justify this broadening of Article 49(6)?
How would this apply to Israel’s relocation or removal of settlements from the “territories’?
You said: “Security Council resolution 330 required Israel to implement 242 immediately.”
I think you mean Res. 338, don’t you? In any case, why did you cite this? Do you believe that Israel’s failure to implement the resolution was a violation of international law?
Do you believe that the Hamas regime is or has been at any time
in violation of any applicable international law?
What lawful measures in your view can Israel take to defend itself from Hamas rocket and mortar attacks against its civilians? Can it lawfully do so?
Thank you, and best regards,
Robert Werdine
“As regards these settlements, the Court notes that Article 49, paragraph 6, of the Fourth Geneva Convention provides: ‘The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.’
“In this respect, the information provided to the Court shows that, since 1977, Israel has conducted a policy and developed practices involving the establishment of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, contrary to the terms of Article 49, paragraph 6, just cited.”…….What was this “information”? Can you cite any?
do you mean you want hostage to cite which settlements israel established since ’77?
Do you believe that Israel used “deportation” and “forced transfer” of its own population into “occupied territories”?
no one claimed israel “forced transferred” the settlers. but they did “deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”
israel is arguing palestinians should give up their international right of return for one thing. and then the issue you are discussing, settlements. Article 49, paragraph 6, of the Fourth Geneva Convention provides: ‘The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.’
without doing a search i recall jonah saying it should be between israel and palestine to negotiate and the UN should stay out of it. ‘ “agree to violate a “peremptory” norm of international law ‘ means israel and palestine cannot agree to violate Article 49, paragraph 6, of the Fourth Geneva Convention as an example. and everything else they violate.
Your reading of resolution 242 ….
Ah, no. Those curly things in my post above are quotation marks to indicate, to you, that you are reading what the legal advisor to the Canadian UN delegation, Sidney A. Freifeld, had to say about Mr. Rostow”s article and the meaning of the resolution.
I have already quoted a JCPA fellow, Prof. Ruth Lapidot, who explained that states have the political prerogative to decide for themselves whether or not they will recognize another State. Abba Eban opined “The act of determining whether a certain political unit is a State or not is known in international law as an act of recognition; and under the Charter, no Member State has surrendered to the United Nations or to any organ thereof its unlimited sovereignty to regard a political unit as a State.” See pdf file page 12 link to un.org
So, let’s see if we can put that into words in lots of other ways. The Restatement (Third) of The Foreign Relations Law of the United States § 201.(h) says “Determination of Statehood. Whether or not an entity satisfies the requirement for statehood is ordinarily determined by other states when they decide whether to treat that entity as a state.” or …. Prof. L.C. Green, an expert on the laws and customs of war, has explained that “recognition of statehood is a matter of discretion, it is open to any existing state to accept as a state any entity it wishes, regardless of the existence of territory or an established government.” See Israel Yearbook on Human Rights, 1989, Yoram Dinstein, Mala Tabory eds., Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1990, ISBN 0-7923-0450-0, pages 135-136.
I quoted James R. Crawford who explained there is no agreed upon written definition or criteria. Judge Benqt Broms wrote that “as long as there is no organ which could ”in casu” reach a binding decision on this matter, the decision as to the statehood of an entity depends upon the other members of the community of nations. The governments of various States are the organs responsible for reaching individual decisions in a given case. The decision making is called the recognition of States. The term signifies the decision of a government of an already existing state to recognize another entity as a state.” The act of recognition is a legal decision which depends on the judgement of the recognizing government. The underlying factors, nevertheless, are mainly political. See IV. Recognition of States in International law: achievements and prospects, UNESCO Series, Mohammed Bedjaoui (ed), Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1991, ISBN 9231027166, pages 47-48
Oddly enough, Abba Eban echoed the sentiments of Judges Schwebel and Higgins: the theory that the Charter forbids acts of aggression only against States is utterly without foundation. Indeed, neither Chapter VI nor Chapter VII, in defining threats to the peace or acts of aggression, shows the slightest interest in the juridical status of the victim. The word “State” does not occur in either of those chapters. There is no provision whatever that the attacked party must be universally recognized as a State before an armed attack upon it can be determined as an act of aggression. Article 2, paragraph 4, of the Charter forbids the use of force not only if it is directed against the integrity of a State but also if it is used “in any other manner inconsistent with the purpose of the United Nations.” (ibid)
On page 6 & 7 the representative of the Palestinians complianed that the Zionists did not recognize their “sovereignty” and claimed they had no state. He said “Yet the Zionists will again raise the same cry every time, on every occasion when we speak to them of our fairness, of our rights, of our justice; they will say, “But we have a State.”
In the discussion above you rather predictably said Israel and Jordan were “states”, but that the Palestinians did not have one. That is the same thing the representatives of Israel told the ICC when the Palestinians complained that they were the victims of aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
The ILC has noted that the only tangible manifestation of sovereignty is jurisdiction and that every state has the right to exercise universal jurisdiction over the crime of aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. It also concluded that there is no inherent right for any state to exist and that ” the right of each State to protect itself and to live its own life does not authorize it to commit unjust acts against another.” See A/CN.4/2 and Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts”
So, sovereignty=jurisdiction over territory=internal laws. The Nuremberg principles say that certain acts committed against any civilian population (including stateless Jews) are international crimes regardless of internal law. So, “sovereignty” is irrelevant. Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible & liable to punishment regardless of internal law (sovereignty).
That means that Israel is using an ordinary political term in an attempt to commit crimes against Palestinian communities with impunity that international law would otherwise prohibit if they were committed against another “state” or even a stateless Jew. This despite the fact that Palestine has always been recognized by other existing states (since 1988, most other existing states).
There really is “nothing new under sun”:
“The representative of the Soviet Union noted the attempts of some delegations in the Security Council to assert that the State of Israel did not exist; and that it had no territory, no people, no frontiers, and no Government. He said At the same time, it is impossible to disregard a strange theory advanced here by the representative of Syria and supported, if I am not mistaken, by the representative of France. The substance of that theory is that inasmuch as the territory and frontiers of the State of Israel and its right of existence are contested by some of its neighbor States, the State of Israel does not exist as a sovereign State and cannot be recognized as such. That theory is not only strange but also dangerous. It is reminiscent of the “theories” which, as we all know, were once upon a time preached by the fascist aggressors who claimed world mastery. According to those theories, it was enough for Hitlerite Germany to cast doubt on the existence of one of its neighbor States for that State to cease to exist, and for its territory to be seized and absorbed into the territory of Hitlerite Germany. Such claims were made by the fascist aggressors in respect of Austria, Czechoslovakia and a number of other European countries, including France. In that connection, all kinds of expansionist theories were advanced concerning the inferiority of the people of certain countries, and were used as justification for seizing those countries. History has given the lie to all such wild theories and their authors have paid a cruel price for their aggressive plans.” — Mr. Yakov A. Malik, the 386th meeting of the UN Security Council, S/PV.386, 17 December 1948, pages 12-13 link to un.org
Thanks annie – i was reading RW’s verbiage (ha ha, we have a second RW who also writes extremely long comments) and noticed that also. Deliberate or accidental, it’s the sort of thing a mom-and-pop audience would not detect, and exactly the sort of verbal trickery hasbara uses to convince people of the legitimacy of their illegitimate cause.
Can anyone spot the incoherency? Robert and David disagree, yet Robert is the one who came across his views by looking at the history in an objective, non-ideological manner. Robert’s facts don’t agree with David’s opinion. You’ve observed that the major Zionist orgs (Jewish Agency, WZO) had no plans for colonization that would replace the natives like it was H2O = water. You claim to be of Lebanese descent and can say the Palestinian refugees, dispossessed at gunpoint, and the Israeli invasions of several Arab states don’t show Israel to be an expansionist state.
So what’s with the backhanded respect for David’s viewpoint, Robert? Would you talk to a Holocaust denier and tell him, “there is no bridging this disagreement”?
And if people question your background, it’s because claiming an Arab background and coming full hilt for Israel looks like being African American and favoring Jim Crow. Put your money where your mouth is and stay in Gaza or Lebanon for awhile, then you’ll see the real face of the Jewish state.
I don’t know what you think you’re getting by taking Israel’s side but trust me, those people aren’t your friends. They will just as easily write you off as collateral damage.
C’on Hostage, the longer you argue lavishing legal explanations on legal explanations, legal quotes on legal quotes, legal opinions on legal opinions, the clearier it becomes – despite your efforts to ensnare the interlocutor in a web of legal disquisitions in support to your thesis – how selective your reading of international law in truth is. I see that you carefully avoid crossing the Rubicon and enter into the heart of the Middle East conflict. This would expose your position for what it really is: a fraud, concocted to give the impression that international law hangs totally in favor of the Palestinians and their Arab supporters. I will not again go into details, it is useless. But it is beyond doubt that your legalistic fervor focuses on Israel and its actions alone, aiming at portray it as mere aggressor, while the Palestinians and Arab states appear in the passive role of victim. “Nothing new under the sun”, indeed. Your attitude is the more unfortunate and deplorable as it set up the impression of being more objective and well-researched than others here, but in reality it is equally one-sided and narrow. The false ideological premises are the same. This is clearly confirmed, finally, by your thinly-veiled attempt to equate the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria (or ‘West Bank’ since you prefer the coinage derived from the Jordan occupation) with the warmongering and expansionist policies of Nazi Germany. Pathetic.
Why not simply try to answer Robert’ simple question, if you’ve some guts – a question that you have bypassed from the beginning of our conversation: “What lawful measures in your view can Israel take to defend itself from Hamas rocket and mortar attacks against its civilians?”
False again Mr Likudnik. Israel rejected Palestinian statehood in 1988 and are doing so now. I Likid Charter, which you probably have emblazened on a banner over your bed, explicitly rejects the creation of a Palestinian state
How does Likud think that this will happen without violence? Is their Charter not an implicit statement that violence is required to achieve this, and to maintain it?
Robert – Here’s a back-handed compliment. You are probably the most knowledgeable and articulate pro-Israel commenter I have ever seen on this site. But I also think you are among the most devious and dishonest. I’m not talking about your claimed ancestry, which, though very surprising, might actually be true. Who knows? Of far more importance is your claim to be innocently enlightened by the “facts” during the Oslo years. It is absolutely clear that you are well-steeped in the most sophisticated hasbara. You claim a political journey from indoctrination in an Arab family background with anti-Israel sentiment who was informed by the likes of Edward Said and Robert Fisk, who was enlightened by Efraim Karsh and others. To me, you seem like a leading candidate for a job at the Israeli Foreign Ministry. You didn’t have to account for how you arrived at your opinions, but decided to do so to lend credibility to those opinions. Your story is not believable.
In any event, your personal history is less important than your opinions, so I do have a few questions for you.
1) You claim that during the Oslo years, Israel made numerous concessions without getting anything in return. Don’t give a full list, but pick your three biggest “concessions.” Remember that doubling, rather than tripling or quadrupling the number of illegal Jewish settlers, is not a concession.
2) You claim that Arafat would give screaming speeches in Arabic calling for the violent death of Israel. Do you speak Arabic and did you make your own translation of his speeches, or were you relying on someone else’s claims, such as CAMERA or MEMRI? Can you direct us to any videotape of these screaming speeches calling for violent death?
3) You claim that the Palestinians are at fault for rejecting any “compromise” that would have involved creation of a Jewish State in the 30′s and 40′s. What would have been the appropriate response to the Zionist plan to create a Jewish State on their land? Do you think the plan could have been achieved without massive dislocation to the indigenous population? The Zionists didn’t – they knew what had to be done. Do you think the Palestinians should have voluntarily abandoned their homes, land and communities to make way for this dream of a Jewish State?
4) You claim that the Arab side was responsible for the Palestinian refugee crisis. Do you disagree with the historical findings of Benny Morris (whom you cite as one of your sources of information) that the Zionists committed two dozen massacres of Palestinians, thereby causing massive flight?
5) In my opinion, there are innumerable instances of Israel’s deliberate targeting of civilians: the 1947-8 massacres, Qibya, the bombing of refugee camps in 1972 in response to Munich, the invasions and bombings of Lebanon in 1978, 1982, 1993, 1996, 2006, and of course Gaza, to give a short highlight list. Do you agree that any of these event involved intentional murder of civilians? Or was official Israel policy blameless in them all, with perhaps a few isolated instances of misconduct by rogue soldiers?
6) What does your mother, who is Lebanese Shiite Muslim, think of your opinions on Israel? Does she also approve of Israel’s repeated attacks on the country of her ancestors?
Hostage,
My friend Jonah enjoins you to answer my question above, but I am hopeful that you will answer all my questions. I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say that your answers will not fail to illuminate all of us with your considerable wisdom and erudition, as always.
When you should find the time, I have these further questions for your expert consideration:
I find that the interplay between sovereign force and consent in international law, with particular reference to the ICJ, has been trenchantly explicated by Jeremy Rabkin in his book, “The Case for Sovereignty”:
“Until quite recently, no treatise on international law proposed that violations of international standards in war could be punished by third parties to the conflict. . . . The advent of the United Nations did not change this underlying reality. It was not designed to ensure any rule of international conduct, unless all the great powers were in agreement on the response to a particular violation. . . . So the statute [creating] the International Court of Justice, appended to the UN Charter, stipulated that only states could be parties to disputes before the court and then only with the consent of both parties to the particular dispute.”
Several questions here. Israel is a sovereign state, and it did not consent. Does this vitiate the validity of the court’s authority to adjudicate the matter?
The ICJ is the judicial branch of the UN General assembly. The request to investigate the legal issues stemmed from the so-called “10th Emergency Session of the General Assembly.” What binding force in international law does the court’s ruling have since the Israel/Palestine issue is not in the jurisdiction of the General Assembly but of the UN Security Council, who did not request or authorize the ICJ’s involvement?
The principle adversary claimant (the Palestinians) are not a nation state. Do they have any standing before the tribunal? Can you cite any precedent or any applicable law or ruling that does give them standing?
Did either the 1988 declaration of statehood or the 1993 formation of the Palestinian authority vest the territories with the legal standing of a sovereign? Are the Palestinians a “high contracting party”?
If so, are Tibetans and Kurds form Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey similarly empowered? If not, why not?
The court deemed Israel an unlawful occupying power, branding the settlement of territory to be an illegal seizure of property belonging to another state. Yet it also ruled that the territories were not a state. It did so to demonstrate that Israel had no right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN charter, the court arguing that this applies only to attacks by a “state.” In a further contortion, however, the court then argued that the territories are the de facto equivalent of a state—and are thus extended the protections of the Geneva Conventions, which covers only signatory states.
Now, can you please explain how a sovereign state can be an unlawful occupier in a territory not belonging to a state, thus forfeiting its right to self defense under Article 51 against terrorist acts committed by inhabitants of the territory because they are not a state, and, yet, at the same time, that the territories are a de facto state, and can thus be extended the protections of the GC, which covers only state signatories of the Convention?
Do you agree with the court’s ruling with regard to Israel and Article 51? I think I asked you a similar question in my earlier post but, can you cite any legal authority or precedent that negates a sovereign state’s right to defend itself against stateless terrorists under Article 51?
And just one more question, a little off-topic, I admit! In 1962, the United States imposed a naval quarantine on Cuba in response to evidence that the Soviet Union was installing medium-range missiles there. Was the United States guilty of collective punishment of the Cuban people?
Thank you again, and best regards,
Robert Werdine
For Jonah:
with a special dedication and request: it is enough now! Your comments have become a nuisance and a bore. If you do not want to be accessible to any reasoning, or are unable for whatever reasons including those of ideological extremism and blindness, then there is little meaning in continuing this exchange of views and positions. I trust you are even incapable to realize that – rather than convincing anybody – you are just putting offff.
Re your latest diatribe May 1, 2011 at 6:24 am
With due respect to open + liberal dialogue policy on this Website, i am decently repelled by your impertinence and language.
Now that your argumentative air to breathe has become very thin, the little oxygene left before total vacuum sets in you seem to use to start barking and yelling disqualifying adjectives and making subjective flat-plumb affirmative statements only. That is the classical experience i also have unfortunately made rather often, when i had the questionable amusement in Israel and elsewhere to meet personae of your likes and started a bona fide conversation with them.
The impertinence with which you constantly ignore the facts and references put before you; that is not only irritating but grossly i n d e c e n t. As if you had a right to claim for any umpteenth time, that you could even for ad nauseam repeated same arguments / questions (?) expect yet another well reasoned reply-as have been given to you in rich measure. Admittedly, i would certainly not have had alone the patience (not to speak of Hostage’s qualification) to continue such a long-stretched “conversation” with you.
But now, you are overstretching beyond any acceptable measure! You have become nothing but a nuisance here, don’t you notice? Less diplomatically i think one would be well justified to call such behaviour that of the proverbial “p.i.t.a.”-type. Or, alternatively, childish behaviour resembling that of a pre-pubertarian tumbler –doll, endlessly re-emerging with a BUT, …….and restarting the same all over again.
• “…how selective your reading of international law in truth is.”
May i suggest, that you’d better be very careful with the accusation of selectivity? It’s a dangerous weapon, especially because of its enormous boomerang qualities. Though stone-throwing is reportedly an old biblical technique of repute, but when sitting in the very glass house it tends to be self-destructive in the first place.
As you well should know, the Science of History (as distinct from story) is one of – if not the classical branch of science which had and still has a notoriously very poor standing within Jewish, and later especially Israeli tradition. This tradition though is still being diligently cultivated up to date, unfortunately.
You only have to recall the GoI Ministry of Education’s efforts to this day to cleanse school, high-school and other academic CURRICULA (e.g. teachers’ training) and literature of historic un-desirabilities and historical facts which the official Israel and in consequence many Israeli citizen do not like and therefore simply deny. Such undesirable facts indeed challenge the “moral high ground” (long lost anyway) of the victims’ innocence from which to argue, of course, is much more profitable; which in turn also may well explain the persistent references to Nazi-victimization – regardless whether fitting or not – or indulgences in perceived Antisemitisms behind each and every nook and corner.
Actually, Jonah, taking your comments as indicative, you yourself may well have been victimized by such exposition of systematic efforts of history manipulation. Such attempts of collective denial and self-deceit usually have a devastating backlash, both, on the collective and individual plane.
• “I see that you [, Hostage] carefully avoid crossing the Rubicon and enter into the heart of the Middle East conflict.
One wonders what you actually conceive as the conflict’s heart. It may have escaped your esteemed notice, that the debate has been very much about the heart, all the way, i.e. the still unresolved conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, planned and systematic ruthless dispossession of an indigenous Palestinian population, ethnic cleaning, destruction of hundreds of Palestinian villages, wars, occupation and continued occupation, ignoring endless resolutions by the international community….
The heart of the matter is that no principle of international law can help Israel to defend its policies of aggression, continued occupation and colonisation. Period.
The heart of the matter is that 21st century-mankind has developed beyond the times of colonialism and simply does not accept anymore stone-age concepts of personal and interstate intercourse, e.g. tribalism and racism. The prevailing governing Israeli mind set is still anachronistically clinging on to the concept of the right of conquest and military force! That is out and unacceptable.
What you call “acts of delegitimization” of Israel by the ill-intending, is in substance nothing less than the attempt by the international community to open Israel a path and to accompany Israelis on the way back from total isolation into the community of nations from which post-1967 Israel has self-exiled herself entirely. To be accepted as a member of the international community of nations, Israel also must act as one.
Must you not fear, that even the patience of your hereto last well-wishers is palpably running out??? Instead, in its own interest, including that of rescuing its state from becoming a historical footnote only, the GoI and Israelis should finally, swiftly and wholeheartedly make friends with her neighbours as long as she is (relatively) strong.
However, from all what i can notice, instead of making friends and peace, GoI policies lead only deeper into international isolation and further into the catastrophe, this time self-chosen; with open eyes but blind for self-righteousness. You can not safeguard Israel’s future by military might.
• “ I will not again go into details, it is useless.”
Thank you very much.
• “But it is beyond doubt that your legalistic fervor focuses on Israel and its actions alone, aiming at portray it as mere aggressor, while the Palestinians and Arab states appear in the passive role of victim.”
Yes, you are absolutely correct in so far that in order to “enter into the heart of the ..conflict” (as per your request) one has to focus and separate paraphernalia from the heart of the matter. Otherwise one gets entirely lost in the side-issues and dwells on secondary or even more remote subjects. (This old Hasbara technique which does not work anymore.) And – whether you like it or not and continue to deny it, first Jewish immigrants and later the State of Israel have appeared in Palestine and substantially acted as colonialists evicting on a grand scale and by force the local population. And do you want also to deny the reality of the settler-colonies in the West Bank? These are facts which indeed are, as you rightly say, “beyond doubt”.
• “…… but in reality it is equally one-sided and narrow.”
Thank you for telling me what reality you consider as real. Your concept of reality seems to be indeed very one-sided and exclusive.
Equally to what?
Or how far do you want a position to be stretched to become acceptable to you?
On how many different sides can you take or do you want me to consider when it comes to blatant breach of human right violations? A clear position is generally labelled as biased, and that word alone shall suffice to disqualify a principled moral and legal position?
Even Goldstone’s Fact Finding Mission report has been disqualified by the same label. How much must facts be denied or distorted so that they may become not one-sided?
I for once agree here in principle with Elie Wiesel:
“We must always take sides.
Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.
Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel
• “The false ideological premises are the same. This is clearly confirmed, finally, by your thinly-veiled attempt to equate the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria (or ‘West Bank’ since you prefer the coinage derived from the Jordan occupation) with the warmongering and expansionist policies of Nazi Germany. Pathetic.”
This is poor and cheap polemics. I have not noticed any veiled attempt by Hostage to equate anything with policies of Nazi Germany. Those do indeed stand alone.
Should i have overlooked something?
• ….. a question that you have bypassed from the beginning of our conversation: “What lawful measures in your view can Israel take to defend itself from Hamas rocket and mortar attacks against its civilians?”
I can not answer your question as you put it; i am no lawyer.
Nevertheless, it appears to me that there are relevant and irrelevant questions, nonsense questions for example.
Remembering the 4th November 2008 (BTW the very day of presidential elections in the USA!) the IAF intentionally discontinued a truce that has been quite satisfactorily kept by Hamas, and which Hamas had also repeatedly declared to be willing to maintain. That IAF operation out of the blue killed 4-5-6? Palestinians near the Rafah border, and served as the opening phase for the ensuing Christmas-NewYear 2008/2009 Gaza war.
I recall this operation intended to escalate tensions to answer your question : Why not trying to do without those measures which Israel has employed during the past decades?
Why not try a different approach, such as: ending the blockade and occupation; embarking on a constructive neighbourly policy, so that there no any other measures needed by Israel to “defend” her citizen, neither “lawful measures” nor unlawful ones?
That is indeed quite a compliment David, though I am inclined to disagree. Most of Robert’s assertions have been of the recycled bumper sticker hasbara variety and most of his faux outrage and the rejection of his arguments has been particularly juvenile. In fact, I am ratehr perplexed that you would conclude otherwise.
Let’s bear in mind that we are talking about someone who recently tried to argue that hsi email address was proof of his muslim hertiage.
Annie,
You asked: “Do you mean you want hostage to cite which settlements Israel established since ’77?”
No. I was inquiring specifically into the “information” that the ICJ cited to brand Israel an unlawfully occupying power, since Res. 242 does not. The ICJ cites no legal authority or precedent.
You said: “no one claimed Israel “forced transferred” the settlers. but they did “deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”
The ICJ ruling states: “That provision prohibits not only deportations or forced transfers of population such as those carried out during the Second World War, but also any measures taken by an occupying Power in order to organize or encourage transfers of parts of its own population into the occupied territory.”
This is, to put it mildly, an expansive and novel reading of Article 49(6). The ICRC in its own commentary on the Article states:
“The paragraph provides protected persons with a valuable safeguard. It should be noted, however, that in this paragraph the meaning of the words “transfer” and “deport” is rather different from that in which they are used in the other paragraphs of Article 49, since they do not refer to the movement of protected persons but to that of nationals of the occupying Power.
It would therefore appear to have been more logical — and this was pointed out at the Diplomatic Conference — to have made the clause in question into a separate provision distinct from Article 49, so that the concepts of “deportations” and “transfers” in that Article could have kept throughout the meaning given them in paragraph 1, i.e. the compulsory movement of protected persons from occupied territory.”
The Israeli settlers were not “transferred” or “deported”; they settled voluntarily. I am simply unaware of any previous applications of this interpretation of the Article to any other situation. Are you? Maybe hostage is.
Finally, you said: “Israel is arguing Palestinians should give up their international right of return for one thing. and then the issue you are discussing, settlements.”
There is no “international right of return.” Once again you are defining “international law” as whatever you happen to agree with. Resolution 194 which recommended that that refugees “should” be allowed to return to their homes in the immediate aftermath of the 1948 War, is a General Assembly Resolution filed under Chapter VI of the UN Charter, and lacks the binding force of international law.
Says the UN:
“The basic difference between Chapters VI and VII is that under Chapter VII, the Council may impose measures on states that have obligatory legal force and therefore need not depend on the consent of the states involved. To do this, the Council must determine that the situation constitutes a threat or breach of the peace. In contrast, measures under Chapter VI do not have the same force, and military missions under Chapter VI would rest on consent by the state in question.”
The “state in question” in this instance, would be Israel, who does not recognize the legitimacy of Res. 194, and nowhere has ever agreed to implement it in the form of a right of return of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to Israel.
As for the settlements, they were designated by both parties in 1993 to be negotiated in the final status discussions, whenever those take place, that is. the Palestinians’ resort the the UNGA to circumvent Oslo is a breach of their agreement, but what else is new? I hope all the settlements are removed in a final peace, but in the meantime they are not illegal.
i’m ignoring you til you answer david’s questions.
Ouch!
It is neither expansive nor novel. Theodore Meron stated in 1967 that settling in the occupied territories constituted a breach of the 4th Geneva Conventions. The Israeli High Court agreed with him, which is why they have never ruled that the settlements were legal.
The designmation “transferred” doers not imply the trasnfer is involuntary.
The Israeli government has offered financial incentives to Israeli citizens settling in the occupied territories, incentives not made available to those living inside Israel’s recognised borders.
False. The right of return is one of the most fundamental rights granted to displaced persons all over the world and one which is anchored in several bodies of international law. It has historically been shown that the success of peace and security agreements in post-conflict zones is inextricably linked to the right of return of displaced persons and refugees to their homes of origin. This was demonstrated in Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, and Tajikistan.
link to journals.cambridge.org
Furthermore, Count Folk Bernadotte summed up in 1948 that the ROR was a fundamental human right.
No settlement can be just and complete if recognition is not accorded to the right of the Arab refugee to return to the home from which he has been dislodged…It would be an offence against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine, and indeed, offer the threat of permanent replacement of the Arab refugees who have been rooted in the land for centuries.”
Neither did Serbia recognize the legitimacy of right to return, but that didn’t matter. In any case, you are wrong.
Israel explicitly agreed to allow the refugees to return as a condition of it’s membership to the UN.
Irrelevant. Israel has violated every obligation of the 1993 agreement , so claiming that the the parts of the Olso accords that it finds advantageous are sacrosacnt while rejecting the rest is the height of hypocrisy and duplicity.
False again. Hostage ahas already explained in great detail that Palestinians had declared their statehood in 1988 and “statehood” was neither included nor enumerated in the list of final status issues.
So to summarise, the settlements are absolutely illegal, which is the position of all members of the UNSC, including the US.
Robert, Article 227 of the Treaty of Versailles declared that violations of international law were individually punishable. There were penal responsibilities for expropriating or destroying private or state property in occupied territories under the Hague rules of 1907. Raphael Lemkin and others who wrote about the German colonial enterprise during WWII said that the Liquidations Treuhanders (liquidation trustees) and other civilians that the Axis occupants entrusted with the expropriated property were individuals who were voluntarily imported for that purpose. Lemkin said that the fact some of the settlers had been moved against their will, might exclude their penal responsibility in assisting the enemy in acts of dispossession but does not provide any valid title to the property. He said “In cases where colonists have been settled on state property, the legal situation remains the same. The occupant has the right only to the usufruct of real property belonging to the state in the occupied country; he has no right to dispose of such property and convey title to it to other persons.” See “6. The Problem of Colonists” and “7. The Responsibilities of the Administrators of Sequestrated Property” in Raphael Lemkin, “Axis rule in occupied Europe”, 1944, Carnegie Endowment, page 45
The Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) prohibited wars of aggression and required the settlement of disputes only by pacific means and that any changes be the result of a peaceful and orderly process. Article 11 of the Montevideo Convention (1933) and Article 21 of the Charter of the Organization of American States (1945) prohibited military occupation or the threat or use of force and recognition of territory acquired by force. The UN Charter (1945) prohibited the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. In 1970 the ILC and General Assembly said that prohibition included military occupation. The Declaration of Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation Among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, UN General Assembly resolution 2625 (XXV), 24 October 1970 said:
*The territory of a State shall not be the object of military occupation resulting from the use of force in contravention of the provisions of the Charter. The territory of a State shall not be the object of acquisition by another State resulting from the threat or use of force.
*Every State has the duty to refrain from the threat or use of force to violate the existing international boundaries of another State or as a means of solving international disputes, including territorial disputes and problems concerning frontiers of States.
*Every State likewise has the duty to refrain from the threat or use of force to violate international lines of demarcation, such as armistice lines, established by or pursuant to an international agreement to which it is a party or which it is otherwise bound to respect.
General Assembly Resolution 3314 (XXIX), 14 December 1974, Definition of Aggression reaffirmed that:
*The territory of a State shall not be violated by being the object, even temporarily, of military occupation or of other measures of force taken by another State in contravention of the Charter, and that it shall not be the object of acquisition by another State resulting from such measures or the threat thereof.
Note that these resolutions are not international laws, but that the ICJ and ICC have recognized them as consensus-based declarations that reflect the state of customary and conventional international law.
Security Council resolution 242 did not authorize Israel to occupy any territory. It required Israel to withdraw its armed forces. Security Council resolution 338 ordered Israel to implement 242 immediately. General Assembly resolution 39/146 condemned Israel for failing to comply with Security Council resolutions and called for Israel to unconditionally withdraw its armed forces. It cited Israel’s continued occupation as a violation of the UN Charter and said that it constituted an act of aggression under the provisions of Article 39 of the Charter of the United Nations and General Assembly resolution 3314 (XXIX).
*The ICJ was asked to advise on the legal consequences of Israel’s actions “considering the rules and principles of international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, and relevant Security Council and General Assembly resolutions? The Court answered that the Israeli administrative régime in the territories had created a number of “illegal situations” as Higgins described the in the quote I cited earlier. The Court explained why Israel’s actions were illegal:
*The construction of the wall has been accompanied by the creation of a new administrative régime (para 85).
*That Israel had established settlements in violation of Article 49(6); that the Security Council had ordered Israel to rescind those actions and not to transfer parts of its own civilian population into the occupied Arab territories (120).
*A significant number of Palestinians had already been compelled by the construction of the wall and its associated régime to depart from certain areas, coupled with the establishment of the Israeli settlements which alter the demographic composition of the Occupied territory (para 133).
*Lastly, the construction of the wall and its associated régime, by contributing to the demographic changes referred to in paragraphs 122 and 133 above, contravene Article 49, paragraph 6, of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Security Council resolutions cited in paragraph 120 above (para 134).
*The wall, along the route chosen, and its assooiated régime gravely infringe a number of rights of Palestinians residing in the territory occupied by Israel including, inter alia, the jus cogens right of self-determination (114-137).
*The Court accordingly found that the construction of the wall, including in and around East Jerusalem, and its associated
régime, are contrary to international law (142-143) norms.
There are no exceptions, for either the Security Council or Israel, to the customary “jus cogens” norms and prohibitions that are reflected in Articles 52 and 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
That means Israeli armed forces cannot cross an international line of demarcation; announce that the invaded territory is their own “eternal capital” or “ancient homeland” – from which “they will never depart”; and then pretend that the “final status” of the territory can only be resolved through “negotiations” with the local resistance leaders that they have graciously chosen not to either deport, imprison, or target for assassination during a decades-long military occupation that is a thinly disguised joint criminal enterprise to implant hundreds of thousands of settlers in Jewish-only colonies erected on expropriated “state land” – “which will be annexed to Israel in any final settlement”. Israel can’t negotiate a valid final agreement that way or until the existing military occupation and its associated administrative régime are unconditionally withdrawn.
Can you cite any law or legal authority to justify this broadening of Article 49(6)?
I cited and quoted the official commentary on Article 49(6) above. It accompanied the original publication of the treaty itself by the ICRC. That in-turn had cited the travaux préparatoires or “preparatory work” contained in the ICRC Legal Commission’s report “Summary of the Debates of the Sub-Commissions”, pp. 61-62 and 77-78 – which was also the basis of the material in the ICJ Advisory Opinion and the preparatory work of the ILC draft of the Rome Statute. The Sub-Commissions for each of the four Geneva treaties spent two years drafting the Conventions and the reports (travaux préparatoires) that were distributed in August of 1948 to each of the Plenipotentiaries attending the XVIIth ICRC Diplomatic Conference, included a copy for the Provisional Government of Israel Observer, Dr. Katznelson. Article 49(6) had always been intended to prevent the practice of the Axis countries in WWII of colonizing occupied territory with their own citizens.
Israeli settlers have never been forcibly transferred into the occupied territory. But according to Lemkin and others civilians who voluntarily resettle, together with soldiers, and Israeli or Zionist organization officials that facilitate and subsidize them can all be held criminally liable. See for example the opinion of Israeli Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein (then Attorney General) in A-G: New Hague court may indict settlers for war crimes.
What was this “information”? Can you cite any?
Adversaries try to convict opponents with their own evidence. So, the UN and the interested state parties have been gathering information from their own fact finders, the truce supervision missions, and the Israeli government or UN delegation for decades. They routinely report on the basis of eye witness accounts, official Israeli government policy statements and published communications, information available from peer-reviewed journals and open public sources such as the Israeli and Palestinian central bureaus of statistics, and the state archives.
For example, in one of the posts above I supplied readers with information about declassified official Israeli government archive documents regarding the issue of settlements written by Theodor Meron and Moshe Dayan. The existence and contents of the memos are a matter of public record. A number of published sources contain all of the Israeli State Archive accession numbers needed to request your own copies. Now, imagine for a moment all of the documents and accession numbers cited and discussed in a typical book by researchers like Benny Morris, Avi Shlaim, and Ilan Pappé. Then, imagine the State of Jordan citing the works of Morris, Shlaim, Pappé and many others in Annex 1 to its written submission to the ICJ which was devoted to presenting the prima facie evidence of ethnic cleansing and illegal colonization. That evidence was never rebutted and it was all a matter of public record derived from official Israeli State archives. If a defense exists against the official documentary history of the State of Israel, the Court would have loved to hear it. Unfortunately, Dr. Alan Baker’s 230 page written submission for the State of Israel did not contain one.
The mountain of evidence that was presented to the ICJ included the 1,000 page dossier “Request for Advisory Opinion” that was submitted by the Secretary General and 49 Written Statements and dossiers from the Secretary, other interested state parties, and organizations of state parties. There was an 850 page written statement and dossier from Palestine containing material from the B’Tselem reports for 2002 and 2003; Meron Bevenisti, “The West Bank Data Project: A Survey of Israel’s Policies; the reports of the UN Human Rights Council and Special Rapporteurs Dugard and Ziegler; and the ICRC Statement to the Conference of High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, Geneva, 5 December 2000.
Do you believe that the Hamas regime is or has been at any time.
The Human Rights Council reports that you’ve criticized include reports from Dugard, Falk, Goldstone, and many others like B’Tselem, HRW, and AI say that they have committed war crimes. B’Tselem called on Hamas to renounce war crimes when it won the 2006 elections and John Dugard wrote: Persons responsible for committing war crimes by the firing of shells and rockets into civilian areas without any apparent military advantage should be apprehended or prosecuted. This applies to Palestinians who fire Qassam rockets into Israel; and more so to members of the IDF who have committed such crimes on a much greater scale. While individual criminal accountability is important, the responsibility of the State of Israel for the violation of peremptory norms of international law in its actions against the Palestinian people should not be overlooked.
Article 51 allows Israel to defend itself after an attack has occurred until the Security Council can deal with the situation in whatever way the Security Council sees fit. Israel can’t plan operations months in advance without notifying the Security Council; unilaterally decide to occupy territory without a UN mandate; annex East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, & etc.
Brilliantly put as always Hostage. This canard about negotiating the final settlements, and rejecting Palestinian pre conditions while Israel creates facts on the ground, violates prior agreements, and declares permanent arrangements for East Jerusalem is absurd to have to listen to. It’s a typical example of Israel tossing a coin and saying, heads we win, tails you lose.
This no doubt explains why Netyenyahu moved to block the release of official government documents that had been declassified after he came to office, citing what he said would be “a threat to Israel’s security”.
Clearly, the Israeli leadership has much to hide…..as if we didn’t already know.
This would expose your position for what it really is: a fraud, concocted to give the impression that international law hangs totally in favor of the Palestinians and their Arab supporters.
The Repertoire of the Practice of the Security Council says that terms that govern the final settlement include the prohibition against the threat or use of force contained in article 2 of the UN Charter and the principle that the acquisition of territory by war is “inadmissible”(e.g. never gonna happen). Israel does not have a mandate from the UN to occupy Palestine or retain any territory it occupied in 1967. The Palestinians have refused to discuss any more negotiations with the Quartet or Israel that are not based on the existing 67 borders. That explicitly means they recognize Israel’s existing borders and are not making any belligerent claims against Israeli territory. International law certainly appears to be on their side.
We are still waiting for Rober’s answers to David’s questions.
I just looked for Robert’s answers to David’s questions. Nothing yet.
Perhaps Robert Werdine has moved on?
israel is arguing palestinians should give up their international right of return for one thing. and then the issue you are discussing, settlements.
Those are good examples Anne. Here is an article from the Jerusalem Post that may provide an illustration. “Lieberman’s land swap plan illegal”. Despite the fact that it is considered illegal to involuntarily strip “Israeli Arabs” of their citizenship today, Lieberman and his advisors are planning on passing a law to do that, and then mounting a Supreme Court challenge on the basis of possible international support from the Quartet.
*In 1965 the Supreme Court banned al Ard and ruled that no Arab Party can field a list of candidates unless it accepts Israel as the State of the Jews living in Israel and elsewhere. At the time the Arabs had been living under martial law since 1948.
*In 1984 Kach was banned from fielding a list of candidates due to its demand that Israeli Arabs be deported from Eretz Israel. *In 1984 the Central Election Commission also banned an Arab party, Progressive List for Peace (PLP) headed by a former member of al-Ard. The decision was overturned by the Supreme Court, but only because insufficient evidence had been provided.
*In the same year the Homeland party was allowed to field a list because it merely called for deportation of Arabs from the administered territories. The Supreme Court has allowed the government to deport Palestinians from the administered territories on several occasions.
*Israelis in the administered territories are already Israelis.
*Now a former Kach party member is saying there won’t be peace for generations, but let’s exchange populations and territory in the meantime (which leaves us with no final settlement and more Arabs that might be deported from the territories, if an opportunity arises).
If Israel can’t strip the citizenship of people today, you might ask how did they accomplish it in 1948? Israel had no citizenship law of its own until 1950, so all the “citizens” were Palestinians. The Knesset and Supreme Court enabled the Jewish government to strip the citizenship of the Palestinian Arabs they had driven into exile or that had been displaced to parts of Palestine beyond the borders of the Hebrew state. The Knesset still enjoys legislative supremacy over the Israeli courts. So, the only thing that has really changed are the numbers on the calendar.
The question remains, can the “Quartet” and Israel agree to violate the prohibitions against displacement, threat or use of force, or any other peremptory norm of international law and still conclude a valid interim or final settlement treaty? The answer is no. The parties cannot codify or agree to condone an illegal situation with a treaty. I noted in an earlier post that the Court had ruled that the wall and the associated military regime had created an illegal situation because it had already displaced parts of the Palestinian population. A treaty cannot condone crimes against humanity. John Dugard noted that the UN’s participation in the Quartet had become improper because the Quartet appeared ready to accept a final settlement that accepted situations that the UN’s own judicial organ had found illegal.
In the ICJ Lockerbie bombing cases it was established that the Security Council can adopt a resolution that preempts a treaty (conventional law) obligation of one of the member states based upon the supremacy clause in the UN Charter. Article 103 says: In the event of a conflict between the obligations of the Members of the United Nations under the present Charter and their obligations under any other international agreement, their obligations under the present Charter shall prevail.
In that case the Security Council had ordered Libya to assist US and UK officials by extraditing the suspects, so that they could be tried on criminal charges. In the Bosnia genocide case the Court affirmed a preliminary objection which held that Article 103 does not preempt obligations arising from customary international law norms. The common sense test that was adopted was to ask the question could the Security Council order members to commit genocide? The answer was obviously no. The UN Charter is just a treaty and any treaty that violates a jus cogens norm is null and void. That customary rule was codified in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Here are the two articles I’ve mentioned in that connection:
Article 52
Coercion of a State by the threat or use of force
A treaty is void if its conclusion has been procured by the threat or use of force in violation of the principles of international law embodied in the Charter of the United Nations.
Article 53
Treaties conflicting with a peremptory norm of general international law (“jus cogens”)
A treaty is void if, at the time of its conclusion, it conflicts with a peremptory norm of general international law. For the purposes of the present Convention, a peremptory norm of general international law is a norm accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character.
The ILC study on fragmentation of international law said: Overall, the most frequently cited candidates for the status of jus cogens include: (a) the prohibition of aggressive use of force; (b) the right to self-defence; (c) the prohibition of genocide; (d) the prohibition of torture; (e) crimes against humanity; (f) the prohibition of slavery and slave trade; (g) the prohibition of piracy; (h) the prohibition of racial discrimination and apartheid, and (i) the prohibition of hostilities directed at civilian population (“basic rules of international humanitarian law”).”
Israel is a signatory to both the Geneva Conventions and the ICCPR. Both treaties contain prohibitions against forced deportation or population transfers and arbitrarily denying persons the right to return to their own country (one of the examples that you cited).
FYI, the XVIIth ICRC Diplomatic Conference that adopted the draft of the Fourth Geneva Convention was held in August of 1948. That was only a few days before its President, Count Folke Bernadotte, was assassinated in Jerusalem. During the plenary discussions a declaration was issued requesting emergency relief for the Palestinian refugees that had been displaced as a consequence of the armed conflict :
*The Representative of Lebanon, Mrs. Kettaneh said: In this connection I should like to say a few words about the Lebanese Red Cross. In consequence of the armed conflict which broke out as soon as the United Nations voted for the partition of Palestine, the towns, villages and the countryside in our homeland have witnessed the most terrible scenes of misery and distress. In these hundreds of thousands refugees from Palestine have left their homes, fleeing from the ravages of war. Here, at this meeting composed of delegates who are seeking to alleviate human sufferings, I do not think it is necessary to emphasize the distress, the suffering and the pain which we are constantly witnessing. There has been a veritable flood of old people, women and children who have had to leave their country, abandoning their homes, their houses, their businesses, often everything they possessed. The neighboring countries are giving all possible assistance to these refugees; their hospitality is limited only by the extent of their resources. Lebanon is a small country, and yet it has made an immense effort to apply the humanitarian principles which inspire it; it has done everything in its power to alleviate the sufferings of its unhappy guests. (pdf file page 61)
*The Observer from Israel, Dr. Katznelson, said: I wish only to make a few remarks. It is estimated by the United Nations’ experts that some 300,000 Arabs left their places of residence in Palestine but it must be absolutely clear that none of them has been deported or has been requested to leave his place of residence. As a matter of fact, all those who remained, for example, in Nazareth, which I visited before I left and which is now occupied by the forces of my Government, 40,000 Arabs remained in their places of residence and continue to live peacefully and normally. It is a great disaster that many thousands left without any reason and without being in any danger, even before the British left Palestine. (pdf file page 61).
*The Representative of Syria Dr. Kadry replied: I feel in duty bound to concur in the resolution which has been formulated, but I should like to point out that the representative of the Jewish Red Cross has taken advantage of the opportunity which has been offered him to bring into the discussion political questions which are outside the province of our Conference. I could reply to everything he said with regard to the refugees. I will not do so, for everyone knows that these refugees were forced to leave their homes and that those who refused to do so were killed. However, I will bow to the request of the Conference and will not prolong the discussion. (pdf file page 62)
The Arabs that remained in Israel lived under martial law until 1966. Israel has never offered anything but “arbitrary” excuses since 1948 to explain why it has prevented the refugees that were (supposedly) “never deported or requested to leave” from returning to their own country.
In “The Impact of Peremptory Norms on the Interpretation and
Application of United Nations Security Council Resolutions”, EJIL (2005), Vol. 16 No. 1, 59–88, Alexander Orakhelashvili explains that the powers of the Security Council are limited. It is unconditionally bound by (a) peremptory norms of customary international law and (b) the constitutional framework of the articles on the maintenance of international peace and security contained in the UN Charter.
Turning to the subject of resolution 242, Orakhelashvili said: The terms of a resolution, if vague, must be construed as requiring an outcome that is consistent with jus cogens. According to Gasser, ‘doubtful’ wording of the Council’s resolutions must always be construed in such a way as to avoid conflict with fundamental international obligations. Resolution 242 called for ‘a just settlement of the refugee problem’ in Palestine. ‘Just settlement’ can only refer to a settlement guaranteeing the return of displaced Palestinians, and other interpretations of this notion may be hazardous. The Council must be presumed not to have adopted decisions validating mass deportation or displacement. More so, as such expulsion or deportation is a crime against humanity or an exceptionally serious war crime (Articles 7.1(d) and 8.2(e) ICC Statute).
Judge Higgins explained that “This is not difficult – from Security Council resolution 242 (1967) through to Security Council resolution 1515 (2003), the key underlying requirements have remained the same – that Israel is entitled to exist, to be recognized, and to security, and that the Palestinian people are entitled to their territory, to exercise self-determination, and to have their own State.”
Israel is not entitled to negotiate for additional territory at gunpoint during a military occupation that has turned into an illegal situation. Any treaty obtained by threat of force will be null and void. Yet, when the Palestinians offer to drop their belligerent claims and recognize Israel’s existing 1967 borders, Israel threatens to forcibly annex the illegal settlement blocks. If the Palestinians are entitled to their territory, how can the Quartet and Israel demand that they negotiate borders? The government of Israel demands so-called negotiations, but will not allow the Palestinians to say no. It has adopted legislation that allows a national plebiscite to veto any peace agreement which involves Israel “relinquishing territory”.
For years now the US has been telling Israel the current situation is unsustainable, it’s about time Israel took that advice seriously.
I have no intention of answering questions that flow from nonsensical propositions. I’d rather have a go at your perverse version of Arab history, but that can wait. Here are some replies:
The ICJ noted that the depositary state considered Palestine’s undertaking valid. That was back when PLO headquarters was exiled in Tunisia. Nowadays the headquarters is in Ramallah and Palestine is a full member of the ICRC – just like Israel. FYI, any country that is recognized by 112 other states is more widely recognized than Israel was when it became a high contracting party. If you fail to treat Palestine as a state party you do so at your own peril. After the 2004 ICJ opinion, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, said that the ICJ decision creates a legal reality for Israel, which could serve as an excuse and a catalyst for activity against Israel in international forums, to the point of sanctions and that Israel should apply the Geneva Conventions on a de jure basis. That was very good advice then, and it’s still very good advice today.
The words “sovereign” and “independent” didn’t even appear in Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention, because the mother countries of the colonies practiced constitutive recognition and denied the statehood and independence of all of the signatories. So, those attributes aren’t among the criteria for statehood among those 19 states. Ralph Wilde explained that: “the ”racialized” concept of a “standard of civilization” used to be deployed by the colonial empires to determine that certain peoples in the world were “uncivilized”, lacking organized societies, a position reflected and constituted in the notion that their “sovereignty” was either completely lacking, or at least of an inferior character when compared to that of “civilized” peoples.”
The UN Charter mentions the term “sovereign equality”, but the preparatory works say that phrase was only retained when it was agreed that it means that all states have the same legal rights. For example, during the ILC’s first discussions on the Rights and Duties of States in 1949: “The first objection raised by Mr. Koretsky had been against the absence of the phrase “sovereign equality” from the Declaration. That phrase, which appeared in Article 2, paragraph 1 of the Charter of the United Nations, had been a novelty in international law when it had first been proposed at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference. Much discussion had resolved the question of its meaning into the exact equivalent of ” legal equality “, a definition which would be found in the reports of the Drafting Sub-Committee of the First Committee at San Francisco.”
To answer your question on Article 51 and the wall. The Court cited a codification of customary international law on the responsibility for wrongful acts of state and I happen to agree with that. A state cannot excuse its own wrongful conduct by pleading necessity if it has contributed to the state of necessity. The right of a state to exist does not entitle it to commit wrongful acts against others. The Court did not complain about he portions of the Wall on Israeli territory. If Israel had built the whole wall on its own territory; brought its innocent civilians home again; and then locked the gates and threw away the keys, the wall would not have been an ICJ case. I cited and linked some material from Jennings and Hersh Lauterpacht about self-defense and remedies. Seizing territory wasn’t one of them.
The Cuban Missile Crisis involved a quarantine on deliveries of nuclear missiles from Soviet ships, not a blockade or limits on any other items, such as the blockade Israel employs against the people of Gaza. Israel’s stated objective was to put the Palestinians on a diet and bring their economy to the brink of collapse. Nobody in Cuba went to bed hungry because there were fewer missiles.
Consent is irrelevant in international criminal law. That is pretty obvious if you review Israel’s Nazi and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law of 1950. Yoav Peled wrote that “In that law, Israel undertook to punish Nazi criminals for crimes committed before the state existed, outside of its territory, and in which neither the victims nor the perpetrators were its own citizens. The most celebrated case adjudicated under this law was that of Adolph Eichmann.” Israel employed the same statute against John Demjanjuk. Eichmann was abducted from a separate foreign state. So, consent and questions of sovereignty were not much of a consideration. Israeli officials think much differently when they are the intended targets of arrest warrants.
Robert :
“”What binding force in international law does the court’s ruling have since the Israel/Palestine issue is not in the jurisdiction of the General Assembly but of the UN Security Council, who did not request or authorize the ICJ’s involvement?”"
++++ Palestine question is under GA jurisdiction, not under SC.
“”The ICJ is the judicial branch of the UN General assembly.”"
++++ ICJ is a judicial branch of the UN, not only GA.
“”What binding force in international law does the court’s ruling have since the Israel/Palestine issue is not in the jurisdiction of the General Assembly but of the UN Security Council, who did not request or authorize the ICJ’s involvement?”"
++++ Because GA asked from ICJ to give clearance, is “security wall” legal when it is built in palestinian territory. And thats why SC didnt ask this because palestine question is not under SC jurisdiction.
“”The principle adversary claimant (the Palestinians) are not a nation state.”"
++++ Not yet. But they have a universally recognized right to self-determination.
“”Do they have any standing before the tribunal?”"
++++ No. Because palestine is not yet internationally recognized sovereign state. And thats result of occupation.
“”If so, are Tibetans and Kurds form Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey similarly empowered? If not, why not?”"
++++ In UN, their situation is seen as “internal matter” in UN.
“”The court deemed Israel an unlawful occupying power, branding the settlement of territory to be an illegal seizure of property belonging to another state.”"
++++ Very clear text.
“”Yet it also ruled that the territories were not a state.”"
++++ Not sovereign because of occupation.
“” It did so to demonstrate that Israel had no right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN charter,”"
++++ Wrong. Israel has 100% right of self-defence. That doesnt give right to built “security wall” to palestinian territory.
“”the court arguing that this applies only to attacks by a “state.””"
++++ Right.
“”In a further contortion, however, the court then argued that the territories are the de facto equivalent of a state”"
++++ Right.
“”and are thus extended the protections of the Geneva Conventions,”"
++++ Geneva conventions are allways on force, when there is armed conflict.
“”which covers only signatory states.”"
++++ Wrong. They apply allways when is armed conflict. Including non-state actors.
“”Now, can you please explain how a sovereign state can be an unlawful occupier in a territory not belonging to a state,”"
++++ The day, when Israel started to built settlements to palestinian territory, occupation came illegal.
“”thus forfeiting its right to self defense under Article 51 against terrorist acts committed by inhabitants of the territory because they are not a state,”"
++++ Google “sovereign state”. If only you could read that ICJ resolution. Its explained there.
“” and, yet, at the same time, that the territories are a de facto state, and can thus be extended the protections of the GC, which covers only state signatories of the Convention?”"
++++ Do you really think that makers of those Geneva convention laws, left a loophole where non-state areas are some kind of a “wild-west”. Where are no laws at all. In fact, its said in geneva convention first lines. Which ones you havent read.
David Samel,
I see that you concede the possibility that I “may” not be misrepresenting my ethnicity. That’s progress, I suppose. Let me just say, for the record, that I do not doubt that you are Jewish and the idea of impugning your ethnic/religious identity because of your critical views of Israel simply never occurred to me and that I would be ashamed to do so even if I did doubt it, which I do not. The notion that a person’s race or religion should somehow predetermine their worldview and opinions on anything is preposterous and offensive.
You said: “It is absolutely clear that you are well-steeped in the most sophisticated hasbara.”
David, I could equally point out that many of your assertions (comparing the likes of Shimon Peres and Yitzak Rabin to terrorists? Please) come right out of the PA/PLO propaganda playbook. However, it never occurred to me to call you a “propagandist” just because many of your views are similar to theirs. Sad you cannot give me the same consideration, and view me not as a human being honestly expressing his views but as a “devious and dishonest” conduit for Zionist/hasbara/troll propaganda. Sad indeed.
You said: “You claim a political journey from indoctrination in an Arab family background with anti-Israel sentiment who was informed by the likes of Edward Said and Robert Fisk, who was enlightened by Efraim Karsh and others. To me, you seem like a leading candidate for a job at the Israeli Foreign Ministry. You didn’t have to account for how you arrived at your opinions, but decided to do so to lend credibility to those opinions. Your story is not believable.”
David, let’s get one thing clear, here and now: I am the sole authority on what I believe and how I came to believe it. Period. It is not up for negotiation. If you do not even believe that I believe what I say I believe then it is difficult to understand how we can even have a conversation. Any further doubts you have are your problem and not mine.
You wondered earlier “how could you possibly credit the likes of Lewis and Karsh over Chomsky and Said?”
David, have you read Professor Lewis? He is arguably one of the greatest scholars on ME history and culture, ever. There are very few books by him that I have not read. His erudition, and his deep and abiding respect for all the diverse cultures of the ME, is simply boundless. I remember when I was sixteen I read Said’s “Orientalism” (1978), in which he described Lewis as a “perfect exemplification” of an “Establishment Orientalist” whose work “purports to be objective liberal scholarship but is in reality very close to being propaganda against his subject material”
Only in later years when I read Lewis for myself did I see the outrageous slander that Said had heaped upon him and his work.
It is true that Said did not always adhere to the anti-Israel script, and he was certainly no anti-Semite. He was a bitter critic of Arafat’s corruption and autocracy during the Oslo years, and this was to his credit. In fact, it was Said, ironically, who did much to influence my disillusionment with Arafat and my skepticism of his true motives in the 1990’s.
To Said, however, there was no such thing as a non-political endeavor; everything was a political statement, even when it was not intended. Jane Austen’s novels, he wrote in “Culture and Imperialism,” were apologias for racism and imperialism. The slave trade, in Austen’s “Mansfield Park,” was met with “dead silence.” Said Said: “In time there would no longer be a dead silence when slavery was spoken of, and the subject became central in a new understanding of what Europe was.”
There you are: Jane Austen, racist, imperialist apologist and slave-trade denier.
These transparent attempts to politicize literary criticism, and Said’s ignominious, disingenuous, and frankly political crusade against supposed “bias” and “racism” and “Eurocentrism” in other fields of study would contribute negatively to the trends of politicization and left-leaning politically correct indoctrination that would do so much to pollute and balkanize the institutions of higher learning in the 1980’s and the 1990’s. “Structuralists” like Focault, Lacan, and Derrida were his ideological soulmates.
As for Chomsky, please. Chomsky is and always has been nothing more than a two-bit, ideological polemicist. He is a linguistics professor who has always, for some strange reason, fancied himself a historian and political scientist. The hollowness of his scholarship, his mendacity, and his crude, predictable leftish anti-American and anti-Israel prejudices are the principal features of his work. And it is not only his writings on the ME and I/P conflict; his writings on Vietnam and the Cambodian genocide are a treasure trove of Communist useful-idiocy and argumentative obfuscation. His denial of the Cambodian genocide while it was happening, and, later when the evidence of it became undeniable, his putrid attempts to explain and justify it, and, then, his later attempts to misrepresent his writings on it and to, in effect, deny his denial altogether, were disgraceful and embarrassing to watch. No one except those on the radical, radical left (and, of course, the now-deceased Osama bin Laden, who recommended Chomsky’s books in one of his speeches) are even willing to take him seriously anymore. He has long ceased to count. I hesitate somewhat to compare him to Said, whom I still have a few mixed feelings about, but that you could rate him above Bernard Lewis is simply incomprehensible to me.
All in all, I regard my past association with the likes of Said and Chomsky as an episode of youthful folly, and an embarrassment of adolescent naïveté. I now know better.
Fisk is a somewhat different story. I can think of no writer who has alternately enlightened, educated, and utterly infuriated me over the years. I still regard his “Pity the Nation” as one of the classic accounts of the Lebanon war. It is a thoroughly riveting read. No one seeking to learn about and understand that long, sordid, and terrible war, whatever their views, can afford to neglect it. Fisk is a fearless, deeply knowledgeable, and intrepid reporter. He is also shamelessly biased, but his great reporting, insight, and superior intellect make him a great read on whatever he writes about, even when I disagree with him, which I usually do. I have always read him and always will.
David, let me just say one thing to you and everyone else on this blog: reading only the people you agree with is a frightful bore. I don’t know about you, but the idea of rejecting the value of, or refusing to read an author because of their race, religion, or political opinions is simply an alien concept to me. What matters is what arguments an author makes, and what facts and evidence the author adduces to support their assertions. I do, and have always prided myself on the wide diversity of my reading about not only the ME conflicts, but the history of the region in general. It’s good to absorb all views and perspectives, and then make up your mind. That is all I try to do.
On question #1:
Israel withdrew from some 98% of the occupied population centers in the 1993-2000 period, fulfilled the requirements of the Hebron and Wye River agreements, and in the 2000-2001 negotiations offered the Palestinians a sovereign state on 97% of the WB, all of Gaza, E Jerusalem as a capitol, the removal of all settlements contained therein, a right of compensated return to the new state and elsewhere other than Israel, all of which would be accompanied by a massive infusion of international economic aid; it was refused. The attempts by many to deny or downplay this refusal are shameful and dishonest.
Permit me to clarify something on Israeli settlements. In the aftermath of the 1967 War, many Israeli political and religious conservatives came to the territories bearing their scrolls and Torahs looking upon the newly conquered lands of Judea and Samaria as a kind of providential fulfillment of Israeli manifest destiny. Flushed with victory, they saw nothing wrong with settling the territories. All they forgot about was the Arabs already living there.
This decision, in retrospect, was a horrible blunder, as the majority of Israelis would surely concede today. My feeling is that this should never have happened. They are, and have been, an Israeli self-inflicted wound. The continuing building of settlements during Oslo was stupid and counter-productive and a clear attempt by Netanyahu to create an immovable reality on the ground in order to hold on to as much of the WB and Gaza as possible in the final negotiations. Barak’s offer, endorsed in the Clinton Parameters of Dec. 2000, to remove them from 97% of the WB and all of Gaza, however, showed that this was no impediment to a final settlement. The Gaza pullout of 9000 settlers in 2005 only underscored this. It is my belief that there should be a freeze on all settlement activity, but the absence of one is no excuse for the Palestinians to refuse face to face negotiations. That is ridiculous. In any event, though unhelpful and politically stupid, the building of settlements were not a violation of Oslo, as they were designated by both parties for consideration in the final status talks. And they are most certainly not “illegal.”
Any peace settlement is going to involve the removal of the settlements in the West Bank. Every realist knows that, including the Israelis. They are deeply unpopular with most Israelis. The ludicrous obsession of the Obama Administration and the UN with them is an enormous, pointless distraction. The rejection of the latest UNSC resolution concerning them was correct, but Susan Rice’s speech about it was an embarrassment. That the UN should even have been involved in the issue at all is itself ludicrous since it was agreed in 1993 that the settlements would be one of the final status issues to be negotiated between the two parties. Not even the Palestinians were making them a precondition for negotiations before Obama did. In any case, the Israelis have proven that they will withdraw from territory and remove settlements for peace just as they did in Egypt in 1981, in Lebanon in 2000, and in Gaza in 2005. All they need is a partner for peace.
On Question #2
I do not speak Arabic, though I know a few words. I did not rely solely on MEMRI and read these statements in a variety of English-version ME and Western media over the years. Some examples:
In a 1996 statement to Arab leaders in Stockholm’s Grand Hotel:
“We of the PLO will now concentrate all of our efforts on splitting Israel psychologically into two camps…Within five years, we will have six to seven million Arabs living on the West Bank and in Jerusalem. All Palestinian Arabs will be welcomed by us. If the Jews can import all kinds of Ethiopians, Russians, Uzbeks, and Ukrainians as Jews, we can import all kinds of Arabs to us…[The PLO] plans to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian State. We will make life unbearable for the Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion; Jews won’t want to live among us Arabs.”
Here was the real man, and his plan. The Phased Plan, to be exact.
Said one of Arafat’s chief deputies, Abu Iyad:
“According to the Phased Plan, we will establish a Palestinian State on any part of Palestine that the enemy will retreat from. The Palestinian state will be a stage in our prolonged struggle for the liberation of Palestine from all of its territories.”
Said the Arafat-controlled PA Radio on April 30, 1999:
“The land of Muslim Palestine is a single unit which cannot be divided. There is no difference between Haifa and Shechem (Nablus), between Lod and Ramallah and between Jerusalem and Nazareth…the land of Palestine is sacred waqf land for the benefit of all Muslims, east and west. The liberation of Palestine is obligatory for all the Islamic nations and not just for the Palestinian nation.”
Note: this is from the PA, not Hamas.
I could produce a few more, if you like, but I think you get the picture. Even Bill Clinton, speaking to the Palestinian leadership in December 1998, found it necessary to speak of the need to “end the practice of speaking peace in one place and preaching hatred in another.”
As I have written earlier, the evidence, both here and elsewhere, is overwhelming that Arafat never had any intention of making peace and simply used the peace process to pocket as many concessions as he could and entrench himself in the territories for the next round of conflict with Israel. His refusal to compromise and make peace at Camp David in the summer of 2000 and the months following are thus perfectly consistent with this plan of action. He knew there would be no peace. He knew more than anyone the whole culture of maximalist rejection that he himself had cultivated with such care over the decades. He had never attempted to educate or persuade the Palestinian people in the ways of peaceful co-existence with Israel or the necessary and painful sacrifices that would be needed to make a practicable, workable peace with Israel. That was not his style and never his aim. The whole culture of anti-Israel incitement and rejection not only continued under his tenure but flourished and intensified at his behest. To forgo the right of return, that sure recipe to Israel’s demise, to concede the legitimacy of a Jewish state in Holy Palestine, to know that Arab schoolchildren would someday read of him as the “traitor” who “surrendered” Palestine to the Jews, were simply out of the question.
Of course, Arafat was also well aware that making peace with Israel could be hazardous to his health; not for him the fate of Egypt’s Anwar al-Sadat. No thanks. Better to be a live rejectionist than a dead peacemaker. As for the hardships that a prolongation and intensification of the conflict would heap on his stateless and long-suffering people, well, that was their problem; and anyway, what mattered most was not the suffering of his people, but who he knew would get the blame for it: Israel. With images of violence, carnage and death flooding television screens, the UN, the Europeans, the whole cabal of “human rights” and “peace” activists on the internationalist left, and even many Americans would soon resume making all their familiar noises about Israel’s “occupation” and “repression” and in no time everyone would soon forget the peace he had rejected amidst all the fire and smoke and chaos of attack and counterattack. On that he could rely.
The cruelty and the cynicism inherent in Arafat’s strategic calculus were crucial to his success. The manner in which Arafat used the Oslo Peace Process to extract numerous concessions from the Israelis without making any in return was a masterpiece of Machiavellian diplomacy in which every ruse and stratagem advised by the 16th century Florentine diplomat were used with consumate skill and cunning. Diplomacy, for the Palestinians then, is merely war by other means. Of course all this makes a sham out of the words “peace process.” The difference between a war and a peace process is that in a war there is a winner and a loser; in a peace process both sides agree to lose something to win something. Both sides make compromises and concessions toward a common goal: peace. How can a peace-process possibly function and produce results if one side does all the compromising and conceding and the other side remains adamantly inflexible? It can’t. The sad truth is that the Palestinian leadership (both the PA and Hamas) demand nothing less than a full, uncompromising reversal of 1948. This impossible, unachievable demand is accompanied by a refusal to acknowledge any responsibility whatever for any role that the previous refusals to compromise and peacefully co-exist have played in the creation and prolongation of the conflict. They want victory, not peace, and the sufferings that a further prolongation of the conflict have and are inflicting on the peoples of the West Bank and especially in Gaza are a matter of complete indifference to them. But then again, what else is new?
On questions #3 and #4
The settlement of Jews in Palestine in the 1881-1948 period did not displace or dispossess the Arabs living there. They settled unoccupied land and/or bought the land they settled. The reality in 1937 was that there were some 400,000 Jews living in Palestine with over twice as many Arabs. What to do about it? Given the seemingly irreconcilable hostility of the Arabs to the Jews living there, the Mandate Authorities, like the UN later on, were attempting to solve a seemingly impossible problem in the most realistic manner possible. They chose partition. Said the Peel Commission in 1937:
“Considering the attitude which both the Arab and the Jewish representatives adopted in giving evidence, the Commission think it improbable that either party will be satisfied at first sight with the proposals submitted for the adjustment of their rival claims. For Partition means that neither will get all it wants. It means that the Arabs must acquiesce in the exclusion from their sovereignty of a piece of territory, long occupied and once ruled by them. It means that the Jews must be content with less than the Land of Israel they once ruled and have hoped to rule again. But it seems possible that on reflection both parties will come to realize that the drawbacks of Partition are outweighed by its advantages. For, if it offers neither party all it wants, it offers each what it wants most, namely freedom and security.
The advantages to the Arabs of Partition on the lines we have proposed may be summarized as follows:–
(i) They obtain their national independence and can co-operate on an equal footing with the Arabs of the neighbouring countries in the cause of Arab unity and progress.
(ii) They are finally delivered from the fear of being swamped by the Jews, and from the possibility of ultimate subjection to Jewish rule.
(iii) In particular, the final limitation of the Jewish National Home within a fixed frontier and the enactment of a new Mandate for the protection of the Holy Places, solemnly guaranteed by the League of Nations, removes all anxiety lest the Holy Places should ever come under Jewish control.
(iv) As a set-off to the loss of territory the Arabs regard as theirs, the Arab State will receive a subvention from the Jewish State. It will also, in view of the backwardness of Trans-Jordan, obtain a grant of £2,000,000 from the British Treasury; and, if an agreement can be reached as to the exchange of land and population, a further grant will be made for the conversion, as far as may prove possible, of uncultivable land in the Arab State into productive land from which the cultivators and the State alike will profit.
The advantages of Partition to the Jews may be summarized as follows:–
(i) Partition secures the establishment of the Jewish National Home and relieves it from the possibility of its being subjected in the future to Arab rule.
(ii) Partition enables the Jews in the fullest sense to call their National Home their own; for it converts it into a Jewish State. Its citizens will be able to admit as many Jews into it as they themselves believe can be absorbed. They will attain the primary objective of Zionism–a Jewish nation, planted in Palestine, giving its nationals the same status in the world as other nations give theirs. They will cease at last to live a minority life.
To both Arabs and Jews Partition offers a prospect–and there is none in any other policy–of obtaining the inestimable boon of peace. It is surely worth some sacrifice on both sides if the quarrel which the Mandate started could he ended with its termination. It is not a natural or old-standing feud. The Arabs throughout their history have not only been free from anti-Jewish sentiment but have also shown that the spirit of compromise is deeply rooted in their life. Considering what the possibility of finding a refuge in Palestine means to man thousands of suffering Jews, is the loss occasioned by Partition, great as it would be, more than Arab generosity can bear? In this, as in so much else connected with Palestine, it is not only the peoples of that country who have to be considered. The Jewish Problem is not the least of the many problems which are disturbing international relations at this critical time and obstructing the path to peace and prosperity. If the Arabs at some sacrifice could help to solve that problem, they would earn the gratitude not of the Jews alone but of all the Western World.
There was a time when Arab statesmen were willing to concede little Palestine to the Jews, provided that the rest of Arab Asia were free. That condition was not fulfilled then, but it is on the eve of fulfillment now. In less than three years’ time all the wide Arab area outside Palestine between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean will be independent, and, if Partition is adopted, the greater part of Palestine will be independent too.”
To call this proposal “ethnic cleansing,” recalling what happened, say, to Bosnian Muslims and Kosovars in the Balkans in the 1990’s and Armenians in Turkey in 1915, is quite wide of the mark. The Commission proposed, only proposed, a phased population transfer because they thought a large contingent of Arabs living in the 15-20% Jewish state would be a source of discord and instability for all concerned. They clearly had in mind the Greco-Turkish population exchange after WW1. A similar exchange would occur with the partition of Pakistan and India in 1947. Both were messy, but were seen as the only practical solution.
Early Zionists all dreamed big dreams about having all of Palestine for a state. All kinds of scenarios were spoken of. But by 1937 Zionists like Weizmann and Ben-Gurion knew they had to settle for much less. That was why they accepted the Peel Commission. Right wing extremists like Jabotinsky rejected it, but he was overruled. The idea of a population transfer had never been adopted by mainstream Zionists at the time, but they supported the idea when the Peel commission proposed it.
Senior British officials and Arab leaders like Emir ‘Abdullah of Jordan and Nuri Sa’ad, Iraq’s premier politician, all supported it as well. As Morris writes: “All understood that for a partition settlement to work and last, the emergent Jewish state would have to be ridded of its large and potentially hostile Arab minority.”
Said Ibrahim Pasha Hashim, Abdullah’s prime minister: “The only just and permanent solution lay in absolute partition with an exchange in populations; to leave Jews in an Arab state or Arabs in a Jewish State would lead inevitably to further trouble between the two peoples.”
All, however, understood that such a transfer could not be carried out forcibly, and there were no plans do so.
The Peel recommendations, however, were rejected violently and out of hand by Haj Amin al Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem. Like Hamas leaders today, he would not agree to the creation of any Jewish sovereign entity, no matter how microscopically small. All of Holy Palestine must be Arab and Muslim and that was that.
What to do about the 400,000 Jews now living in Palestine? They would have to go, the Mufti said. Like Arafat later on, he was quite explicit and graphic about the means by which they would “have to go” before Arab audiences, but before Westerners he was always more evasive and equivocal. Some of his testimony before the Peel Commission in 1937:
Question: “Does his eminence think that this country can assimilate and digest the 400,000 Jews now in the country?”
Al Husseini: “No.”
Question: “Some of them would have to be removed by a process kindly or painful as the case may be?”
Al Husseini: “We must leave all this to the future.”
To which the commissioners responded: “We are not questioning the Mufti’s intentions…but we cannot forget what recently happened, despite treaty provisions and explicit assurances, to the Assyrian [Christain] minority in Iraq; nor can we forget that the hatred of the Arab politician for the [Jewish] National Home has never been concealed and that it has now permeated the Arab population as a whole.”
The process by which the Mufti, a staunch, dear friend and ally of Hitler, would remove the Jews, would not be “kindly” to say the least. To call the Mufti and other like-minded extremists of the time proponents of ethnic cleansing, would hardly be a slander. Their words and their actions convict them without question or ambiguity. In 1948 the Mufti promised that the Arabs would not only reject the UN partition but “would continue fighting until the Zionists were annihilated and the whole of Palestine became a purely Arab state.” He had been saying the same thing repeatedly for more than two decades, and his were not idle words.
We thus cannot underestimate the scale of this problem all were all facing in 1937 and especially in 1947. The implacable and incurable hostility of extremists like the Mufti and others had rendered peaceful co-existence between Arabs and Jews of Palestine in a bi-national state to be impossible. By 1947 what, other than the forcible removal of the over 600,000 Jews in Palestine, was there to do? What, then, were the reasonable alternatives? The Arabs had made peaceful co-existence impossible, thus necessitating partition. Then the refusal to accept partition led inevitably to war, and one of the consequences of that war was the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem. The Arabs’ rejection of the 1947 partition was the progenitor of the Arab-Israeli conflict as we know it today. Everyone at the time knew that the Arabs’ rejection meant war. There would have been no refugee crisis if there had been no war. If the Jews really had meant to ethnically cleanse the Arabs, why did they accept the 1947 partition at all, which would have included some 397,000 Arabs living in the Jewish state? And why didn’t they expel and dispossess the 160,000 Arabs that remained in the 1949 ceasefire boundaries? Also, why did the Israelis agree to, and the Arabs reject the 1950 UN plan for resettling some 100,000 or more refugees within Israel proper?
Were the over 600,000 Jews then in Palestine simply going to pack up and leave or wait for another Holocaust?
And another Holocaust it would have been. As in 1967, the Arabs in 1948 made perfectly clear the war of extermination they were intending to wage.
Said the Grand Mufti: “murder the Jews. Murder them all.”
Said Ahlman Azzah Pasha, the Arab League’s Secretary General: “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre, which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.”
Said Ahmed Shukairy, then the Mufti’s spokesman: the war would result in “the elimination of the Jewish State…it does not matter how many Jews there are. We will sweep them into the sea.”
The 1948 war unfolded in two phases. The first phase was a localized, low-intensity conflict waged between Arab and Jewish militias and other fringe terrorists on both sides in the period between the Arab’s rejection of the partition in Nov. 1947 and May 15, 1948. The so-called “international phase” began on May 15 with the Israeli declaration of statehood and the Arab offensive on the new state.
In the late spring of 1948 Ben-Gurion saw the scattered, disconnected communities of the Yishuv and their vulnerabilities to attack. He knew they would have to be consolidated into a defensive perimeter or they would be annihilated piecemeal. This led to the formation of the Plan Dalet. As for the Plan, Benny Morris writes:
“The essence of the plan was the clearing of hostile and potentially hostile forces out of the interior of the territory of the prospective Jewish State, establishing territorial continuity between the major concentrations of Jewish population and securing the future State’s borders before, and in anticipation of, the invasion [by Arab states]. The Haganah regarded almost all the villages as actively or potentially hostile…the plan was neither understood nor used by the senior field officers as a blanket instruction for the expulsion of ‘the Arabs’. But, in providing for the expulsion or destruction of villages that had resisted or might threaten the Yishuv, it constituted a strategic-doctrinal and carte blanche for expulsions by front, brigade, district and battalion commanders (who in each case argued military necessity) and it gave commanders, post facto, formal, persuasive cover for their actions. However, during April–June, relatively few commanders faced the moral dilemma of having to carry out the expulsion clauses. Townspeople and villagers usually left their homes before or during battle, and Haganah rarely had to decide about, or issue, expulsion orders…”
The attempts by the likes of Khalidi, Pappe, and others to portray the Plan as a blueprint for the total expulsion and dispossession of the Arabs from Palestine is simply a conspiracy theory. It was a military operation to consolidate a defensive perimeter among the Jewish communities in Palestine in preparation of the war that the Arabs’ adamant rejection of the partition had made inevitable.
As the overwhelming array of evidence and testimony make clear, most Palestinians fled for three main reasons: to avoid being killed in the fighting, because of the breakdown in administration and services, but mostly because of the Dier Yassin massacre, an indisputable atrocity committed by the Stern/Irgun terrorists. The panic and the mayhem following the massacre were fanned mercilessly by Arab propaganda. They did not urge the Arabs to leave, as many have said; but they deliberately exaggerated the scale of the massacre for propaganda purposes. As Morris writes: “The most important immediate effect of the media atrocity campaign, however, was to spark fear and further panic flight from Palestine’s villages and towns. The broadcasts may, in part, have been designed to reinforce Palestinian Arab steadfastness. Yet their effect was quite the opposite: hearing of what the Jews had done tended to sap morale and precipitate panic.”
Certainly there were limited expulsions on a local scale. But Morris has asserted that “there was no Zionist policy to expel the Arabs or intimidate them into flight” though the Stern/Irgun were hardly distressed that they fled. Morris adds: “there was no blanket policy of expulsion.”
They were not ethnically cleansed; indeed, the pleas of the Jews of Haifa begging the Arabs there not to flee make heartbreaking reading. After Deir Yassin Ben Gurion sent a letter of apology to King Abdullah of Jordan, and dissolved and disarmed by force, the Stern and Irgun terrorists.
The attempts to rewrite the events of 1948 into an atrocity portraying the planned, deliberate ethnic cleansing of over three-quarters of a million Palestinians is distortion of the historical record, and a slander on the state of Israel. If the Arabs had compromised and accepted the creation of a Palestinian state in 1947, there would have been no war and no refugee crisis and everybody knows it. The attempts to take a tragic, complex historical event and reduce it to a simplistic, one-sided caricature is a testimonial to how politics and ideology have been, and are, polluting and distorting the writing, reading, and interpretation of history.
On question #5:
I think I can answer this question rather simply. In the first, disorganized phase of the1948 War both sides committed atrocities, some very brutal like the massacre of a bus load of unarmed doctors and nurses in revenge for Deir Yassin. In the second phase, the Arab regulars did not, and they generally they kept to the Geneva Convention. There were indisputably atrocities committed by both the Haganah and the Stern/Irgun in the 1948 War, by no means limited the Deir Yassin. Indeed, Morris estimates that Yishuv atrocities against Arab civilians probably numbered some 800 civilians and prisoners of war, far more than the Arabs had done to them.
In the Qybia incident, what began as a retaliatory raid obviously lapsed into an massacre of civilians, Sharon’s attempts to assert otherwise notwithstanding. David Ben Gurion, however, put the tragedy into context in a speech to the nation:
“The [Jewish] border settlers in Israel, mostly refugees, people from Arab countries and survivors from the Nazi concentration camps, have, for years, been the target of (…) murderous attacks and had shown a great restraint. Rightfully, they have demanded that their government protect their lives and the Israeli government gave them weapons and trained them to protect themselves. But the armed forces from Transjordan did not stop their criminal acts, until [the people in] some of the border settlements lost their patience and after the murder of a mother and her two children in Yahud, they attacked, last week, the village of Kibya across the border, that was one of the main centers of the murderers’ gangs. Every one of us regrets and suffers when blood is shed anywhere and nobody regrets more than the Israeli government the fact that innocent people were killed in the retaliation act in Kibya. But all the responsibility rests with the government of Transjordan that for many years tolerated and thus encouraged attacks of murder and robbery by armed powers in its country against the citizens of Israel.”
In all of the wars and incidents you cite (and those you don’t cite) I have no doubt that there have been cases of misconduct and collateral damage on an individual and small unit basis, as there are in all wars. Civilians have been killed by Israeli soldiers, and those allied with them, as in Sabra and Shatilla. (Read the Kahan Commission report if you think Israel tried to duck that one) The Lebanon war was a catastrophe for all concerned and I hardly think the Israelis murdered 20,000 people in cold blood. You seem to be overlooking the fact that Arafat and the PLO, and all the other assorted Phalangist and Syrian-backed groups made Lebanon into a seething cauldron of inter-warring factions. Over the years there were a lot of very, very, bad actors who have passed through the revolving door of the Land of the Cedars, David, and I hardly think the Israelis were the worst of them.
However, If you have evidence that the Israelis deliberately murdered civilians as a matter of government policy, I would love to hear your evidence.
On question #6:
My mother, like most members of her family, does not share all of my views. Most members of her family do not share any of my views. My mother does not hate Israel but she does believe that they are unfair to the Palestinians and she doesn’t like the settlements. She does not trust Netanyahu and thinks he wants to colonize the WB. The issues of the ME have always been hotly debated in my family ever since I can remember. Some of my family, one of my uncles in fact who made the Haj to Mecca, believes that Israel has no right to exist, and they all need to pack up and go “home”!
Robert :
“”Israel withdrew from some 98% of the occupied population centers in the 1993-2000 period, fulfilled the requirements of the Hebron and Wye River agreements, and in the 2000-2001 negotiations offered the Palestinians a sovereign state on 97% of the WB, all of Gaza, E Jerusalem as a capitol, the removal of all settlements contained therein, a right of compensated return to the new state and elsewhere other than Israel, all of which would be accompanied by a massive infusion of international economic aid; it was refused. The attempts by many to deny or downplay this refusal are shameful and dishonest.”"
++++ And continue occupation, without 100 % sovereignty to palestinians to their territory. Seems that your hasbara site forgot to tell you that.
“”the building of settlements were not a violation of Oslo, as they were designated by both parties for consideration in the final status talks. And they are most certainly not “illegal.” “”
++++ Illegal under international law.
“”The settlement of Jews in Palestine in the 1881-1948 period did not displace or dispossess the Arabs living there.”"
++++ Between 1881-1947.
“”Early Zionists all dreamed big dreams about having all of Palestine for a state. All kinds of scenarios were spoken of. But by 1937 Zionists like Weizmann and Ben-Gurion knew they had to settle for much less. That was why they accepted the Peel Commission.”"
++++ Nope. Both arabs and jews dismissed Peel commision plan. This one of reasons why i read original sites, where this story is told.
“”The process by which the Mufti, a staunch, dear friend and ally of Hitler”"
++++ In time it was good idea to ally with Herr Hitler. I would tell you what is logic behind in this, but i know result allready.
“”the Arab’s rejection of the partition in Nov. 1947 and May 15, 1948″”
++++ I would have done the same.
“”However, If you have evidence that the Israelis deliberately murdered civilians as a matter of government policy, I would love to hear your evidence.”"
++++ I served in UNIFIL Lebanon one year. Saw it with my own eyes.
“”She does not trust Netanyahu and thinks he wants to colonize the WB.”"
++++ Give your mother a kiss from me, because she is right. And ask mama forgive to you, because you have been a bad boy.
In any case, the Israelis have proven that they will withdraw from territory and remove settlements for peace just as they did in Egypt in 1981, in Lebanon in 2000, and in Gaza in 2005. All they need is a partner for peace.
Nonsense. The settlers were not withdrawn from Gaza, they were re located to the West Bank.
Robert werdine, your outrageous dishonesty and arrogance are simply intolerable. I engaged with you in the first place because I thought that there may be some visitors to this website who might be influenced by your repetition of old, worn-out lies clothed in pseudo-scholarly camouflage. But now I see there is simply no end to your capacity for bullshit.
For example, I asked you to support your claim that Arafat gave screaming speeches in Arabic calling for the violent death of Israel. I didn’t make this language up, because you claimed, weeks ago, that you began to change your mind on I/P when you “saw Arafat pocketing numerous Israeli concessions, making none in return, talking peace with gullible western audiences, and screaming violent death-to-Israel speeches to Arab ones, sometimes in the same day.” Yet now, you don’t even try to substantiate your claim of “screaming violent death-to-Israel speeches,” implicitly conceding that you simply lied about this. You do not even supply links to the much milder statements you claim were made, apparently ashamed that you relied on hopelessly biased sources for those milder quotes as well. Not only that, but these mythical, illusory “screaming/violent/death” speeches were supposedly what caused you to turn your sympathy from Palestinians to Israel.
And this says nothing about your despicable defense of Israel’s “retaliatory” action against innocent villagers in Qibya, indiscriminately slaughtering about 70 people for the “offense” of being Arab.
btw, I have always conceded the possibility that you “may” not be misrepresenting your ethnicity, and have always considered that question of secondary importance. I still consider it highly unusual that you have embraced such a favorable view of Israel, but your presentation of thoroughly debunked hasbara, in a mystifying attempt to mislead and misinform, is much more important than your ancestry. I disagree with some of my colleagues here who think you’re harmless, and I continue to find you unexpectedly skilled but contemptuous of the truth.
I had intended to write a full answer to your extended lies, but no longer feel it worthy of my time. You are simply an eloquent liar, and it’s anyone’s guess as to why you devote so much time to such a depraved mission. Anyway, for what it’s worth, the following is my partial response before I gave up.
You use the all-purpose “Please” to answer my accusation that Rabin and Peres were terrorists. Intentionally killing civilians to make a political point is terrorism, and your refusal to acknowledge that they engaged in such behavior, as has virtually every Israeli PM, is willful ignorance. What did you think Rabin meant when he bombed southern Lebanon in 1993, killling over a hundred and injuring hundreds more, saying, “The goal of the operation is to get the southern Lebanese population to move northward, hoping that this will tell the Lebanese Government something about the refugees who may get as far north as Beirut.”
What did Golda Meir mean to accomplish when she bombed refugee camps in southern Syria and Lebanon in response to the 1972 Munich disaster; was she attempting to punish the guilty parties or attempting to exact revenge upon anonymous Palestinians? Do you think that Rabin and Peres represented a departure from Israel’s decades-long practice of killing Arab civilians when it seemed prudent to do so? Or do you simply think that randomly killing civilians does not constitute “terrorism” when practiced by Israeli Prime ministers against Arab civilians, even those in your mother’s homeland?
You lecture me to read those I disagree with. Actually, I have learned as much if not more about the I/P conflict from critically reading Alan Dershowitz than virtually anyone else. In fact, your voluminous comments are quite reminiscent of Dershowitz’s false and misleading arguments, though you may be slightly less crude and slightly more willing to acknowledge fault by Israel, at lease when pressed with specifics. Yet you do not cite him as one of your influences. Are you really unaware that you have adopted his views wholesale? You’ve practically memorized The Case for Israel and regurgitated it, albeit in slightly more polished language.
One last question, not that I have any hope you might be inclined to give an honest response. Does your defense of Israel bring you any remuneration? Is it at all part of your job, career, or profession? If so, it would go pretty far in explaining to me what is otherwise rather inexplicable. You have a bizarre, messianic ardor that has warped your moral compass, if you ever had any.
However, If you have evidence that the Israelis deliberately murdered civilians as a matter of government policy, I would love to hear your evidence.
Certainly. Google ‘extra judicial killings.’ Next.
Sure.
“In South Lebanon we struck the civilian population consciously, because they deserved it…the importance of Gur’s remarks is the admission that the Israeli Army has always struck civilian populations, purposely and consciously…the Army, he said, has never distinguished civilian [from military] targets…[but] purposely attacked civilian targets even when Israeli settlements had not been struck.”
— Israeli military analyst, Ze’ev Schiff (Haaretz, May 15, 1978).
For RW, the second, your essay May 3, 2011 at 11:04 am
• ..”If you have evidence that the Israelis deliberately murdered civilians as a matter of government policy, I would love to hear your evidence…..”
The same mysterious term “…as a matter of policy” is also found in Goldstone’s WashPost op-ed of 1st April:…”The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion. While the investigations published by the Israeli military … have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.”
But o n l y intentionally – as a matter of fact!
What other result could have been expected from the Israeli-internal / IDF-internal “self-investigations”?? Perhaps, that the policymakers and the Generals as the planners and military commanders of the Gaza War had found themselves guilty and officially confirmed their own crimes as the Damocles Sword of prosecution under international law is hovering over all their heads ???(e.g.Tzipi Livni-Olmert-Ehud Barak -Gen. Ashkenazy et al. …..) –
I think – since consistent, decade-long practice and tons of evidence don’t seem to satisfy you to prove war crimes committed throughout Israel’s history – the document you ask for is a piece of a Knesset approved policy document duly released by the State Archivar duly countersigned by all concerned responsible (e.g. those mentioned above) and their signatures duly certified by the Israeli Chief Justice?? Anything forgotten? May be an official translation of such document from Hebrew into some other intelligible language by 3 or more translators duly licensed under oath before the ICJ??
Robert ,
It’s good to see you actually making an effort to engage in substantive debate rather than wasting everyone ‘s time with your infantile distractions. Needless to say, we’ve heard all of these arguments before.
As some of us have pointed out, your ethnicity is of no concern, and it would have remained as such had you not politicized it (be it legitimate or otherwise) to leverage some kind of credibility or immunity from criticism.
Needless to say, David Samel has never used his own to win him privilege or authority on this forum, though it has obviously made it difficult for Israeli propagandists to label him an anti Semite.
Your designation as a “propagandist” is derived not only as a consequence of your text book Zionist views, but those in conjunction with your deceit and histrionics. Your first few posts were noticeably pious, then became highly emotional, and have now become noticeable detached, which indicates an effort to apply strategy as opposed to a simple desire to engage in honest debate.
Sad indeed.
In which case, stay clear of assertions that your view are irrefutable.
That’s quite a novel interpretation, to borrow a phrase from you.
Lewis’ prominence is obvious, but to suggest his attitude towards Middle Eastern cultures was anything other than contemptuous, prejudicial and racist is absurd. The man was clearly a product of his time and his prejudice and inherent racism towards the Middle East is impossible to ignore. Said’s description of Lewis is very appropriate.
With respect to the I/P conflict, Lewis insists that Arab rage against Israel was disproportionate to other injustices in the Muslim world, but the same could be said of all states. Far more Americans died in the civil war and the two world wars than in Vietnam, or Iraq, yet America’s remains far more pre occupied with those states than with Britain or Germany.
Emotion and conflict are seldom rational or easily measured. The conflict has incited passions on both sides of equal magnitude.
Said’s observations about Jane Austen’s novels are also appropriate and a little tongue in cheek. His criticisms were not ascribing any malevolent motive on Austern’s part, so much as illustrating how Austen’s saccharin whitewash of British history, as well as her aggrandisement of upper class British society of the period, have contributed to the British psyche, often in a destructive way.
Norman Finkelstein once described that the bashing of Chomsky had become a right of passage for the right wing “academics”. People like yourself have been trying to write his obituary for decades, yet he remains unaffected by your efforts and deservedly continues to be regarded by friends and foes alike as a pinnacle of scholarship and intellectual symbolism.
The right’s claim that Chomsky’s initial scepticism of the Khmer Rouge atrocities should render him irrelevant or discredited, is the epitome of hypocrisy and double standards. Chomsky was certainly not alone about his views at the time. Of course, when it comes to your own esteemed scholars, this rigour is put to one side.
You cite Benny Morris as a serious scholar, yet give him a complete pass for his lies, distortions and the fact that he has essentially walked back his ground breaking research for the sake of political and professional expediency. In 2008, Morris wrote a piece for the NYT endorsing an attack Iran, including the use of nukes, in response to an Iranian nuclear weapons program that does not exist.
Seeing as Karsh (talk about irrelevant!) denies Morris’ thesis, it’s even more amusing that you would cite both as having contributed to your “enlightenment”..
On question #1:
False. As Netenyahu openly admitted on video, he sabotaged Oslo by simply defining vast swaths of land and population centres as pre-defined military zones. It was a blatant violation of the Hebron and Wye River agreements.
It is you that is being shameful and dishonest. To begin with, the 96% of the West Bank referred to is in fact 95% minus the expanded municipal boundaries of Jerusalem, that Israel has already annexed, which made Barak’s offer more like 81% of all the West Bank.
The Israelis did not include parts of the West Bank they had already appropriated. An analysis of the Israeli proposals of December 2000 published by the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) concluded that Israel:
1. only proposed to relinquish control over between 77.5-81 percent of the West Bank excluding East Jerusalem, which most likely included Israel’s retaining of the Jordan Valley.
2. wanted sovereignty over one-third of occupied East Jerusalem (including Arab villages) and all of West Jerusalem.
3. wanted control of the third holiest site in Islam, al-Haram al-Sharif (which Israel refers to as the ‘Temple Mount’), where “Israel, incredibly, also demanded Palestinian agreement to the construction of a synagogue.”
The eventual Palestinian state would have consisted of four disconnected cantons on the West Bank, and thus would not have been viable.
The 2000-2001 negotiations spanned both the Camp David negotiations and Taba 6 months later. The offer at Camp David was so inadequate that even the Israeli foreign minister at the time, Shlomo Ben Ami, said that he would have rejected the offer had he been a Palestinian. At Taba, the Clinton Parameters were introduced and accepted, at least in principal, by both parties. The Taba talks were cut off early not by Arafat, but by Barak, who cited the excuse that the impending elections demanding his attention and Arafat was left standing at the alter.
On the contrary. Israeli academic Tanya Reinhart wrote a July 2001 article in Yediot Aharonot, that …all relevant government offices clarified repeatedly that no plan was being prepared for the evacuation of even a single settlement. Indeed, Shron milked the withdrawal from Gaza for all it was worth to ensure that such a withdrawal would be never be repeated. The settlers from Gaza were not moved to Israel but to the West Bank.
This is demonstrably false. The agenda to settle the occupied territories was no blunder, nor something that suddenly occurred to the Israelis in 1967. Going back as early as 1936, Ben Gurion stated in no uncertain terms the Zionist aspirations to settle throughout Transjordan, regardless of the terms of any partition.
The Zionist leaders were never satisfied with the 1948 borders. To this day, many Hasbarats still insist that the territory promised to them includes Jordan, thus the right, as personified by Menachem Begin even denounced the UN partition as illegal.
The 1948 borders were referred to as the borders of lamentation because they didn’t include East Jerusalem, the Jewish Quarter, Hebron, and, Rachel’s Tomb by Bethlehem.
It might be your belief, but you are wrong.
Israel signed and ratified the Pace Road Map in 2003, which included the obligation by Israel to end al settlement contribution under Phase I. Under the agreement, both parties were required to satisfy their obligations under Phase I before moving to Phase II, which was to be the negotiations.
Again, Sharon tore up that agreement and Nentyahu similarly rejected Phase I. The 10 month “freeze” amounted to a UNILATERAL attempt by Israel to change the terms of its commitment under the Road Map i.e. to unilaterally change an unconditional and indefinite freeze into a conditional and exemption-riddled “freeze” of strictly limited duration.
The Palestinians are perfectly justified to refuse to put up with that sort of nonsense, because to do so would mean acknowledging that Israel had a “right” to renege on an agreement.
And yes, the building of settlements were indeed a violation of Oslo, not to mention the Geneva Conventions.
And seeing as the settlements are a violation of the Geneva Conventions, they are most certainly illegal .
Every realist knows that no Israeli government will ever have the strength, clout or courage to pull this off. Contrary to your claims, Gaza was not a practice run to prove that it could be done, it was a marketing and political exercise to ensure it would never be repeated.
False again. The majority of Israelis support the settlements.
link to haaretz.com
Obama’s initial focus on the settlements was not a distraction and the ferocity with which Israel and the lobby fought him on this issue proves it is central to the IP conflict. The rejection of the UNSC resolution was a shameless capitulation and only served to highlight America’s isolation with respect to the IP conflict. I would certainly agree that Rice’s explanation was indeed an embarrassment, though for different reasons. Rice’s excuse for not condemning the settlements was that it would provoke the Israelis to dig their heels in and increase the rate of settlement construction.
What she was effectively admitting to the World, is that Israel is a rogue state that reacts irrationally and destructively to any censure. How anyone could therefore expect the Palestinians to negotiate with such extremists is indeed perplexing. Perhaps this was the message that Rice was indeed trying to convey to the world, while pretending to be back Israel?
Not only have the 1993 agreements been violated to the point of irrelevance, they have been superseded by the 2003 Road Map, which predictably enough, Israel has also violated.
False again. Yitzhak Rabin repeatedly assured Arafat in 1995 that Israel would not establish new settlements or expand present ones. In 2001, Gulf News reported that the expansion of the settlements was at the heart of the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.
Israel were driven out of Lebanon 2000. The withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 was accompanied by a hail of 7,700 shells fired into Gaza over a period of 10 months, and as Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar documented in their book, “Lords of the Land”, “After Israel withdrew it’s forces from Gaza, in August 2005, the ruined territory was not released for even a single day from Israel’s military grip, or from the price of the occupation that the inhabitants pay every day.”
As the Palestine Papers revealed once and for all, it the Palestinian that need a partner for peace.
On Question #2
According to the report, this statement was apparently made during a secret meeting, and there was no source. In fact, no recording exists of the speech.
Sorry, but that’s a fail.
There is nothing controversial about the statement. It declares that a Palestinian state will exist on the territory Israel withdraws from. He’s describing the two state solution.
What’s fascinating is that this alledged statement can only be found on right wing Islamophobic web sites like christianactionforisrael.org, arabterrorism.tripod.com, and palwatch.org.
Again there is no record of it so that too is a fail.
The picture we are getting is that you’re cheap propagandist who made wild accusations about
Arafat “talking peace with gullible western audiences, and screaming violent death-to-Israel speeches to Arab ones, sometimes in the same day” who is now backing away from those hysterical claims. It turns out that you’re a right right wing extremist, and an Islamophobe who trolls through fringe web sites to garner his talking points, none of which have ever been substantiated by credible news sources.
The other picture we are getting is your insufferable double standards and hypocrisy. We have countless quotes from Ben Gurion through to Netenyahu displaying far more extreme duplicity, but that doesn’t concern you in the least.
Citing Bill “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” Clinton, who having dodged the draft in Vietnam , proclaimed that he would take up arms and fight for Israel? There’s a term for that. It’s called scrapping the bottom of the barrel.
So you have thus produced absolutely no evidence, that Arafat was planning more conflict with Israel. After the Gulf War debacle, Arafat was weakened and isolated. He was in no position to be dreaming about taking on Israel is an armed conflict.
It’s a blatant lie to suggest that Arafat refused to compromise and make peace at Camp David. The offer from Barak was delivered as a take it or leave it ultimatum. The fact that he returned to the table at Taba and not only agreed to the Clinton parameters, but stated, alongside Barak, that they were on the verge of a settlement proves otherwise.
False. After Oslo, he was able to curtail violence to such an extent that even Netenyahu rang him to thank him for his efforts. It wasn’t Arafat that shot Rabin.
First of all, the right of return, as stated by Count Bernadotte, is a fundamental human right, which Arafat has no authority to forgo.
Secondly, there was never any demand made of Arafat to concede the legitimacy of a Jewish state in Holy Palestine . In fact, no state in the world has made that concession, but in any case, the demand to be recognized as a Jewish state was first made by Netenyahu in 2009. The PLO did indeed recognised Israel in 1988.
Wow, what a corker! How ironic that he should think that making peace with Israel was so hazardous to his health when he ended up dying (killed by Israel according to a Sharon advisor), while under Israeli house arrest.
Your conspiracy theories about what motivated Arafat and what he was thinking, or not thinking, are tedious, boring, and completely unsubstantiated, so there is no point addressing them.
Colourful and hyperbolic BS in your part, but sadly, lacking any basis in reality. Arafat obtained absolutely no concessions from the Oslo Peace Process, not least of which was because Israel refused to observe any of the agreements.
Unless you are Israel and the middle man is your sugar Daddy and personal bodyguard, in which case the “peace process” becomes the “piece by piece process”.
You are right right, the peace process has indeed been one sided. The Palestine Papers gave us a true insight to how they’ve been played out.
Israel sits in the room and smirks as yet another hapless Palestinian negotiating team is dragged into the room by whoever happens to be the President of the United States.
At which point the Israel negotiator crosses his arms, furrows his brow, and drawls: “Well, I haven’t got all day, wadda’ gonna’ offer me?”
He will then reject that offer – regardless of what it is – and the only time they will unfold their arms will be to bang their fist on the table and bellow “That. Is. Not. Good. Enough!”
Your talking points are old news and no one is buying.
On questions #3 and #4
False. Beginning November 1947, through to May 1948, Israel expelled 300,00 Palestinians and destroyed hundreds of villages. Maybe your point was that the word displace is insufficient to describe what took place, in which case, I agree.
The problem was not only the Palestinian majority, but the fact that the Palestinians owned at least half the land.
(i) The Arabs had already been promised interdependence in 1915. What the Partition meant to them was independence on half the territory that had already been promised.
(ii)To claim that the partition delivered the Palestinians a respite from being swamped by the Jews is completely absurd, seeing as the Peel Commission was complicity is creating that very scenario.
(iii)The League of Nations (aka the UN) never provided any protection as alluded to by the Peel Commission.
Terre was no sacrifice on the part of the Zionist immigrants. They were recent arrivals being given half of someone else’s land. The Peel Commission was the epitome of colonialism – the sentiments of the indigenous populations were completely ignored in favour of the desires of the new arrivals.
No population or civlization throughout history has ever agreed to allow a settler colony to take half of their land. Hell, Israel refuses to give back what it took by force and you’re criticising the Palestinians for not agreeing to hand over what was rightfully theirs?
Nice try. There as no sign or evidence of gratitude on the part of the Jewish immigrants. Indeed, since before the turn of the century, the Zionist founders spoke openly with contempt about the indigenous populations and how to remove them.
In October 1882 Ben-Yehuda and Yehiel Michal Pines, two of the earliest Zionist pioneers in Palestine, wrote describing the indigenous Palestinians:
. . . There are now only five hundred thousand Arabs, who are not very strong, and from whom we shall easily take away the country if only we do it through stratagems [and] without drawing upon us their hostility before we become the strong and populous ones.” (Righteous Victims)
Israel Zangwill, who had visited Palestine in 1897, stated in 1905 in a speech to a Zionist group in Manchester that:
[We] must be prepared either to drive out by the sword the [Arab] tribes in possession as our forefathers did or to grapple with the problem of a large alien population, mostly Mohammedan and accustomed for centuries to despise us.” (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 7- 10, and Righteous Victims, p. 140)
Arthur Ruppin wrote in 1913:
“Land is the most necessary thing for establishing roots in Palestine. Since there are hardly any more arable unsettled lands. . . . we are bound in each case. . . to remove the peasants who cultivate the land.” (Righteous Victims, p. 61)
Arab fears that Ben Gurion’s real plans were to expand were not unfounded. In 1937, before he became Israel’s first Prime Minister, Ben Gurion wrote to his son:
A partial Jewish state is not the end, but only the beginning. The establishment of such a Jewish State will serve as a means in our historical efforts to redeem the country in its entirety….We shall organize a modern defense force…and then I am certain that we will not be prevented from settling in other parts of the country, either by mutual agreement with our Arab neighbors or by some other means….We will expel the Arabs and take their places…with the force at our disposal.”
Thus, there is no question that the removal of the Arabs by peaceful means or otherwise, was in the planning long before 1948. It is clear that to refer to the subsequent expulsion of the Palestinians as “ethnic cleansing” is in fact an understatement.
Easily debunked. In 1937, Ben Gurion wrote to his son that :
The establishment of such a Jewish State will serve as a means in our historical efforts to redeem the country in its entirety….
The idea of a population transfer was actually embraced by mainstream Zionists at the time, Ben Gurion included. In the 1930s, David Ben-Gurion expressed his strong support for compulsory transfer, crowing that “Jewish power” was growing to the point that the Jewish community in Palestine would soon be strong enough to carry out ethnic cleansing on a large scale (as it ultimately did). In fact, the Zionists knew from the start that there would be no persuading the Palestinians simply to leave voluntarily and that violent conquest would be necessary to implant the Zionist state.
Winston Churchill wrote as early as 1919 that the Zionists take it for granted that the local population will be cleared out to suit their convenience.
The argument that Ben Gurion and co were merely talking about a phased population transfer is simply baseless. At no stage was the transfer of Jews from Arab areas even mention, because the transfer was clearly being singularly considered for the Palestinians and not visa versa.
Clearly, there were plans for a forcible transfer from the very beginning, and the duplicity that you attribute to Arafat is clearly displayed by the like of Ben Gurion.
Amin al Husseini, who was of course, appointed by the British, was exiled from 1937, and played no further role in the IP conflict, so there is no need to invest any time discussing him here. He didn’t even command any following and his calls for a jihad against the British were ignored.
Of course, what’s laughable is that while you condemn al Husseiniand and Hamas of not agreeing to the creation of any Jewish sovereign entity, Truman, who pushed for Israel to be recognized at the UN, himself refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish sovereign entity. He deliberately removed any reference to Israel as a Jewish state from the UN Resolution.
It’s also ironic that the statement by al Husseini, that “We must leave all this to the future” and not be “kindly” is precisely the policy that Israel were about to adopt a decade later.
I take it you are including Zionist proponents of ethnic cleansing?
Oh what have we here? A disciple of Richard Witty. So when the Palestinians make inflammatory remarks, that is proof positive of their game plan and intentions, but when Zionists made equally inflammatory remarks, one has to assume they are speaking out of line, and to do otherwise is a slander on the state of Israel
That’s hilarious. In 1948, the Mufti wasn’t even in Palestine. Yisrael Galili, the head of the Haganah, indicated that apart from a few hundred supporters of the mufti, the majority of Arabs in Palestine did not want war.
The Arabs had made peaceful co-existence impossible? Was it the Zionists or the Arabs that were demanding a Jewish state and the transfer of the indigenous population to create a Jewish majority
That is provably false. The refugee crisis could have been averted had the Israelis been forced to comply with agreements Israel made with the UN as well as UNSC 194. Israel is the only state admitted to the UN upon condition that it agree to allow the refugees to return. Israel agreed and then typically, it reneged on the deal once it was admitted.
As Ben Gurion said, the partition was only the first step to reclaim the rest of the land and as we have seen since 1948, the ethnic cleansing has continued unabated ever since. There was no need to expel the 160,000 Arabs that remained. Israel had achieved it’s Jewish majority and had already set it’s sights on the rest of Palestine. The 160,000 remaining Arabs were not a priority.
Menachen Begin and Yitzak Rabin both debunked that claim, stating very clearly that they knew Nasser was no threat and was not going to attack. Johnson told the head of Israeli intelligence, Meir Amit, when came to Washington that the intelligence suggested Nasser was not going to attack and even if he did, that Israel would easily defeat him. Amit’s response was that Israel did not dispute these findings.
2 days later, Israel attacked Egypt.
It was hardly low-intensity. The Zionist terror squads, with full support from the Israeli leadership, began expelling Palestinians in November 1947, destroying hundreds of villages in the process. The Arab offensive of May 1915 was not on the state of Israel, but on Israeli forces based in Palestine. The Arab State who sent forces, who were Members of the UN, who could be censured for attacking a new regional Independent State. They weren’t censured. The Declaration on the Invasion of Palestine informed the UNSC of their intention, as required by the Charter.
It outlines the history of their legal argument and cites the relevant Chapters of the UN Charter. There was no threat to Israel. There is no UNSC resolution condemning the Arab States. They had a legal right and obligations under the UN Charter Chapter XI to administer and protect their ward.
Plan Dalet was already in place during the civil war in Palestine, and months prior to the the Israeli declaration. The formation of Plan Dalet Came long before spring of 1948.
The accounts therefore of Khalidi, Pappe, and company which illustrate that Plan Dalet was the basis for the total expulsion and dispossession of the Arabs from Palestine is therefore solid and far more credible than Morris’s whitewash.
Fanned mercilessly? So the massacre of 250 Palestinian at Deir Yassin was no big deal, but the reaction to it is was merciless?
What Morris and you deliberately omit, is that the Arab leaders were issuing orders for the Palestinians to remain in their homes and not flee.
You are simply making this up as you go along. How can you possibly gauge whether the broadcasts were designed to reinforce Palestinian Arab steadfastness yet have the opposite effect?
All that means is that he found no documentary evidence of it, not that there was no policy of expulsion. The Zionists had certainly toyed with the idea since Hertzl, and the Israeli leadership were definitely keen ion the idea. More importantly, it was precisely what the Zionists needed to achieve their ambitions, so the argument that the outcome was one one amazing coincidence that went according to plan stretches the bound of believability.
There is no question that they ethnically cleansed, regardless of that the Jews of Haifa were expressing at the time. In the orders handed down by the high command to the Zionist militias (which included Stern and Irgun), the word taher (cleanse) was used. By December of 1947, at least 400 Palestinian villages were destroyed.
Yitzhak Pondac, a top commander Zionist forces, witnessed the expulsions with joy:
“My heart is singing. There were over 200 Palestinian villages here and there are no more. It was necessary to destroy them, otherwise here there would have been another million Arabs among us.
The Stern and Irgun remained active throughout the conflict, along with other terrorist groups like the Hagana (aka IDF). In fact, the truth is sure to be a far greater indictment of Israel. After all, the Hagana thought nothing of killing their fellow Jews to achieve the Zionist ambitions. During WWII the Haganah bombed of the SS Patria in Haifa harbor. Apparently these brother’s keepers didn’t like the British plan to send European Jewish refugees to camps in Mauritius for the duration of the war. A couple hundred were killed so the terrorists could make the point that Jewish victims of the Holocaust were better off dead in Eretz Israel, than alive in Mauritius.
The events of 1948 are plain to see, in spite of the attempts by Zionists and Hasbara to create a version of events that simply defies credibility. Israel is a state that was founded on terrorism by terrorists, who went on to be honoured and celebrated by the state. The destruction of hundreds of Palestinian villages, and the subsequent efforts to hide the remains of those villages (such and planting European trees to hide them) proves that this was no accident and was a cynical and deliberate policy.
Hannah Arendt and Judah Magnes warned that partition would lead to a massive human catastrophe, but even if the Arabs had compromised and accepted the creation of a Palestinian state, Israel would have found a reason to go to war regardless. If the Arabs had accepted the partition, Israel would not have enjoyed a sufficient Jewish majority and democratic state, as they outlined in their declaration of independence. They would simply have been a democratic one.
The Palestinians played no part in the 1967 war, but Israel used the situation to steal land and continue the ethnic cleanse Palestinians regardless. If the expulsion of 1948 was a simply a consequence of the war, then the ethnic cleansing would have stopped there and then. It hasn’t and continues to this day.
Let me repeat what Ben Gurion wrote in the letter to his son in 1937.
i> A partial Jewish state is not the end, but only the beginning. The establishment of such a Jewish State will serve as a means in our historical efforts to redeem the country in its entirety….We shall organize a modern defense force…and then I am certain that we will not be prevented from settling in other parts of the country, either by mutual agreement with our Arab neighbors or by some other means ….We will expel the Arabs and take their places …with the force at our disposal.”
Do you get that Robert? Ben Gurion reveals that the partition was only a stepping stone and that the Zionsts had all of Palestine in their sights. They were never going to settler for a partial Jewish state and were prepared to use their modern defense force to get what they wanted.
It is your own conspiracy theory doesn’t hold water.
On question #5:
In the Qybia incident, what began as a retaliatory raid obviously lapsed into an massacre of civilians, Sharon’s attempts to assert otherwise notwithstanding. David Ben Gurion, however, put the tragedy into context in a speech to the nation:
And yet, we’re expected to believe that the Stern and Irgun were operating without the consent and/or implicit approval of the Israeli leadership?
No, but they did in attack and invade Lebanon on false pretences, which makes the subsequent murder of 20,000 Lebanese an Israeli war crime.
This has already been anwered, but here it is again:
In South Lebanon we struck the civilian population consciously, because they deserved it…the importance of Gur’s remarks is the admission that the Israeli Army has always struck civilian populations, purposely and consciously…the Army, he said, has never distinguished civilian [from military] targets…[but] purposely attacked civilian targets even when Israeli settlements had not been struck.”
— Israeli military analyst, Ze’ev Schiff (Haaretz, May 15, 1978).
Shingo, what an extraordinary response. I confess I did not have the stomach for this. This is major heavy lifting, and you deserve enormous credit. You convincingly “massacred” Werdine’s arguments one by one, if it’s not bad taste to use that term.
If I may, I would like to correct one thing toward the end. The Qibya massacre was perpetrated by an IDF unit led by Sharon under Ben-Gurion’s orders, not by Stern/Irgun. When condemnation poured in from around the globe, they tried the lie that the attack was conducted by Israeli villagers, not the IDF, but that lie had no more staying power than Werdine’s.
It occurs to me that Werdine is a hasbarist out of central casting. He claims an Arab/Muslim upbringing, early indoctrination against Israel, naive infatuation with Said and Chomsky that he now regrets as youthful folly, and with maturity came wide-eyed gradual understanding that everything in the hasbara playbook turned out to be true. He recommends to mondoweiss readers the writings of hasbara heroes like Lewis and Karsh. For “balance,” he condemns the more extreme settlers and even offers toothless criticism of Israel’s settelement policy. He has a masterful command of the entire arsenal, and unlimited amounts of time to spread his lies. Nothing about him rings true. While we are unable to confirm or deny his claims of ancestry, which are irrelevant anyway, his comments surely read like they were prepared by an Israeli Minister of Propaganda in a desperate attempt to reach large numbers of readers on a website the Ministry deems troubling and dangerous. Werdine is clearly a liar, but an interesting and unusual one. His verbal assault is carefully planned but he absurdly overplays his hand.
Shingo, once again, a tour-de-force! Jesus Christ. Mr. Lock-and-Load.
Shingo thanks for the point by point breakdown. As David says, who has the stomach for this? Werdine’s is the new hasbara 2.1.The man is inflicted with pseudologia fantastica. Has he ever once made a statement in support of Lebanon?
Werdine the Lebanese American
Shingo,
You are a giant on a diet of patience and reason.
Werdine, jonah and featguilty could never hold a candle to your brilliant and shinning deconstructive faculties.
And I betcha Benjamin, being committed cogs in the zio wheel, they’ll STILL come back at ya with yet another unrefined and limp-wrist argument (yeah they’re THAT predictable).
Really. Gracias shingo for a most excellent, systematic and thorough deconstruction of zio mythology/propaganda/lies.
Robert’s claim: Israel withdrew from some 98% of the occupied population centers in the 1993-2000 period
Shingo’s response: “False. As Netenyahu openly admitted on video, he sabotaged Oslo by simply defining vast swaths of land and population centres as pre-defined military zones. It was a blatant violation of the Hebron and Wye River agreements.”
This is, of course, not a response to Robert’s claim. Do you have one?
“The offer at Camp David was so inadequate that even the Israeli foreign minister at the time, Shlomo Ben Ami, said that he would have rejected the offer had he been a Palestinian.”
Yes, Shlomo Ben-Ami did say this. Virtually no one on the Israeli side did. You’re cherry-picking as usual.
“3. wanted control of the third holiest site in Islam, al-Haram al-Sharif (which Israel refers to as the ‘Temple Mount’), where “Israel, incredibly, also demanded Palestinian agreement to the construction of a synagogue.””
The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism. Don’t forget it when you talk about this issue as if the Jews have no reason to address it. And why shouldn’t there be a right to build a synagogue at a Jewish holy place?
Robert’s claim: Barak’s offer, endorsed in the Clinton Parameters of Dec. 2000, to remove them from 97% of the WB and all of Gaza, however, showed that this was no impediment to a final settlement.
Shingo’s non-answer: “On the contrary. Israeli academic Tanya Reinhart wrote a July 2001 article in Yediot Aharonot, that …all relevant government offices clarified repeatedly that no plan was being prepared for the evacuation of even a single settlement.”
Again, Shingo, this is non-responsive. Do you have an actual response to Robert’s claim?
“The settlers from Gaza were not moved to Israel but to the West Bank.”
Again, false. In fact, most are not resettled yet. Feel free to provide a source for your claim that most were moved to the West Bank.
Robert: “In the aftermath of the 1967 War, many Israeli political and religious conservatives came to the territories bearing their scrolls and Torahs looking upon the newly conquered lands of Judea and Samaria as a kind of providential fulfillment of Israeli manifest destiny. ”
Shingo: “This is demonstrably false. The agenda to settle the occupied territories was no blunder, nor something that suddenly occurred to the Israelis in 1967. Going back as early as 1936, Ben Gurion stated in no uncertain terms the Zionist aspirations to settle throughout Transjordan, regardless of the terms of any partition.”
Once again, a complete non-answer. What Ben-Gurion said in 1936 does not prove a fact about 1967. Ben-Gurion is not synonomous with every action the Israeli take. Moreover, one could ask, if this is true, why the Israel didn’t conquer Jordan, which would have been easy enough given their military advantage.
“Every realist knows that no Israeli government will ever have the strength, clout or courage to pull this off. ”
Again, your (incorrect) opinion, not a fact. Most Israelis believe that when push comes to shove, it will not be a big problem to evacuate the vast majority of the settlers.
“The majority of Israelis support the settlements.
link to haaretz.com”
There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. The poll was about whether Netanyahu should accept or reject the US demand to freeze settlement construction. That’s a different issue, having more to do with Israeli sovereignty than with settlement construction.
“Yitzhak Rabin repeatedly assured Arafat in 1995 that Israel would not establish new settlements or expand present ones.”
Source?
“It turns out that you’re a right right wing extremist, and an Islamophobe who trolls through fringe web sites to garner his talking points, none of which have ever been substantiated by credible news sources.”
LOL. Look in the mirror.
How ironic that he should think that making peace with Israel was so hazardous to his health when he ended up dying (killed by Israel according to a Sharon advisor)”
Conspiracy theory.
“Amin al Husseini, who was of course, appointed by the British, was exiled from 1937, and played no further role in the IP conflict, so there is no need to invest any time discussing him here. He didn’t even command any following and his calls for a jihad against the British were ignored.”
This is total BS. Husseini was elected head of the National Palestinian Council in 1948. From Edward Said:
“This committee [the Arab Higher Committee], chaired by Palestine’s national leader, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, represented the Palestinian Arab national consensus, had the backing of the Palestinian political parties that functioned in Palestine, and was recognized in some form by Arab governments as the voice of the Palestinian people.”
Edward Said and Christopher Hitchens, eds. Blaming the Victims (London, Verso 201)
“The Arab offensive of May 1915 (sic: 1948) was not on the state of Israel, but on Israeli forces based in Palestine. ”
LOL. The German invasion of 1940 was not on the state of France, but on French forces based in France.
“The accounts therefore of Khalidi, Pappe, and company which illustrate that Plan Dalet was the basis for the total expulsion and dispossession of the Arabs from Palestine is therefore solid and far more credible than Morris’s whitewash.”
Based on what? Your pro-Palestinian political opinion?
“Yitzhak Pondac, a top commander Zionist forces, witnessed the expulsions with joy:
“My heart is singing. There were over 200 Palestinian villages here and there are no more. It was necessary to destroy them, otherwise here there would have been another million Arabs among us. ”
Source?
“along with other terrorist groups like the Hagana (aka IDF)”
No credible historian refers to the Haganah as a terrorist group. This is just your way of referring to all Israelis as terrorists.
“During WWII the Haganah bombed of the SS Patria in Haifa harbor. Apparently these brother’s keepers didn’t like the British plan to send European Jewish refugees to camps in Mauritius for the duration of the war. A couple hundred were killed so the terrorists could make the point that Jewish victims of the Holocaust were better off dead in Eretz Israel, than alive in Mauritius. ”
This is vicious, vicious lie, the kind we’ve come to expect from you. The bombing was meant to disable the ship to keep it from leaving Haifa. link to en.wikipedia.org
Shingo,
That is truly marvelous. You have the patience of a saint to have typed a concise response to such blatant propaganda. Kudos.
Hophmi? You’re full of it. Your post is basically a cut and paste job from some “Hasbara for Dummies” propaganda site but the most agregious lie as far as I’m concerned:
Israel withdrew from its settlement activity on Palestinian land at any point. It never has. Even when the settlements in Gaza were dismantled, net settlement activity was still positive because the growth of settlements in the West Bank exceeded the loss of the Gazan settlements.
It’s no surprise you side with Zionist terrorists over the United States, either.
Actually, Shingo had answered Robert’s claim quite adequately and accurately.
Israel withdrew from 94% of the territory it captured in 1967. That is the oft-repeated phrase by Israeli propagandists who use spin and deception to trick readers into believing that Israel had made great concessions to the Palestinians.
But, comprising 94% of that territory is the Sinai Peninsula from which Israel withdrew in the aftermath of the Camp David accord with Egypt, a matter that has nothing to do with the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.
Similarly, the claim that “Israel withdrew from some 98% of the occupied population centers in the 1993-2000 period,” is another semantic trick.
link to mondoweiss.net
Hophmi. I had a good laugh at your desperation on this one:
Shingo:The offer at Camp David was so inadequate that even the Israeli foreign minister at the time, Shlomo Ben Ami, said that he would have rejected the offer had he been a Palestinian.”
You:Yes, Shlomo Ben-Ami did say this. Virtually no one on the Israeli side did. You’re cherry-picking as usual.
So Shlomo Ben, Ami, as the Israeli Foreign Minister, is “virtually no one”. Brilliant. To be completely correct, Ben Ami only became the Israeli Foreign Minister in November 2000, after Camp David. However, he was the CHIEF ISRAELI NEGOTIATOR AT CAMP DAVID. Yup, “virtually no one”.
Your desperation to negate the truth and offer excuses is palpable. Have you no shame?
And this one:
Moreover, one could ask, if this is true, why the Israel didn’t conquer Jordan, which would have been easy enough given their military advantage.
Are you really this ignorant of the 1948 war? Jordan had the only military force (British-trained and led) that was capable of
fighting the IDF on a somewhat level playing field . Israel couldn’t even wrest East Jerusalem from them, and you think that they could have taken all of Jordan? (Which of course would have also required ethnically cleansing Jordan as well, since Israel wouldn’t have been able to claim being a “democracy” with so many untermenschen (Arabs) around.) You can’t really believe what you wrote, but your desperation must have set in again.
Israeli fears of the Jordanian Army’s power was the reason that Israel negotiated a secret agreement with Jordan to split up Palestine between them. Jordan kept its part of the bargain and never attacked any part of the UN Partition Plan’s proposed Jewish State. Israel reneged on its part, attacking large swaths of the UN proposed Arab State and making them part of Israel. One of the earliest instances of Israeli recalcitrance and lying, part of a now long Israeli tradition.
“The Arab offensive of May 1915 (sic: 1948) was not on the state of Israel, but on Israeli forces based in Palestine. ”
LOL. The German invasion of 1940 was not on the state of France, but on French forces based in France.
And again, either extreme ignorance or outright dishonesty on your part. Israel had already invaded and conquered parts of the UN Partition Plan’s proposed Arab State by May 15th. The vast majority of the battles between the Israeli forces and the Arab forces were in and over these UN designated Arab State areas, not in and over areas designated as part of the UN proposed Jewish State. Israel was the aggressor on the proposed Arab State and ended up controlling more than half of it as well as violating the terms of the UN proposal by ethnically cleansing those Palestinians who lived in territory allotted to, or conquered by, Israel.
Feel free to provide a source for your claim that most were moved to the West Bank.
Will the NY Times do?
Many Evicted Gaza Settlers Go To West Bank, at Least at First
“So Shlomo Ben, Ami, as the Israeli Foreign Minister, is “virtually no one”.”
Should have read “virtually no one else.” But I’d expect you to read it literally for your own purposes.
“Moreover, one could ask, if this is true, why the Israel didn’t conquer Jordan, which would have been easy enough given their military advantage. ”
I didn’t mean only in 1948, genius child.
“The vast majority of the battles between the Israeli forces and the Arab forces were in and over these UN designated Arab State areas, not in and over areas designated as part of the UN proposed Jewish State. ”
Again, the day after the Declaraction of Independence, Tel Aviv was bombed.
“Feel free to provide a source for your claim that most were moved to the West Bank.
Will the NY Times do?”
The claim was that most of the Jewish community of Gaza was moved to the West Bank. This says “many” and even then only as a “first stop.”
Shingo your comment May 4, 2011 at 4:02 am
• “Wow, what a corker! How ironic that he [Arafat]should think that making peace with Israel was so hazardous to his health when he ended up dying (killed by Israel according to a Sharon advisor), while under Israeli house arrest.”
Also Uri Avnery has repeatedly made such statement in his world-wide distributed fortnightly IN-essays, that Arafat had been killed by Israel – by the way, a statement that has never been denied by any official GoI sources. You refer here to some Sharon advisor as a source confirming Israel’s direct responsibility for his death.
This is a question that has remained with me in abeyance all the way since the mysterious circumstances of his last days in Paris. The findings of the French doctors and Paris hospital (post mortem done?) have never been released and been treated as secrets.
Though circumstantial evidence around his factual imprisonment in the Muquata in Ramallah and plausibility may speak for a targeted killing (by slow poisoning) of Arafat –
can you perhaps give some reference to the Sharon advisor you mentioned or any other clarifying background to this remaining mystery?
“Even when the settlements in Gaza were dismantled, net settlement activity was still positive because the growth of settlements in the West Bank exceeded the loss of the Gazan settlements.”
Yes. Settlers have babies too. They are human.
“It’s no surprise you side with Zionist terrorists over the United States, either.”
It’s no surprise that you are unAmerican.
hophmi,
Thank you so much for your trenchant and detailed reply to Shingo’s incoherent non-response. You spoke the truth, as always.
David Samel,
It would appear my repose to your questions failed to please.
You spoke at length above of my “outrageous dishonesty and arrogance,” and my “end[less] capacity for bullshit.”
And not only that. I am a “hasbarist out of central casting,” and while I am “clearly a liar,” I am not only an “eloquent liar” but an “interesting and unusual one” who repeats “old, worn-out lies clothed in pseudo-scholarly camouflage” in the service of a “depraved mission.”
And finally: “You have a bizarre, messianic ardor that has warped your moral compass, if you ever had any.”
Well, then.
David, I simply don’t have the heart to be anything but amused by this kind of drama and hysteria. I gave you what I thought was a serious, substantive reply to your questions and you have nothing to offer but the usual hostile, histrionic name calling and more of your unseemly, paranoid obsession with my “beliefs.” Your inability to stomach a dissenting viewpoint with anything but the most morbid and intense suspicion of a person’s motives is a sight to behold. You seem to believe that none but a fool could honestly disagree, or come to disagree, with your cartoonish, one-sided, and thoroughly politicized view of the history of the I/P conflict, and that anyone who does a is a “plainly depraved” pro-Zionist/hasbara propagandist attempting to justify racism, genocide, ethnic cleansing, theft, dispossession, apartheid etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. The arrogance of your intolerance is simply breathtaking.
You said:
“You claimed, weeks ago, that you began to change your mind on I/P when you “saw Arafat pocketing numerous Israeli concessions, making none in return, talking peace with gullible western audiences, and screaming violent death-to-Israel speeches to Arab ones, sometimes in the same day.” Yet now, you don’t even try to substantiate your claim of “screaming violent death-to-Israel speeches,” implicitly conceding that you simply lied about this. You do not even supply links to the much milder statements you claim were made, apparently ashamed that you relied on hopelessly biased sources for those milder quotes as well. Not only that, but these mythical, illusory “screaming/violent/death” speeches were supposedly what caused you to turn your sympathy from Palestinians to Israel.”
Well, let’s see what I “lied” about.
The quote from the PA radio addresss came from a report from the Israeli PM office that was cited in the Boston Globe on June 30, 2002.
Arafat’s quote from the Stockholm conference is quoted from an article by Yedidya Atlas “Insight on the News” April 1, 1996, p.16. It was also reported by the Norwegian daily “Dagan.”
The quote from Abu Iyad is quoted from warren Rudman in his testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee, April 13, 1989.
If you have any evidence that these quotes are fabricated or inauthentic, please share it with us.
Now, here is a sampling of statements from Arafat and others from the beginning of the Oslo process in the fall of 1993 to the fall of 1996:
Here is Arafat asserting that the Oslo Accord is part of the PLO’s 1974 phased plan for Israel’s destruction: “[the agreement] will be a basis for an independent Palestinian state in accordance with the Palestinian National Council resolution issued in 1974 … The PNC resolution issued in 1974 calls for the establishment of a national authority on any part of Palestinian soil from which Israel withdraws or which is liberated.” (Radio Monte Carlo, Sept. 1, 1993)
Faisal Husseini in a speech at Bir Zeit University on November 22: “Everything you see and hear today is for tactical and strategic reasons. We have not given up the rifle. We still have armed gangs in the areas and if we do not get our state we will take them out of the closet and fight again.” (Ma’ariv, Nov. 24, 1993)
Arafat in a radio address: “It is a revolution until victory, until victory, until victory.” (Algiers, Voice of Palestine, Dec. 31, 1993)
Arafat during a speech in Gaza: “The heroic intifada, which has entered its seventh year, is an extension of the 29-year old Palestinian revolution and will go on relentlessly … It is continuing, continuing, continuing.” (Associated Press, Jan. 7, 1994)
Jibril Rajoub in an interview: “Rabin has to remove all the settlers from the West Bank and Gaza and transfer them to hell.” He later warned: “We shall distribute weapons to the Palestinian residents and return to the armed struggle.” (Yediot Ahronot, March 4, 1994)
Arafat’s Johannesburg Speech (Ha’aretz, May 23,1994):
“The Jihad [Islamic holy war] will continue, and Jerusalem is not [only] for the Palestinian people, it is for all the Muslim nation.
You are responsible for Palestine and for Jerusalem before me [applause], the land which had been blessed for the whole world.
Now after this agreement you have to understand our main battle.
Our main battle is Jerusalem. Jerusalem. The first shrine of the Moslems.
This has to be understood for everybody and for this I was insisting before signing to have a letter from them, the Israelis, that Jerusalem is one of the items which has to be under discussion and not the state, the permanent State of Israel! No!
It is the permanent State of Palestine [applause]. Yes, it is the permanent State of Palestine.
And in this letter it is very important for everybody to know I insist to mention and they have written it, and I have this letter, I didn’t declare and publish it until now. In this letter we are responsible for all the Christian and the Moslem and Islamic holy sacred places.
I have to speak frankly, I can’t do it alone without the support of the Islamic nation. I can’t do it alone. No, you have to come and to fight and to start the Jihad to liberate Jerusalem, your first shrine.
In the agreement I insist with my colleagues, with my brothers, to mention that not exceeding the beginning of the third year, and after — directly after — the signing of their agreement, to start discussing the future of Jerusalem. The future of Jerusalem.
What they are saying is that [Jerusalem] is their capital. No, it is not their capital. It is our capital. It is the first shrine of the Islam and the Moslems.
This agreement, I am not considering it more than the agreement which had been signed between our prophet Mohammed and Quraish, and you remember the Caliph Omar had refused this agreement and [considered] it a despicable truce.
[note: The agreement with Quraish allowed the Prophet Mohammed to pray in Mecca, which was under Quraish control, for ten years. When Mohammed grew stronger two years later, he abrogated the agreement, slaughtered the tribe of Quraish and conquered Mecca.]
But Mohammed had accepted it and we are accepting now this peace offer. But to continue our way to Jerusalem, to the first shrine together and not alone.
We are in need of you as Moslems, as warriors of Jihad [in Arabic, Mujaheddin].”
Arafat in a letter to Saddam Hussein: “The Palestinian people will continue their war until the establishment of a state whose capital will be Jerusalem.” (Yediot Ahronot, July 24, 1994)
Jibril Rajoub in an interview: “We will continue to fight until the creation of a state with Jerusalem as its capital.” (Agence France Press, May 31, 1994)
Rashid Abu Shbak, a senior PA security official, on pre-1967 Israel: “The light which has shone over Gaza and Jericho will also reach the Negev and the Galilee.” (Yediot Ahronot, May 29, 1994)
Jibril Rajoub in a lecture at Bethlehem University: “We sanctify the weapons found in the possession of the national factions which are directed against the occupation … If there are those who oppose the agreement with Israel, the gates are open to them to intensify the armed struggle.” (Yediot Ahronot, May 27, 1994)
Arafat during a speech in Gaza: “Today, we are celebrating our independence for the first time on Palestinian land, and we will continue to celebrate on Palestinian lands that will be freed from the Zionist enemy. We will take all open and freed land, and we will establish our state on those territories from which the Israeli enemy leaves.” (Yediot Ahronot, Nov. 16, 1994)
Arafat in a letter to Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Yassin and Hamas terrorist Sheikh Hunamn, who killed 14 Israelis in an attack on Bus 405 in 1989: “My brother, Sheikh Yassin, my brother the holy Sheikh Abdelhadi Hunam, I recognize your participation in the struggle to free Palestine. Because of you, Palestine is free.” (Ha’aretz, Oct. 5, 1994)
Arafat in a speech on the 30th anniversary of Fatah’s founding: “We are going to continue the Palestinian revolution until the last martyr to create a Palestinian state.” (AFP, Jan. 1, 1995) He further stated, “We are all seekers of martyrdom…I say to the martyrs who died, to the martyrs who are still alive, we hold to the oath, we hold to the commitment to continue the revolution…” (Palestinian TV, Jan. 1, 1995)
Arafat in a speech in Gaza: “We are all on our way to die as heroes on the road to Jerusalem, the capital of the state of Palestine.” (Jerusalem Post, Jan. 30, 1995)
Arafat in a speech relayed by telephone to a Hebron rally: “Our nation is a nation of sacrifice, struggle and jihad.” (Voice of Palestine, Feb. 14, 1995)
Arafat on pre-1967 Israel: “Be blessed, O Gaza, and celebrate, for your sons are returning after a long celebration. O Gaza your sons are returning. O Lod, O Haifa, O Jerusalem, you are returning, you are returning.” (Ma’ariv, Sept. 7, 1995)
Arafat in a speech on September 3 publicly praising Abir al-Wahidi, involved in the murder of Israeli Zvi Klein in 1991, and Dalal al- Maghrabi, who took part in the coastal Road massacre in 1978 which killed 37 Israelis: “Yes, we are proud of the Palestinian girl, the Palestinian woman and the Palestinian child who fulfilled these miracles. The Palestinian woman participated in the Palestinian revolution. The Palestinian girl participated in the Palestinian revolution. Abir al Wahidi, commander of the central region and Dalal al-Maghrabi, Martryr of Palestine. I bow in respect and admiration to the Palestinian woman who receives her martyred son with joyful cheering. The soul and blood for you, O Palestine!” (Israel Channel Two Television, Sept. 19, 1995).
Arafat in August 1995: “The Israelis are mistaken if they think we do not have an alternative to negotiations. By Allah I swear they are wrong. The Palestinian people are prepared to sacrifice the last boy and the last girl so that the Palestinian flag will be flown over the walls, the churches, and the mosques of Jerusalem.” (Ha’aretz, September 6, 1995; The Jerusalem Post, Sept.7, 1995)
Arafat in a speech in Gaza: “The soul and the blood we shall sacrifice for thee Palestine.” (Jerusalem Post, Aug. 3, 1995)
Arafat in a speech at Gaza’s Al-Azhar University on June 19: “The commitment still stands and the oath is still valid: that we will continue this long jihad, this difficult jihad…via deaths, via sacrifices.”(Jerusalem Post, Aug. 3, 1995)
Arafat also praised Dalal al-Maghrabi, one of the perpetrators of the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre in which 37 Israelis were killed: “She was one of the heroes…She commanded the group that established the first Palestinian republic in a bus…This is the Palestinian woman…the woman we are proud of.” (Jerusalem Post, Aug. 3, 1995) He further stated, “We are all seekers of martyrdom in the path of truth and right toward Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Palestine.” (Ha’aretz, Aug. 3 1995)
Faisal Husseini in an interview: “There will be an intifada not just in Jerusalem, but in all the occupied territories and in all the Middle East.” (Israel Radio, May 21; Ha’aretz, May 22, 1995)
PA Justice Minister Freih Abu Middein in a radio interview: “We have a standing committee to follow up on the Jerusalem issue and the latest relevant developments. There will also be popular moves to mobilize resources in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, even if this calls for a new intifada, no matter what impact this will have. (Cairo Radio, May 20, cited in FBIS, May 22, 1995)
PA Justice Minister Freih Abu Middein in a speech read in Arafat’s name at Gaza’s Shawa Cultural Center: “I say once more that Israel shall remain the principal enemy of the Palestinian people, not only now but also in the future.” (Voice of Palestine, May 12, 1995) One month previously at Gaza’s Al-Azhar University, Abu Middein said, “We must remember that the main enemy of the Palestinian people, now and forever, is Israel. This is a truth that must never leave our minds.” (An-Nahar, April 11, 1995; Jerusalem Post, April 17, 1995)
Faisal Husseini in an interview with the Egyptian weekly Al-Arabi: “If Israel continues to undermine the path to peace there will be no other alternative but that called for by the Islamist Palestinian opposition the military option.” (Agence France Presse, May 1, 1995)
Arafat, at a rally in Gaza, compared the Oslo Accord with the temporary truce between Muhammad and the Quraish tribe, which was later broken, and said, “We signed that agreement in Oslo, and if any of you has one objection to it, I have one hundred objections.” (Voice of Palestine, April 16, cited in FBIS, April 18, 1995)
PA Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Sheikh Ikram Sabri: “Jerusalem is under occupation and the Moslems of the world should liberate it by jihad and put in under Islamic and Arabic authority. The jihad is not just a war jihad we are talking about all means to get back Jerusalem.” (Al-Sharq al-Awsat, April 7, 1995; Jerusalem Post, May 3, 1995)
Arafat in a message marking Land Day: “We promise you, oh our great nation, and we promise you, oh our pure martyrs, that we will continue the revolution until the victory and until the flag of my country flies over the towers of Jerusalem. This is a revolution until victory.” (Voice of Palestine, March 31, 1995)
PA Planning Minister Nabil Sha’ath in an interview with Al-Watan on February 28: “If it becomes certain that the negotiations process with Israel is ending in failure, there will be no other option other than jihad.” (cited in FBIS, March 1 1995)
Arafat in a speech in Gaza in Jan. 1995: “All of us are willing to be martyrs along the way, until our flag flies over Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine. Let no one think that they can scare us with weapons, for we have mightier weapons the weapon of faith, the weapon of martyrdom, the weapon of jihad.” (Parade Magazine, New York Newsday, June 25, 1995)
Arafat in a radio address: “The struggle will continue until all of Palestine is liberated.” (Voice of Palestine, Nov. 11, 1995)
Arafat on the intifada: “Our oath is still in force and our commitment is still valid to continue in the path of the heroes and the dead of the intifada.” (Jerusalem Post, Dec. 17, 1995)
Arafat on the death of Yahya Ayash, Hamas mastermind of suicide bombing attacks against Israel, whose presence in Gaza Arafat had denied: “a hero of the Palestinian people” and a “martyr.” (New York Times, Jan.8, 1996)
PA Planning Minister Nabil Shaath at a symposium: “If the negotiations reach a dead end, we shall go back to the struggle and strife, as we did for 40 years. It is not beyond our capabilities…If and when Israel will say, ‘That’s it, we won’t talk about Jerusalem, we won’t return refugees, we won’t dismantle settlements, and we won’t retreat from borders,’ then all the acts of violence will return. Except that this time we’ll have 30,00 armed Palestinian soldiers who will operate in areas in which we have unprecedented elements of freedom” (Jerusalem Post, March 15, 1996)
Arafat threatening Israel with violence: “If Israel rejects our demands there will be a reaction and we have a 30,000 man armed force.” (Israel Radio, June 7, 1996)
Arafat to a rally in Gaza: “We are committed to all martyrs who died for the cause of Jerusalem starting with Ahmed Musa until the last martyr Yahya Ayash.” (Jerusalem Post, July 28, 1996) Musa was the first member of Fatah to be killed in 1965, and Ayash, known as “the Engineer”, was the mastermind behind a series of Hamas suicide bombing attacks prior to his death in January 1996.
Arafat to Palestinian security forces in Gaza on September 24: “They will fight for Allah, and they will kill and be killed, and this is a solemn oath…Our blood is cheap compared with the cause which has brought us together and which at moments separated us, but shortly we will meet again in heaven…Palestine is our land and Jerusalem is our capital” (Ma’ariv, Oct. 4, 1996)
Arafat in an interview with the Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam, calls for “mass confrontations in all cities and villages to confront the Israeli aggression against Al-Aksa mosque” (cited in the New York Times, Oct. 4, 1996)
Arafat in an October 21 speech at the Dehaishe refugee camp: “We know only one word: jihad, jihad, jihad. When we stopped the intifada, we did not stop the jihad for the establishment of a Palestinian state whose capital is Jerusalem. And we are now entering the phase of the great jihad prior to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state whose capital is Jerusalem…We are in a conflict with the Zionist movement and the Balfour Declaration and all imperialist activities.” (Yediot Ahronot, Oct. 23, 1996)
Arafat in an October 10 speech before the Palestinian Council: “Negotiations have achieved nothing up until now. As a consequence, we must be ready in every way to confront all possibilities. You must understand what I mean by this.” (Near East Report, Oct. 21, 1996)
Oh Yes, I do indeed understand what he meant by “this.” Do you, David?
I don’t know about you, but in all these hostile, belligerent taunts, and warlike cries for Jihad and marching on Jerusalem with the blood of martyrs and what not, I’m somehow not feeling a kindly spirit of comity, compromise, or a friendly willingness to peacefully co-exist with Israel. There is, in all the above statements, a blood-chilling consistency with all of Arafat’s pre-Oslo statements about destroying Israel, and I cannot think of anything whatsoever in Arafat’s subsequent behavior until his death that shows them to be in any way exaggerated or insincere. They were all frighteningly and bloodily vindicated in his refusal of a state in 2000/2001 and his sponsorship of the second intifada.
You may not have seen in the above statements any reason to doubt Arafat’s peaceful intentions, but I did.
As I have said in an earlier post:
“Arafat’s charade as a statesman seeking “peace” was always like that of a violent mob boss who tried to insist that he was just a plumber or a humble shop keeper. He was a shifty double-talker, a recidivist liar, and a violent terrorist who donned the mantle of a moderate statesman when the occasion demanded it.”
In any event, your utterly baseless and risible assertion that I “lied” now lies in tatters, irreparably and irredeemably.
You said: “And this says nothing about your despicable defense of Israel’s “retaliatory” action against innocent villagers in Qibya, indiscriminately slaughtering about 70 people for the “offense” of being Arab.”
I wrote: “In the Qybia incident, what began as a retaliatory raid obviously lapsed into an massacre of civilians, Sharon’s attempts to assert otherwise notwithstanding.”
You call this a defense?!!
The raid was one of many responses to a whole slew of fedayeen terror attacks that had been aimed at Israeli civilians for some years. That is a piece of context that you deemed irrelevant to mention, as usual, and your assertion that it was for the “offense” of being Arab is both baseless and risible. In any event, it was indisputably a massacre, something which, your “devious and dishonest” attempts to mischaracterize my assertion notwithstanding, I made absolutely no attempt to deny.
As for your attempts to paint Rabin and Peres as terrorists, well, I don’t think so. You are here doing something again that you and your “colleagues” do a little bit too much of: portraying Israeli reactions to terror as “terrorism.” Operation Accountability was provoked by Hezbollah rocket attacks and SLA radio broadcast warnings of civilians to leave the areas to be targeted. Did Hezbollah broadcast to Israelis before kissing them with a volley of Katyushas? Did the Israelis mean to give Lebanon some pain because of Hezbollah’s attacks? Yes they did. Did they take adequate precautions to prevent civilian casualties? Not as much as they might have. Did they deliberately target and intend to cripple civilian infrastructure? Yes. Did they deliberately target innocent civilians? No.
Of the some 300,000 civilians who were temporarily (and deliberately, by Israel) dislocated, 118 were killed. If civilians had been deliberately targeted, there would certainly have been many more killed given the firepower the IDF had at their disposal, and they would most certainly not have given warnings to the civilians in the areas about to be hit. Also, if they meant to permanently dislocate those that fled, they would have advanced northward in a ground attack and nothing could have stopped them.
The same is true of Operation Grapes of Wrath in 1996, also provoked by Hezbollah rocket attacks, 50 of them to be exact. The shelling of the Qana shelter killing 106 civilians was an accident, and there is not a shred of evidence that it was not and you know it. The notion that this tragedy makes Peres a “terrorist” is laughable, and your attempts to paint he and Rabin as one betray the scurrilous attempts to blur the distinctions between genuine terrorism and the defense against it that is at the heart of the attempt to deligitimize the Jewish state.
David, Hamas/Hezbollah terror is the offspring of violent rejection and underscores what the real culprit in the failure of the peace process is now and has always been: an Arab rejectionism that has run long and deep, a fanatical intransigence that views any sovereign Jewish state in Palestine as illegitimate and views compromise and peaceful co-existence in terms of surrender and shame. The Palestinian leaders do not want a state beside Israel but in the place of it. This is, and always has been, the real obstacle to peace. The evidence of this obvious and longstanding reality is simply overwhelming.For peace, as Spinoza once said, is not merely the absence of war, but a state of heart and mind. Until the Palestinians make that peace in their hearts, all the haggling over borders, settlements, and recognition will be futile.
You claim to read authors you disagree with, notably Derzhowitz. I’m glad to hear it, but given your hysterical response to my assertions, I’m surprised you can stand the strain of reading his. I do not consider Alan Derzhowitz to be an influence on my views though I certainly agree with many of his views on I/P. And I like “The Case for Israel.”
That you could, in all seriousness, think that only a paid propagandist could espouse my viewpoint is an eloquent testimonial to your paranoia and the intensity of the chauvinism inherent in your worldview.
Not that it will do a bit of good, but the answer is: no.
Sad David, very sad.
In which case you’d be wrong anyway. Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzeziński, Seth Ackerman, Meron Benvenisti, Amira Hass and countless others also know this. So you do you Hophmi, but your Zionism won’t allow you to admit it.
Even Ehud Barak admitted that he went to the 2000 Camp David talks intent on having them fail.
Even the nut jobs in tel Aviv would have appreciated that occupying Jordan, which is much larger than Israel, would have been madness.
But not invaded.
So where is your counter proof that they did not end up in the WB?
Should have read “virtually no one else.” But I’d expect you to read it literally for your own purposes.
Yes, how evil of me to read what you wrote instead of what you claim you meant to write. And quoting the chief Israeli negotiator on whether the Palestinians should have accepted Camp David or not is cherry-picking? Or did you mean to write something less stupid than “cherry-picking” to describe Ben Ami’s quote but didn’t? You get more and more pathetic in your excuses.
I didn’t mean only in 1948, genius child.
Oh, so you meant 1967, when Israel just conquered the West Bank from Jordan? You seriously think that the US would allowed Israel to claim more than Cis-Jordan in 1967? Or that Israel thought it was possible at that time to “settle it”?
And weren’t you the one making the argument that what Ben Gurion said in 1936 had no relationship to what happened in 1967? Are you changing your story now, since you “didn’t mean only in 1948?”
“The vast majority of the battles between the Israeli forces and the Arab forces were in and over these UN designated Arab State areas, not in and over areas designated as part of the UN proposed Jewish State. ”
Again, the day after the Declaraction of Independence, Tel Aviv was bombed.
Your statement does not address or disprove mine. In your own words, it is “non-responsive”. Israel had already invaded the UN proposed Arab State months before May 15th and had already ethnically cleansed around 350,000 people from their homes in that land and in its own proposed territory. Israel was squatting on parts of the proposed Arab State and most of the battles of the war occurred on that soil. Your statement does not refute that.
The claim was that most of the Jewish community of Gaza was moved to the West Bank. This says “many” and even then only as a “first stop.”
Shingo never used the word “most”, so if you are going to go nit-picking then you might want to check your own nits first.
And the term was “at least as a first stop”, thereby NOT implying that they would all be moved elsewhere a some future date. Meanwhile, here’s an Israeli government plan in late 2006 for some of them. It’s a permanent arraignment, not a “first stop”.
New settlement Planned for former Gaza settlers in the West Bank’s Jordan Valley.
“Even when the settlements in Gaza were dismantled, net settlement activity was still positive because the growth of settlements in the West Bank exceeded the loss of the Gazan settlements.”
Yes. Settlers have babies too. They are human.
Nice hasbara touch. However, the West Bank settlement growth is not just the result of new babies. Israel is encouraging more and more Israelis to move there as well. And it constantly increases the physical size of those settlements, and their number.
In the meantime, Palestinians, who also have babies because they likewise are human, have more and more territory confiscated and turned over to increase the size of Israeli Jewish settlements. Apparently, despite your disingenous insistence that you disagree with the settlements, you have absolutely no problem with justifying the land grab with idiotic statements like the one above.
Try again genius. The 98% claim is not only meaningless (because the IDF remained in the WB anyway), but it is a case of Israel counting twice. So by declaring a town or village as a military zone, Israel counted that as a withdrawal.
Temple Mount was not within the 1948 borders that Israel declared, so it wasn’t all that important then, so why should it be part of Israel now?
There isn’t, so long as it’s not also a Muslim holy place.
I did respond. There were never any plans to evacuation of even a single settlement. In other words, the claim that Israel were prepared to withdraw from 97% of the WB and Gaza is hot air.
Robert’s argument was that the idea to settle the WB first occured to the Israelis in 1967. I debunked that claim.
And when Ben-Gurion’s statement from 1936 is realised in 1967, then yes, it is proof.
The poll was about whether Netanyahu should accept or reject the US demand to freeze settlement construction. That’s a different issue, having more to do with Israeli sovereignty than with settlement construction.
Rubbish. The poll says that 56% of Israelis back settlement construction, not whether Netenyahu should abide by US demands. Furthermore, Netenyahu has stated that even extending the feeze woudl have torn his government apart.
I have and I just verified I am not a ight right wing extremist.
Spread by a close advisor to Sharon.
After Israel declare independence, it ceased to be part of Israel, therefore, ISreali forces in Palestine were invaders.
that’s claled a distinction without a difference. The Haganah bombed a ship carrying Jews. They were either stupid of psychotic.
Thanks Robert for your very insightful, instructive and well-founded comments. Very much appreciated. I fully share your theoretical observations, as well as the very proper and objective account of the historical facts. Accurate also hophmi’s rebuttal of Shingo’s attempt to distort, as his habit, the facts without factual basis and substance. The latter appears to be a constant in the school of thought of the detractors of Israel. A pity that they fail to develop a more objective and positive attitude, promoting reconciliation rather than this perpetual ideological war against the Jewish state. Thus, a serious reappraisal of their entire system of knowledge and opinion is urgently needed. All the lies and the ill-concealed hostility can well become a disease of the soul, as we know. Time for a change.
More lies from Robert to cover up the old ones. I love this one: Israel under PM Rabin accidentally killed 118 civilians in southern Lebanon in 1993, because if they had “deliberately” been trying to kill civilians, they would have killed more, “given the firepower the IDF had at their disposal.” I guess that singlehandedly proves Israel did not intentionally target civilians in Gaza in 2008-9, because if they did, they would have incinerated 1.5 million with the nukes they had at their disposal. How could the Goldstone Mission members have missed this fundamental point? What is worse, Robert, your illogic or your moral depravity?
And of course, Peres killed civilians by mistake, and the Air Force and Navy attacked the USS Liberty over the course of several hours by mistake. Do you know of a single surviving sailor who would agree, or do you consider them all to be “deranged anti-Israel critics” (your quote)? A few months ago, the IDF shot to death a 91-year-old man, his grandson and another young friend, at first claiming they were terrorists, and then admitting that they were not; excuse no. 2 was that they mistakenly believed the victims to be threatening the soldiers. Gee whiz, Israelis must be the most accident-prone killers in history.
As to the Arafat speeches, you have claimed that this list which you accessed today from God knows whatever website convinced you to dramatically change your mind in the 1990′s, from thinking that Israel was the most evil nation on Earth to becoming one of its most ardent defenders. Your original description of “screaming violent death-to-Israel speeches” that caused a life-changing experience is unquestionably a lie. Why did you use such hysterical language, when you didn’t see or hear a single such bloodcurdling speech? Perhaps that language was accidental as well.
Qibya: You originally wrote:
You followed with a lengthy quote from B-G justifying the massacre. When I accused you of defending Qibya, you simply omit your lengthy reference to Ben-Gurion, and ridicule my accusation: “I wrote: ‘In the Qybia incident, what began as a retaliatory raid obviously lapsed into an massacre of civilians, Sharon’s attempts to assert otherwise notwithstanding. You call this a defense?!!.’” Robert, are you unaware of how easy it is to scroll up and see what you said originally about Ben-Gurion’s defense of Qibya? Whom do you hope to fool? And what did you mean “lapsed into a massacre”? What a twisted use of language!! Was this an accidental massacre?
Here’s another lie. Weeks ago, you wrote: “the entire refugee problem was created by the Arab’s rejection of the 1947 partition” and then added that Palestinians fled for three reasons, including:
But recently, when I asked you about Morris’s admission of two dozen massacres of Arab civilians in 1947-8, you acknowledge these events:
So you first blamed the Palestinian refugee crisis on the refugees themselves, citing only the single Deir Yassin massacre (and even then, you blame flight on Arab propaganda about the massacre rather than the massacre itself!!). All the while, you knew that there were many massacres totaling 800 deaths, which you intentionally concealed when discussing reasons for fleeing. I’m sorry, perhaps I’m being too harsh, and you accidentally forgot to mention the other massacres as well. (Were these also “lapsed” massacres?)
Btw, you say about Israel’s 1982 invasion of your mother’s homeland: “I hardly think the Israelis murdered 20,000 people in cold blood. You seem to be overlooking the fact that Arafat and the PLO, and all the other assorted Phalangist and Syrian-backed groups made Lebanon into a seething cauldron of inter-warring factions.” What do you think, Robert, that Israel cold-bloodedly murdered fewer people, or that all the deaths were accidental? Or did Israel intervene to save Lebanese civilians from the PLO and assorted Phalangist and Syrian-backed groups? How many Lebanese/Palestinians do you think were killed by Israel, and for what reason?
Your dishonesty about these matters confirms what we all suspect – that you also are lying as well about the less important facts of your personal history. I repeat what I said about you being a “hasbarist out of central casting” with a story that does not ring true. You have assembled one of the most comprehensive collections of hasbara I have ever seen, and nothing remotely explains the passion with which you dishonestly defend Israel. No, I don’t know precisely what you’re lying about, and can’t prove my doubts, but there’s a lot you’re not telling us. It is perfectly reasonable to keep details of your personal life secret, but once you decide to share them, you should be reasonably accurate. Your insufferable tale of how you were once naive like us but are now more sophisticated and wise leaves out an awful lot of relevant information, and is transparently designed to lend undeserved credence to your world view.
And always with the same arrogant ending: “Sad, so sad, very sad, how sad. Tsk, tsk.” My God, what a CREEP! Sorry, I typed and capped that word accidentally.
Thanks you for the kind words David,
I happened to have a day off, so I was able to waste a few hours taskling Robert’s diatribe. I’m quite sure that he would have taken the absence of an equally verbose and laborious reponse as a sign that he’d won the debate, which he woudl have reported back to the Ministry, which in turn, would probably have resulted in a flood of Robert bromides flocking to this forum.
Once you sift through the vaccuous rants, hyperbole and hysteria, you’re actually left with very little substance.
Personally, I think you over estimate him. His effort was little more than a spam bomb at the end of the day, intended to overhwhelm opposing views with sheer volume.
I see these guys all the time, rearing their ugly heads at Foreign Policy, Huggington Post and every other blog you might care to think of. They are simply cut and paste automatons that have volumes of pre prepared reponses tucked away. What gives it away is the lack of references or links they produce.
It might interest you to know that I came across another self proclaimed American Arab/Muslim over at Walt’s blog a week ago, who rolled out the same arguments and setiments as Robert. I suspect that Hasbara central casting are creating these prototypes to try and slip under the radar.
Of course Robert is a liar and yes, these frauds always overplay their hand. They used to pretend that they were impartial observers who were new to the subject wanting us to inform them, and then before you knew it, they were rolling our talking points stright from the Likudnick
web site and spewing racist and anti Arab diatribes.
Having made an appearnce draped in the phoney cloak of Arar/Muslim ancestry, Robert feingned outrage over the fact that we didn’t believe the charade and interprets this to mean that we are intolerant to dissenting opinion. Of course, if that were true, then eee, Jonah, Hophmi, DGB, Wondering Jew, GuiltyFreat and the grand poobah, Witty, would have been long gone by now.
BTW. Thanks for correcting me re the Qibya massacre .
Probably, though it’s interesting to note that Robert has stopped addressing me directly and focused his reponses directly to David. Never mind, I’ll be watching for his future comments and respond accordingly.
Thank you for the kind words.
One more thing, Robert. Your nonsense about the “Qibya incident” being “what began as a retaliatory raid obviously lapsed into an massacre of civilians” also was a defense, even without the long Ben-Gurion quote? What do you mean, it began as a retaliatory raid? What was the original intent of that raid? It certainly was directed at innocent civilians sleeping in their village, who shared the presumed ethnicity with the perpetrators of an attack that killed three Israelis. A “retaliatory raid” against innocents is properly called murder and terrorism. And what made it “lapse” into a massacre (is that like “lapsing” into a coma)? How did it change from the original plan? Did Sharon kill more people than anticipated? What is the boundary line between “retaliatory raid” and “massacre”? Ten bodies? Twenty?
Robert,
It’s not only your phoney facade that is coming apart, but your arguments are becoming increasingly desperate.
It’s not your dissenting viewpoint that has attracted morbid and intense suspicion of your motives, it’s the phoney story your produced about your enlightenment to and the lame justifications you cited – together of course with the text book hasbara talking points (and macabre obsession with Arafat) that has attracted out attention.
What you have presented is precisely a cartoonish, one-sided, and thoroughly politicized view of the history of the I/P conflict, one that has been fed to us for decades.
So the Boston Globe cited a report from Israeli PM office (of which here is no record) of a PA radio address (of which there is no recording).
And you’re wondering why no one is buying it?
In which case, where is the link? What web site did you get this from?
A quote based on the recollection of a Republican Senator giving testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee? Yeah right.
None of which comes even close to Arafat “talking peace with gullible western audiences, and screaming violent death-to-Israel speeches to Arab ones, sometimes in the same day”.
Thanks for confirming your own lies and deception Robert.
I’ll repeat it again. None of these statements comes close to Arafat making blood-chilling calls to destroy Israel.
You can repeat these lies all you want Robert, but unless you are hoping to reach a wider audience, you are wasting your time.
The claim that Arafat has anything to do with the second Intifada has long been debunked as has the lie that Arafat refused a state in 2000/2001.
The incident took place in 1949, which followed dozens of massacres on Palestinian civilians by Zionist militias, including Deir Yassin. So tell us Robert, who is deeming to raise this out of context?
Well I must say Robertm, that this is very odd and inconsistent of you. As someone who is obsessed with statements made by political leaders, it is hard to fathom how you could dismiss what could only be described as admission of terrorism by Rabin, when he said:
“The goal of the operation is to get the southern Lebanese population to move northward, hoping that this will tell the Lebanese Government something about the refugees who may get as far north as Beirut.”
if the goal was to to drive the population (ie. civlians) out of Southern Lebanon by indiscriminately bombing them, then how can that not be terrorism? If Arafat had declare that he had a goal to bomb the Israel population in Jerusalem to move Westward, hoping that this would tell the Israeli Government something about the refugees who may get as far north as Tel Aviv, you’d be hyper ventilating by now.
Bombing (and therefore killing) civilians in order to achieve a political objective is terrorism.
You might not think so, but that’s the definition of terrorism.
As for you monumentally stupid argument that Israeli reactions to terror is not “terrorism”, unless do you have any evidence that the entire civilian population of Southern Lebanon were party to any terrorist attacks?
Utter rubbish. From the start of the war in 1982, Israel used the phoney excuses of rocket attacks to justify their attacks, invasion and occupation of Southern Lebanon,
That was only one of the stated aims of Operation Accountability. The other was to displace refugees in the hopes of pressuring the Lebanese government to intervene against Hezbollah . That Robert, is deliberately target innocent civilians and thus terrorism.
Of course, Israel’s stated aims never reflect reality. Hezbollah were not just launching Katyushas at Israelis for no reason. UNIFIL reported that Israel had launched 1,224 bombing attacks and fired more than 30,000 artillery shells and rockets. Hezbollah retaliated with what AFP on 7/25/93 called, “A hell of a shelling lasting 10 hours without a pause.” For seven days Hezbollah forces conducted at least 30 operations along the Blue line targeting Zionist forces and their Lebanese surrogates.
The US and Israel then called for a cease-fire. The “July Accord” took effect at 6 p.m. on 7/31/93 and Israel withdrew and stood down. As usual, Israel vented their frustration on the civilian population, having failed to achieve any of its objectives. On 8/19/93 Israel’s PM Rabin told his cabinet: “ I regret saying this, but Hezbollah has defeated us.”
Congratulations Robert. You’ve just stumbled across an example of the targeting of civilians being official Israel policy.
That’s like saying that if Charles Manson was such a monster, he would have killed more people than he did. Israel gave no warnings to the civilians in the areas about to be hit.
Hezbollah had driven Israel out of 55% of South Lebanon, including Sidon, Tyre, Nabatieh and parts of the Western Bekaa, and given them a serious as whooping Israeli. The reason they didn’t advanced northward is because Hezbollah wouldn’t have let them.
False again. Grapes of Wrath was an another failed attempt by Israel to disarm Hezbollah and as always, non existent rocket attacks were used as a causus belli.
This aggression by Israel started on April 11, 1996 with bombing attacks in Baalbeck and Tyre at the Lebanese army base and for the first time since 1982, attacks on Dahiyeh in South Beirut. Israel bombed a wider area than in 1993 over a period of 16 days.
This invasion became known among some in South Lebanon as the “Four Massacres aggression”: Suhmor on 4/12/96; the bombing of the Al-Mansouri ambulance on 4/13/96; Nabatieh on Day 7; and the Qana massacre on the same day when 118 civilians were slaughtered and 127 injured. Hundreds of thousands were displaced with 7,000 homes completely or partially destroyed. Total civilian casualties exceeded 250.
Give it up Robert – the game is up. If you had read any of Robert Fisks work, who blew the lid in this massacre, you’d know it was no accident. Israel and it’s enablers at the UN had gone to extraordinary length sot cover this up. Thanks to the honesty of an IDF member, Fisk was able to come up with a surveillance tape that showed that the Qana rocket attack was carried out by an Israeli drone.
This attack was consistent with the Sabra and Shtilla massacre (orchestrated by Sharon), so completely in accord with Israel’s policy of targeting refugees.
What a stupid statement! Of course they are, violent rejection of occupation and guess what, such rejection is perfectly legitimate. Israel has absolutely no justification for being in Lebanon.
The Palestinian leaders do not want a state beside Israel but in the place of it.
Vacuous and unsubstantiated BS. It as the PLO after all that first came up with the idea of a two state solution. In fact, Ehud Barak is ion the record as admitting the goal of the first Lebanon war, was to kill the possibilityfo a Palestinian state.
This goal, he said, was effecting geopolitical change by banishing Fatah to Jordan, where it would unseat the Hashemite regime and create a Palestinian state. In that way, he continued (echoing a widespread but unfounded conspiracy theory ), Sharon hoped to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank.
link to mondoweiss.net
And you still want to claim that Palestinian rejection ism is the real obstacle to peace?
That makes a a lot of sense and explains a great deal about your dishionesty. “The Case for Israel” was plagiarised from a book later to be revealed as a fraud.
Such denial.
This sounds like a cry for help. Poor Jonah.
Shingo, you say, “Even Ehud Barak admitted that he went to the 2000 Camp David talks intent on having them fail.” I heard Barak say that on the radio and thought he was stupid/honest for admitting it, but I’ve never seen that in print. Do you have a cite or link?
“Try again genius. The 98% claim is not only meaningless (because the IDF remained in the WB anyway), but it is a case of Israel counting twice. So by declaring a town or village as a military zone, Israel counted that as a withdrawal.”
You said it was a lie. You haven’t substantiated that claim.
“Temple Mount was not within the 1948 borders that Israel declared, so it wasn’t all that important then, so why should it be part of Israel now?”
It wasn’t important? It’s been important for 2000 years, buddy.
“There isn’t, so long as it’s not also a Muslim holy place.”
This is telling. If a place is holy to Jews and Muslims, there should only be a Muslim shrine there.
“I did respond. There were never any plans to evacuation of even a single settlement.”
Still not a response.
“Robert’s argument was that the idea to settle the WB first occured to the Israelis in 1967. I debunked that claim.”
A quote from Ben-Gurion 1936 does not debunk a claim about Israeli intentions. Ben-Gurion is not synonomous with Israel. And given his views that Israel should have returned the territories to the Arabs, your reliance on him looks still more ridiculous.
“:Rubbish. The poll says that 56% of Israelis back settlement construction, not whether Netenyahu should abide by US demands. Furthermore, Netenyahu has stated that even extending the feeze woudl have torn his government apart.”
You’re still distorting the poll. The poll was about whether Netanyahu should listen to Obama’s call to freeze settlements. It was not a poll about settlement construction in general.
“I have and I just verified I am not a ight right wing extremist.”
Now look again and verify that all you do is pull quotes, many distorted, from pro-Palestinian and Islamist websites.
“Spread by a close advisor to Sharon.”
Adopted by no reputable historian.
“that’s claled a distinction without a difference. The Haganah bombed a ship carrying Jews. They were either stupid of psychotic.”
Where do you get off? You make a totally spurious claim about the Haganah purposely killing Jews to make a statement. When I demolish your claim by pointing out that the ship was bombed not to kill people, but merely to disable the ship to keep it from taking Jews back to DP camps, which is exactly the reverse of your claim, you call it a distinction without a difference.
“Shingo never used the word “most”, so if you are going to go nit-picking then you might want to check your own nits first.”
No, actually, he said simply that Israel moved the Gaza settlers to the West Bank. The plain meaning of that is that they moved all of them there. It ain’t true.
Seems to me if your war is about keeping Israel within the boundaries of partition and not about ending Israel as a state (forgetting for the moment the voluminous statements from Arab leaders to do exactly that) you don’t open the war by bombing Tel Aviv and blocking the road to Jerusalem.
“And quoting the chief Israeli negotiator on whether the Palestinians should have accepted Camp David or not is cherry-picking?”
If I quote Dennis Ross on the same issue, are you going to accept it?
Robert,
You reproduced a lot of Arafat quotes, but there isn’t a single one of them that indicates that the Palestinians have a phased plan against the State of Israel. The Palestinians have declared that East Jerusalem is their capital. The Oslo Interim Agreement did not return that territory to them. There was a strict five year limit on their acceptance of negotiations under the “Land for Peace” formula and they have an internationally recognized right to engage in armed resistance against the occupation.
Declassified records in the UK National Archives indicate that the Muslim holy sites in Palestine were not included in the brown “International Zone” on the Sykes-Picot Map and that the Muslim authorities were supposed to enjoy complete immunity from British interference in their management in accordance with Article 13 of the British Mandate. The “existing rights” of the Muslims to the Holy Places were preserved under both the terms of the Mandate and a chapter of the UN Partition Plan.
Jerusalem was the second capital city of the joint kingdom of the two banks of the Jordan, Arab Palestine and Transjordan. The Palestinians declared that Jerusalem was their capital in 1988, long before the Oslo Accords. On several occasions US Ambassadors to the UN have explicitly spelled-out that East Jerusalem is under Israeli belligerent occupation. For example, Ambassador Yost said that resolution 242 treated the entire Middle East situation, including Jerusalem, as a package. He said that Israel was bound by international law and that the US government had consistently refused to recognize the measures of expropriation, demolition, and construction taken by Israel in that part of Jerusalem that came under the control of Israel in the June war of 1967. See pdf file page 13 of 24 from the verbatim minutes of the 1483rd session of the Security Council
Notwithstanding all of that, at Lehi’s 70th anniversary celebration in Jerusalem, National Union MK Arye Eldad (whose father, Yisrael, had been one of Shamir’s partners in the leadership) said from the podium: “Count Bernadotte wanted to internationalize Jerusalem. In response, Lehi killed him. With his death, the concept of taking Jerusalem away from the Jewish people died with him.” link to jpost.com
That isn’t exactly correct. The UN has stated that Jerusalem should be the capital of two states. In “U. N. Security Council Resolution 242: A Case Study in Diplomatic Ambiguity” the author and chief negotiator of Security Council resolution 242, Lord Caradon wrote:
At the same time scores of Israeli settlements have already been established on the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan. The process of colonisation of Arab lands goes rapidly ahead in disregard of objections from nearly every Government in the world, including’ even the American Government. These actions of the Israeli Government are in clear defiance of the Resolution 242. They constitute an open rejection of the policy so widely supported in 1967. They are in effect an endeavour to annex all the Arab lands of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in an expanded Israel, and to condemn the Palestinian people to permanent subjection or exile.
…
(c) Jerusalem. There is a third main criticism of the 1967 Resolution. It is that no reference is made, in so many words, to the future of Jerusalem, and many would strongly and rightly maintain that without peace in Jerusalem there can be no peace in the Middle East. Why therefore did we not refer to the future of Jerusalem in the original Resolution?
We all assumed that withdrawal from occupied territories as provided in the Resolution was applicable to East Jerusalem. This was not questioned at the time and has only much more recently been raised in fierce discussion.
But, as I say, we who worked on the original Resolution, those who voted for it and indeed I think all concerned, assumed that withdrawal from occupied territories must include the area of Jerusalem which had been occupied by Israeli forces in the 1967 conflict. See Hugh Foot Caradon, Abba Eban, Arthur J. Goldberg, and Mohamed H. El-Zayyat, “U. N. Security Council Resolution 242″, January 1981, Georgetown University, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.
FYI, the Hebron redeployment only promised to give back 80 percent of one city to Palestine. The Wye River Agreement provided that Israel would withdraw in stages from 13.1% of land in the West Bank in three months and return to Palestine of a total of 14.2% of land in the West Bank. The talks were stalemated due to differences on the Stage III withdrawal of troops and issues such as Jerusalem, the settlement of refugees, and water resources. See the 2004 briefing on The Midddle East Peace Process
14 of the 15 countries that adopted Resolution 242 stated at the time, or subsequently, that the “Land for Peace” formula contained in resolution 242 requires Israel to withdraw from all of the occupied territories, not 14%.
I didn’t need to. Netenyahu substantiated that claim.
Your words not mine.
Just because you don’t like the answer doesn’t mean it’s not a response.
It does when his intentions manifest themselves in a material outcome.
Oh boy, you’re losing.
Are you seriously arguing that one of the founding fathers of Israel , regarded by many as the father of Israel, and the first Israeli prime minister, is not synonymous with Israel?
Are you feeling alright?
You’re seriously wasting your time Hophmi. Please explain how a poll that shows the majority of Israelis opposing Obama’s call to freeze settlements means they oppose the settlements?
Robert made the claim that most Israelis oppose the settlements. He produced no evidence.
Meaniwhile, most Israelis support east Jerusalem construction of settlements
link to ynetnews.com
Most Israelis back renewed settlement building
link to middle-east-online.com
The arument is pretty conclusive.
Pulling distorted quotes? You must be confusing me with Robert.
What reputable historians have even written about it?
Yeah sure. Those suicide bombers didn’t want to kill anyone, they just wanted to disable the buses or the pizza parlours right?
As anyone and they will tell you that when you place bombs near people they get killed.
The only this you are demolishing is your own sanity.
Where did they all go? You obviously know.
Why not? Wars are about disabling your enemy’s ability to fight and crippling their logistics.
Get a grip Hophmi. Dennis Ross (Israel’s lawyer) and Shlomo Ben Ami were on the same side. Are you suggesting that Ben Ami lied, and if so, please explain his motivation.
This should be good.
David,
The original article, by Akiva Eldrar, is no loner on line, but it appeared in Haaretz.
“I went to Camp David presuming we would not be reaching an agreement,” Barak said, surprising me. “I knew Arafat was planning an uprising in September.” Then, he explained, “I wanted the international community to stand by us when we hit the Palestinians. To that end it was important to prove we had done everything to reach an agreement.”
link to haaretz.com
“I went to Camp David presuming we would not be reaching an agreement,” Barak said …
Classic Barak posturing – sure I screwed things up, but I did it on purpose!
Shingo,
I found the Akiva Eldar piece you quoted from here:
link to news.walla.co.il
hophmi,
Israel never fulfilled its obligations under the Wye Accords, since the Stage III negotiations were never completed. Israel was only negotiating over 14 percent of the West Bank. The fact is that Israel has prevented Palestinians from utilizing the remainder of the territory, so there is little point in describing it as uninhabited.
Yes, Shlomo Ben-Ami did say this. Virtually no one on the Israeli side did. You’re cherry-picking as usual.
In 2003 the Quartet were required to begin promoting the recognition of the State of Palestine within interim borders. Former PM Ehud Barak wrote an article published in Yedi’ot Aharonot on 29 August 2003 which said that recognition would be a disaster. He recommended a 24/7 emergency project to “build a security fence around Israel, including the settlement blocs and Ariel”. He complained that private cabinet discussions of the decades old Sharon plan would not prevent the 2002 Saudi plan or the Quartet plan for a provisional state of Palestine from taking hold and filling the vacuum:
He proposed resetting the talks and returning to his Camp David proposal which had given the Palestinians nothing. The article was reprinted in Ehud Barak on Camp David: “I Did Not Give Away a Thing”, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Fall 2003), pp. 84-87
Another cabinet Minister on the Israeli side was Yossi Beilin, the Deputy Foreign Minister (1992–1995) under Shimon Peres who initiated secret negotiations in 1992 that led to the Oslo accords. He was the Justice Minister under Ehud Barak who refused a request from Dr. Benny Morris to declassify some documents that would confirm Israel’s reponsibility for ethnic cleansing, explusions, and massacres in 1948. At the time, Barak was repeating the legally irrelevant propaganda claim that the Palestinians had fled in 1948, while refusing to them either compensation or repatriation. FYI, Netanyahu is still refusing to release those and other documents that might reveal Israel’s role in starting the Six Day War. See Sharon takes Mideast conflict back to history books
Jerome Slater wrote an article which explained that Barak never put his proposals in writing and that it was a myth that they had offered generous terms. He said the Barak proposal would not have created an autonomous Palestinian state, but rather isolated enclaves in which Israel would have still controlled movement, access, and resources. The final offer did not include any part of East Jerusalem. See Jerome Slater, “What Went Wrong? The Collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process”, Political Science Quarterly, Volume 116 · Number 2 · Summer 2001, pg 171-199
The Betarim were a regular part of the Haganah up until the time of the 1929 riots. The Haganah-bet was formed afterward and the split didn’t become formal until after 1935. See pages 23-35 of Dr. J. Bowyer Bell’s, “Terror out of Zion”, Transaction Publishers, 1977.
According to the report of the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry the Haganah remained one of the illegal Jewish underground groups. The Jewish Agency itself had ordered the bombing of the King David Hotel, and then released a false statement to the public claiming it had no association with the perpetrators. The Haganah employed terror tactics and assassinations from the moment it came into existence. For example, the leadership ordered the murder of Jacob Israël de Haan in 1924; the elite Palmach units planted bombs in government facilities; and the Haganah carried out the bombing of the Semiramis Hotel in which 10 people, including the Spanish Consul, were murdered on 6 January 1946.
Moreover, one could ask, if this is true, why the Israel didn’t conquer Jordan, which would have been easy enough given their military advantage.
Because it would have been a declaration of war against Great Britain and the United States and it would have resulted in an Arab state with a small Jewish minority:
*The UK government had concluded a series of defense treaties with Transjordan in 1923, 1928, 1946, and 1948. For example, concurrent with the recognition of the union between Arab Palestine and Transjordan, the government formally announced that the terms of the existing defense treaty for “Jordan” had been extended to the West Bank:
‘His Majesty’s Government have decided to accord formal recognition to this union. They take this opportunity of declaring that they regard the provisions of the Anglo-Jordan Treaty of Alliance of 1948 as applicable to all the territory included in the union.”
*Secretary of State Marshall and Under-Secretary Lovett told Moshe Shertok that “We shall not allow the Jews to conduct a war that we do not want with our dollars.” They threatened to shutdown the United Jewish Appeal and publish the incriminating evidence the US government had obtained on the organization. See Shertok’s remarks from the verbatim minutes of the People’s Council
*Israel had just requested a 100 million dollar loan from the US to facilitate the reception of displaced persons from Europe. See “The American Credit Loan”, in Netanel Lorch (ed), Major Knesset Debates 1948-1981, Vol. 2, JCPA/University of America Press, 1993, page 451
*During the 20th Sitting of the first Knesset Ben Gurion pointed out that annexing the Triangle and Hebron would (a) add 500,000 to 800,000 Arabs to the population of the State of Israel. He noted that the Arabs would outnumber the Jews and that they would have to be given the vote. See “The Armistice Agreements with the Arab States”, in Netanel Lorch (ed), Major Knesset Debates 1948-1981, Vol. 2, JCPA/University of America Press, 1993, page 515
The Arab Higher Committee (AHC) and the Mufti were not the formal or elected representatives of the people of Palestine. Avi Shlaim noted that when the Arab Higher Committee (AHC) was reestablished in 1946 after a nine-year hiatus, it was not by the various Palestinian political parties themselves, as had been the case when it was founded in 1936, but by a decision of the Arab League of States. See page 1 of Avi Shlaim, The Rise and Fall of the All-Palestine Government in Gaza, Journal of Palestine Studies. 20: 37–53. (2001)
Furthermore, in February of 1948 the Council of the Arab League decided not to recognize the AHC or the Mufti as the representatives of the Palestinian people. Thereafter, all of the Leagues’ affairs were handled through its own Palestine Council, not through the Mufti or the AHC. See Politics in Palestine: Arab factionalism and social disintegration, 1939-1948, By Issa Khalaf, University of New York Press, 1991, ISBN 0-7914-0708-X, page 290.
The United States refused to recognize the All-Palestine government on account of (i) the association with the Mufti and his war record; (ii) it had been established without consulting the wishes of the Palestinian people; and (iii) in claiming to speak for all of Palestine the Gaza the government afforded a pretext for similar claims from Jewish revisionists for the right of the government of Israel to do the same. The Acting Secretary of State reminded questioners that the US had announced its support for all of the conclusions of the UN Mediator (who had called for a union between the former Arab portions of the Palestine mandate). See Foreign relations of the United States, 1948. The Near East, South Asia, and Africa Volume V, Part 2, Pages 1447-1448
Sandra Kadosh notes that the leaders and mayors of the West Bank claimed to speak for 90 per cent of the Arabs of Palestine, they ridiculed the Gaza government which, they asserted, represented only its eighty-odd members. They were in favor of a union with Transjordan, not Egypt. See Sandra Berliant Kadosh, “United States Policy toward the West Bank in 1948″, Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 46, No. 3/4 (Summer – Autumn, 1984), pp. 231-252, especially page 239.
I hope that helps clarify the issues with some of your statements.
Classic Barak posturing – sure I screwed things up, but I did it on purpose!
I’ve often thought of him as Vizzini from The Princess Bride.
“Vizzini: I can’t compete with you physically, and you’re no match for my brains.
Man in Black: You’re that smart?
Vizzini: Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?
Man in Black: Yes.
Vizzini: Morons.”
…right before he loses the battle of wits.
If I quote Dennis Ross on the same issue, are you going to accept it?
Since you asked, no. I already provided citations to two articles which explained that Barak offered nothing at all to the Palestinians and that his intent was to prevent the establishment of a provisional Palestinian state. One of those articles was written by former PM Barak himself. So, Dennis Ross’ opinion is moot.
You seem to be overlooking the fact that you claimed that no one else on the Israeli side shared Ben Ami’s opinion, but that Barak himself had actually written that he offered the Palestinians nothing.
I heard Barak say that on the radio and thought he was stupid/honest for admitting it, but I’ve never seen that in print.
I had posted one earlier as part of a lengthy reply to hophmi. It was an article that Barak had written himself for Yedi’ot Aharonot. He was bemoaning the fact that the Sharon government was going to be forced to recognize a provisional state of Palestine in 2003 under the terms of the Quartet Road Map. Barak said the talks should be reset and the principles of his Camp David proposal adopted, because it had offered the Palestinians nothing at all.
The article was reprinted in Ehud Barak on Camp David: “I Did Not Give Away a Thing”, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Fall 2003), pp. 84-87
So, Robert says Arafat turned down a State in 2000/2001, but Barak says his offer was designed to prevent the creation of (even) a provisional state.
- A pity that they fail to develop a more objective and positive attitude, promoting reconciliation rather than this perpetual ideological war against the Jewish state –
“This sounds like a cry for help. Poor Jonah.”
Another unwitting admission that you’re more interested in the last rather than the first. And for that very reason, you are willing to use poorly founded arguments, indeed. Your own words expose you, shingo. Don’t you notice that?
Hostage,
I was hoping you’d make another appearance on this thread, and boy or boy, you sure didn’t dissapoint.
I am awestruck by every one of your posts, but this one takes the cake. I simply dessimates so many Hasbara talking points in one hit
I had no idea that Barak has written such an article. It’s amazing to think I can simply destroy anyone’s argument should they ever dare to bring up Camp David ever again with that one link.
Similarly, every time the Mufti is mentioned, or Oslo.
I am truly humbled and foever a fan.
Oh please spare me the pious self righteousness. You’ve been nothing more than a limp wrsted apologist for occupation, mass murder and apartheid. The new holier than though routine simply not going to wash.
Shmuel,
It’s good to see you posting again.
LOL! Good one, tree!
Shingo and Hostage and tree – thanks for the links. My distinct recollection was hearing Barak on Sean Hannity being even more explicit, if possible, saying that he intentionally made an “offer” to Arafat that was laden with conditions he knew Arafat would have to reject. I was a little stunned he would be so stupid, but chalked it up to an inadvertently true statement he made during a radio interview. I actually tried to find some sort of recording or transcription. Apparently, he has stated similar things even in an article he authored.
“Barak said the talks should be reset and the principles of his Camp David proposal adopted, because it had offered the Palestinians nothing at all. ”
This is quite simply a complete distortion of the article.
The entire article is here: link to palestine-studies.org.
Surprise, surprise, Shingo and Hostage are utterly distorting what the article said. The full context is that Barak is discussing the merits of a provisional Palestinian state and is responding to claims from the Israeli right that he “gave away everything” at Camp David. To that, Barak responds that he did not give away everything.
Barak says: “I made clear and I am proud of it, that in exchange for an end to the conflict and giving up the right of return, 80 percent of the settlers under Israeli sovereignty,
recognition of the security needs of Israel and of Israel’s affinity to the holy places, we will be ready for painful, defined concessions that lead to a Palestinian state. . .
Anyone trying to postpone the difficult decisions will be forced to
swallow even bigger frogs in the future, under worse conditions, losing the position of moral superiority and internal unity necessary for the unilateral steps that have to be taken until a partner shows up on the other side. . . ”
So Barak did not say that one should adopt the Camp David parameters because it gave the Palestinians nothing. Barak favors a negotiated solution because it offers a negotiated end to the conflict and because it sets up a structure where Israel is actually getting peace for land rather than giving land for promises.
Again, utterly shameless distorting by both Shingo and Hostage, relying on others here to read the excerpt on JSTOR without reading the entire article.
” This is telling. If a place is holy to Jews and Muslims, there should only be a Muslim shrine there.
Your words not mine.”
This is what you said. Do you care to change it now?
” A quote from Ben-Gurion 1936 does not debunk a claim about Israeli intentions.
It does when his intentions manifest themselves in a material outcome.”
No, it doesn’t.
“Are you seriously arguing that one of the founding fathers of Israel , regarded by many as the father of Israel, and the first Israeli prime minister, is not synonymous with Israel? ”
Yes, for the same reason that George Washington is not synonomous with America. A nation is bigger than one person.
” You’re still distorting the poll. The poll was about whether Netanyahu should listen to Obama’s call to freeze settlements. It was not a poll about settlement construction in general.
You’re seriously wasting your time Hophmi. Please explain how a poll that shows the majority of Israelis opposing Obama’s call to freeze settlements means they oppose the settlements?”
Because a poll on whether people support settlement building is different from a poll on whether people believe their government should capitulate to foreign pressure. Many Americans oppose imprisoning people at Guantanamo Bay. But Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says that Americans shouldn’t imprison people in Guantanamo Bay and there is a poll of Americans asking whether they should listen to Ahmadinejad (or any other foreign head of state, for that matter) and close Guantanamo Bay, I guarantee you that a much larger percentage of Americans will oppose it.
I think you know exactly what the different is.
“The arument is pretty conclusive.”
It clearly isn’t. Find a poll that asks Israelis straight out whether they support settlement expansion, not a poll about moratoriums (and a poll that find 51% is hardly a conclusive majority even in this context).
The ynet poll is about construction in Ramat Shlomo, a neighborhood that everyone understands will become part of Israel in the context of a peace agreement because of its location in the settlement blocs. And again, even here, more than half of those polled said Israel must consider Washington’s view on settlements. If you asked Israelis about construction in the Jordan Valley, they’d undoubtedly have a different answer.
You’re simply posting random polls here, shorn of context. The idea here is to create Palestinian hasbara; I get it. But I expect that from pro-Palestinian propagandists. They are the only ones who make ridiculous claims about Arafat’s death and the like. There have been plenty of histories written of conflict since 2004. I’m sure they deal with Arafat’s death.
“Yeah sure. Those suicide bombers didn’t want to kill anyone, they just wanted to disable the buses or the pizza parlours right?”
Again, I posted the history of the Patria. You seem not to have read it. No one questions the idea that Hamas suicide bombers aimed to kill Jews, as many as they could. Similarly, no one questions that the point of bombing the Patria was not to kill anyone, but to keep the ship in Haifa. That people were killed is a tragedy, but was an accident. Again, IF YOU HAVE ANY SOURCE TO COUNTER THIS, POST IT, OR SHUT UP.
Thanks hophmi,
But you’ve just made an idiot of yourself (again) regardless.
Hostage’s point was that Barak gave/offered nothing to Arafat at Camp David. Why he did it or what his rational was, is irrelevant to the debate as to whether the offer at Camp David was generous. By Barak’s own admission, it was anything but generous. He also completely rejected any notion of right of return, which he has no right to do.
And FYI Hophmi, Israel is in no position to give land . It is being asked to return it.
Barak also admits that he too stopped Olso in it’s tracks.
.. I stopped a one-sided process that had developed since the Oslo accords were signed, a process in which Israel gave up tangible assets in exchange for vague promises about the nature of relations in the future.
So while hasbarats like you continue to trumpet the final status negotiations laid down by Oslo, both Barak and Netenyahu proudly boast that they never believed in Olso and worked to kill it.
What’s also worht pointing out, is Barak’s claimn that the Palestinians alone have the power and authority to end the conflict, as if to suggest the Israelis are simply passive partitipants in the process. He even regards the occupation as an “asset”.
Your argument does not refute the point Hostage was making, it supports it, but you’re to far out of your intellectual depth to realize it.
Israeli leaders have always had a knack for blurting out the truth once in a while. I put it down to sheer chutzpah and hubris. They are so enamoured with their power, that they end up confessing.
A friend of mine who is a psycologist working at a maximumsecurity prison, once explained to me that sociopaths who’ve commited murders are very easy to get to confess their crimes. All one had to do, she explained, was allow them to talk about themselves and show genuine interest in them, and before long, they would invariably boast of their exploits.
That reminds me of so many Israeli leaders.
Please do read the entire article. he is advising how to avoid the implementation of the 2003 Road map milestone that required the recognition of a Palestinian state in interim borders. Israel didn’t have to wait for statehood until it had put a stop to terrorist activities by Irgun and Lehi. Israeli negotiators know perfectly well that resistance to the occupation will always be a given unless Israel withdraws. The IDF can’t stop terror, how can the PA do any better with its hands tied behind its back by an unpopular occupying power?
Barak said:The third leg is an open door for renewing political negotiations on the basis of the principles of Camp David, with one condition: that there is no violence and the terror is dismantled. Without such a plan, there’s a vacuum, and plans much worse than this for Israel will be sucked into that vacuum: the Saudi plan and the “provisional Palestinian state.” In the absence of such a plan, building a fence will appear to be an attempt to unilaterally dictate a border, and raise opposition including from the U.S. president. With such a plan, any route for the fence, including around Ariel, is a logical security step by Israel.
I think your problem is illiteracy hophmi. Barak didn’t say he didn’t give away everything, he said he didn’t give away a thing and his goal was to deprive Palestinians of right of return, East Jerusalem, and the ability to claim the same rights as other states. You don’t mention the Slater article and he came to the same conclusion.
Actually, Barak also says his proposal would have had the Palestinians giving up internationally recognized rights, some of which which he enumerated, as well as the land squatted on by 80% of the settlers. And his reasoning is that if Israel did not do as he proposed, the scenario would become the single state solution, complete with one man-one vote, a 21st Century real modern democracy in every way. And the model would be S Africa. And this would be the end of the Zionist dream. In short, his worst fear was that the Jews of Israel would have to live without any
special privileges in their finalized homeland.
“Israel does not have a mandate from the UN to occupy Palestine or retain any territory it occupied in 1967. The Palestinians have refused to discuss any more negotiations with the Quartet or Israel that are not based on the existing 67 borders. That explicitly means they recognize Israel’s existing borders and are not making any belligerent claims against Israeli territory. International law certainly appears to be on their side.”
Hostage,
can you give me – according to international law as well as international treaties of the past – incontrovertible proof that the Palestinians would be entitled to a state with the boundary corresponding to the armistice line of 1967 and Jerusalem as their capital?
The legal arguments that you have so far put forward, relate to the fact that Israel has no right to “illegally occupying” the territories formerly under Jordanian occupation and which it won – I repeat – in a defensive war, but do not contain elements to support the adamant (I would say ‘intransigent’) Palestinian position that the Palestinians would in fact have rights to that boundaries enshrined in international treaties, apart from the plan of partition 181 that they have rejected in 1947 and made void by the subsequent Arab-Palestinian war against the independent state of Israel.
Can you possibly provide?
Also, how do you consider – from a legal point of view – the fact that the Palestinians, that means only the Fatah movement, recognized Israel, but their Charter of 1989, calling for the destruction of the ‘Zionist enemy’ and the “complete liberation of Palestine”, is still in force, notwithstanding subsequent revisions (the latest emerged from the August 2009 Fatah General Congress)?
David he deployed the standard tactic of saying there was no partner for peace and demanding that the PA do something that even the IDF can’t do – prevent terror attacks during an on-going occupation. If by some miracle, they manage to do that, then Barak said he would be willing to recognize a Palestinian state. But there would be no right of return, no sovereignty over Jerusalem, and Israel would annex 80 percent of the Israeli settlers and their settlement blocks.
The CSMonitor article points out that Barak was arguing the refugees had left on their own and that he was not willing to resettle them in Israel or pay compensation. It certainly wasn’t an offer any Palestinian leader should have accepted.
“he didn’t give away a thing and his goal was to deprive Palestinians of right of return, East Jerusalem, and the ability to claim the same rights as other states. You don’t mention the Slater article and he came to the same conclusion.”
You distorted the article, and you know it. Barak’s entire argument is for negotiation, and nowhere does he suggest that the point of Camp David was to avoid coming to an agreement as you and others here have repeatedly and shamelessly claimed. I care little what Jerome Slater, your fellow traveler, said.
The original UN partition plan establishes that Palestine must exist alongside Israel (and establishes more generous borders for Palestine than what Israel took by conquest).
The Fourth Geneva Convention makes illegal Israel’s land grab and population transfers that have taken place since 1967.
This is silly.
There is nothing in the law which makes 181 “void” by any subsequent action. That is manufactured from whole cloth, without any support whatsoever.
International law recognizes that no land can be legally aquired through war (in other words, you are wrong that Israel “won” any land. It cannot legally do so under international law, [regardless of whether you categorize a war as offensive or defensive.] It can merely occupy it.), so, absent agreement by the appropriate states and parties, Israel would have no rights beyond the partition plan.
However, the Palestinians, Egypt, Jordan and the international community have recognized the legality of Israel’s sovereignty up to the 1967 lines and the legality of its exercise of jurisdiction over West Jerusalem. Thus, Israel has legal right to exercise soverignty or jurisdiction over that land.
Since there are no other claimants for the remaineder, the Palestinians are entitled to exercise sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza and jurisdiction over East Jerusalem, as UN resolutions have recognized.
Finally, Charters are not legally binding documents. They are more like political platforms which carry absolutely no legal weight at all. Pointing to them to controvert authorized statements by governments or governing entities is foolish and makes the speaker appear dumb. It’s like saying the Constitution of the US can be superseded by a plank in the Republican Party Platform.
“Hostage’s point was that Barak gave/offered nothing to Arafat at Camp David.”
And it’s not remotely accurate. Barak offered plenty – in return for peace.
“By Barak’s own admission, it was anything but generous. He also completely rejected any notion of right of return, which he has no right to do.”
Which admission are you referring to? Barak rejected right of return. He has a perfect right to do so in a process where the Palestinians are negotiating for a state. In any event, I’m not aware of a counteroffer by Arafat on the issue.
“And FYI Hophmi, Israel is in no position to give land . It is being asked to return it.”
It’s a negotiation. It’s called land-for-peace. If you don’t believe in negotiation, by all means say so, and we won’t need to have this debate.
“Barak also admits that he too stopped Olso in it’s tracks.
.. I stopped a one-sided process that had developed since the Oslo accords were signed, a process in which Israel gave up tangible assets in exchange for vague promises about the nature of relations in the future. ”
Yes, and again, the idea was to stop a process where the Israelis were giving up land and getting no peace in return, not to stop Oslo altogether. That’s clear from the plain English of the text.
“So while hasbarats like you continue to trumpet the final status negotiations laid down by Oslo, both Barak and Netenyahu proudly boast that they never believed in Olso and worked to kill it.”
Again, there’s nothing in the statements you’ve cited to suggest that Barak “worked to kill Oslo.”
“Your argument does not refute the point Hostage was making, it supports it, but you’re to far out of your intellectual depth to realize it.”
It conclusively and demonstratively does refute Hostage’s point, which was a complete and I believe willful distortion of what the actual article said, either because Hostage didn’t read it in the first place, or because Hostage did read it and expected others here not to read it. It is difficult for me to believe that Hostage did not know the entire article was available on the Journal for Palestine Studies website.
Yep, Hostage. His premise in his article was that there was no partner with which to negotiate peace. It’s a direct lie on its face. One might as well say there was no Israeli partner with which to negotiate peace. And yours, and his, characterization of what he did offer to the Palestinians speaks for itself. All he really was saying amounts to the fact the Palestinian negotiator(s) would not accept what he offered, not that there were was no Palestinian “partnering for peace” by engaging in negotiations to attain peace. As I said in an earlier comment. His bottom line was that he did not want the Israeli Jews to have to live up to the expectations of the world community regarding the minimum needed in the 21st Century to be accepted into the world community as a full-fledged member.
Ha! That’s your idea of negotiation? “Sit at the table or I’ll pull the trigger!” What a farce.
David,
Your latest post can be summed up succinctly: blah, blah, blah.
More hysteria, more biased, simplistic, one-sided rants, and more unhinged paranoia.
You’re really becoming a bore.
Your pitiful, contorted, and thoroughly discredited attempts to show that I was “lying” about what Arafat said or that I was “defending” the Qybia massacre have been exposed for what they are: lies.
I read multiple accounts of Arafat’s anti-Israel/jihad speeches during the Oslo period, and saw several of them on the news. The first one I saw on the news in May of 1994 when they showed a smiling photo op between Arafat and then-Israeli president Ezer Weizman in South Africa, where both were attending Nelson Mandela’s inauguration as president. Then they played a recording of Arafat speaking at a mosque in Johannesburg, in English, about how he would treat the Oslo accords the same way that the Prophet Muhammad did the Hudaibiya agreement, i.e., as an agreement to be broken when it was found to be convenient to do so.
Should you entertain any further doubts, there are plenty of Arafat’s speeches on you-tube. To access part of the Johannesburg speech on video, just go to you-tube and type in: “Yasser Arafat denounces the Oslo accords.”
To access another speech on April 16, 1995 where Arafat again compared Oslo to the Hudaibiya agreement, type in: “Arafat compares Oslo Accords to Muhammad’s temporary peace agreement (1995).”
The matter is now settled beyond dispute: I did not lie, and your silly, self-serving attempts to “prove” that I did have once again come to naught and revealed for all to see the depth of your intellectual dishonesty and your refusal to admit it.
You said:
“So you first blamed the Palestinian refugee crisis on the refugees themselves, citing only the single Deir Yassin massacre (and even then, you blame flight on Arab propaganda about the massacre rather than the massacre itself!!). All the while, you knew that there were many massacres totaling 800 deaths, which you intentionally concealed when discussing reasons for fleeing. I’m sorry, perhaps I’m being too harsh, and you accidentally forgot to mention the other massacres as well. (Were these also “lapsed” massacres?)”
The above rant perfectly encapsulates your unique method of obfuscation: take something I didn’t say and then proceed to attack it as if it were something I did say. I did not “blame” the refugee crisis on the refugees themselves, and I did not “intentionally conceal” the fact that the Israelis committed atrocities. I answered your question:
“Do you disagree with the historical findings of Benny Morris (whom you cite as one of your sources of information) that the Zionists committed two dozen massacres of Palestinians, thereby causing massive flight?”
I answered your question honestly and accurately and did not “intentionally conceal” anything.
I said that the war resulted from the Arabs’ rejection of the partition, which it did. I said the refugee crisis resulted from the war, which it did. The chain of causation here is undeniable: there would have been no refugee crisis if there had been no war. The events which led to the flight of the refugees did not occur in a vacuum; they occurred in the context of a war, a war that resulted from the Arabs’ rejection of the partition. The 1948 War was a brutal war, fought in close quarters, sometimes hand to hand where regulars, irregulars, and civilians all confusingly intermingled. It is not surprising that in such circumstances atrocities did occur, as they do in all wars. Both sides were rag-tag forces, though the Yishuv, unlike the Arabs, had a more homogenous unit cohesion and simplified command structure.
Deir Yassin aside, do you really think there is evidence that the other atrocities, which occurred in the context of fighting and prisoner taking, were the sole cause of the refugees flight? Of course the Deir Yassin massacre, and the hysterical broadcasts exaggerating the scale of it sowed panic and influenced their flight, but do you really think that the violence of the fighting in the towns and villages, the flight of so many high ranking Arab functionaries, and the near total breakdown in services had no part in their exodus? No, apparently you do not. All you will accept is a simple, one-sided, monocausal version of the event: The Jews expelled/ethnically cleansed the refugees. This not only betrays your worm’s-eye-view of history, but your ignorance of the events of 1948.
So, I see you now have another charge to lay at Israel’s doorstep: the attack on the USS Liberty. Do you really want to hotwire that old broken down jalopy? Please. It is becoming obvious to me that you are willing to believe without question just about every anti-Israel conspiracy theory that comes your way. The attack was an accident, and no one has ever proved otherwise. I am something of an amateur expert on the matter since, in my supposedly fabled period of unknowing, I used to be a big USS Liberty conspiracy buff and have ransacked almost every book written on the subject over the years.
Here is what happened.
On June 8, 1967, on the fourth day of the Six-Day War between Israel and the Arabs, the USS Liberty, an American intelligence gathering vessel, was strafed and bombed by Israeli Warplanes and then converged upon by torpedo boats in an obvious effort to sink her. After a brief exchange of fire and a torpedo that slammed into the Liberty’s starboard side, the Israeli vessels abruptly ceased attacking, and extended help and immediate medical attention to the Liberty’s crew. 34 Americans died and 171 were wounded in the attack. The Israelis, who said they had mistaken the Liberty for the Egyptian warship El Quseir, immediately apologized to the US for the attack, and assumed full responsibility. They would eventually pay some $12 million in compensation to the victims and their families, to survivors, and to the US government.
A slew of American and Israeli inquiries, including a 1967 navy court of inquiry convened in Malta by Rear Adm. Isaac C. Kidd Jr., generally substantiated the Israelis’ explanation that the attack was an accident. But the inquiries also raised more questions than they answered, and these questions were by no means limited to those hostile to Israel; they were also harbored by some of Israel’s strongest supporters in the Johnson Administration. Why did the Israelis attack a neutral ship without provocation? How had they failed to see the Liberty’s flag or the painted markings on her hull after several overflights by their aircraft? How could they confuse the Liberty with the El Quseir, a smaller and slower ship?
For the next three decades the absence of satisfactory answers to these questions would help spawn a cottage industry of books and conspiracy theories asserting that Israel had deliberately attacked the Liberty and that the US government had covered it up. And Israel’s motive? It was asserted that the Israelis had done so to prevent the Liberty from revealing their impending seizure of Syria’s Golan Heights, a move that Washington was said to have opposed. It was also asserted that the Israelis may have done so in an attempt to blame the Egyptians and thus draw America into the conflict. The Israelis, they argued, had thus killed 34 Americans in cold blood and the American government had covered it up, influenced, aided and abetted by the all-powerful pro-Israel lobby, at whose pleasure they serve.
In 1997, the Americans and the Israelis released a bushel of top-secret documents and other evidence in observance of the 30-year declassification rule on the Liberty attack, and these cleared up many of the mysteries that had long dogged the incident. It was shown that despite a warning from the White House to the American Sixth Fleet to keep its ships within a 250 mile arc from the Egyptian coast, the Liberty’s handlers in the NSA disregarded the order and put the Liberty within 12.5 miles of the coast to eavesdrop on Egyptian military communications with the Soviet Union. Five communications were sent by the Navy’s European headquarters to the Liberty for her to pull back at least 100 miles. However, due to the Six Fleet’s bulky communications apparatus, the messages got diverted to the Philippines and did not reach the Liberty until the day after she was attacked. Furthermore, the request of the Liberty’s skipper for a destroyer escort was denied by the Sixth Fleet CIC on the grounds that “the Liberty is a clearly marked US ship in international waters…and not a reasonable subject for attack.” A request by the Israeli ambassador at the outset of the conflict that the US provide a naval liaison to coordinate communications between the two countries was refused by the US, and thus no one informed Israel of the Liberty’s presence in the area.
Israeli aircraft spotted the vessel in the early morning of June 8. The pilot could not make out the flag, but spotted a hull marking that read “GTR-5″ and the headquarters identified the ship as the USS Liberty. However, with the change in watch in the Israeli HQ at 11:00am, the officers, following standard operating procedure for removing old information from the board, had erroneously assumed that the Liberty had left the area. When an explosion rocked an Israeli arms depot at El Arish, the Israelis, spotting a vessel they incorrectly assumed was an Egyptian warship bombarding them, sent three torpedo boats to engage it.
The skipper of the Liberty then executed a 90 degree starboard turn to the south. The Israelis, pursuing what they thought was an Egyptian warship heading home, called in for air support, and two Mirage fighters raked the Liberty with bombs, napalm, and cannon fire. Transcripts of communications between the Israeli pilots and HQ show that after the second strafing run an Israeli pilot recognized the Latin markings on the hull of the ship and the American flag and reported it to HQ–who immediately ordered him and his wingmen to disengage. They also show a breakdown in communications between the torpedo boats and HQ, and that when the Israeli boat captain got close enough to identify the hull markings and the flag of the Liberty, he immediately broke off the attack and gave help and medical attention to the survivors.
The minutes of the 1967 Naval board of inquiry show that a lack of sufficient wind obscured the flag of the Liberty, thus hiding it from aerial observation and that the attack was “a case of mistaken identity.” Audio tapes transcripts indicate that the Israelis did not know they were attacking an American ship and immediately disengaged when they did. Contrary to decades of conspiracy-mongering, there is, in all the hundreds of pages of declassified material from both countries, not a shred of evidence to support the contention that Israel deliberately sought to attack and sink the USS Liberty.
The release of the material also went a long way toward discrediting Israel’s supposed motives for the attack. The theory, posited by Liberty crew member James Ennes Jr., and endorsed by JC Admiral Thomas Moorer and UN Ambassador George Ball among others, that Israel struck the Liberty to hide its seizure of the Golan Heights from Syria from the US is contradicted by diplomatic cables showing that Israel informed Washington of its intention to do so before the Liberty attack, and that Washington had not objected. Even without the evidence, however, it begs the question as to why the Israelis would leave any survivors on the Liberty, if this was indeed their intent. The other theory, that Israel attacked the ship in order to blame the Egyptians and thus pull America into the war is belied by the fact that the Israelis were winning the war and, most importantly, that they made no effort to blame anyone and took responsibility for the incident moments after the attack. There is, and remains to this day, simply no remotely plausible motivation for Israel to have knowingly attacked a ship belonging to its strongest ally.
In 2003 there was an independent inquiry conducted by Admiral Thomas Moorer and Ward Boston, a former JAG lawyer who handled the naval inquiry of 1967 headed by Adm. Kidd. The inquiry was animated by an affidavit by Ward Boston that asserted that the Johnson Administration had ordered Kidd to conclude that the attack was an accident “despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.” Ward not only failed to produce a shred of evidence to prove this, but was contradicted by judge and former naval aviator A.J. Cristol, a long time friend of Kidd’s (who died in 1999) who produced a letter from Kidd to him in 1991 expressing his belief that the attack was a mistake. The investigation was largely ignored by the press; it merely re-hashed the arguments presented in the old conspiracy theories and ignored the new evidence contained in the declassified documents released in 1997. The credibility of the inquiry was further undermined by the militantly anti-Israel (indeed, anti-Jewish) tone of the statements contained in the reports’ conclusions. It asserted, without evidence, that there had been a cover-up “due to the continuing pressure of the pro-Israel lobby,” that “due to the influence of Israel’s powerful supporters in the US, the White House had deliberately covered up the facts of this attack from the American people,” and that “a danger to our national security exists whenever our elected officials are willing to subordinate American interests to those of any foreign nation.” Again, the inquiry presented nothing new, rehashed what was old, ignored the newly released evidence that undermined their conclusions, and made paranoid, unsubstantiated assertions about Jewish “power” that betrayed the blatantly anti-Israel bias of it’s panel members.
One wonders, how was all this “power” and “influence” leveraged? The American State Dept., under George Marshall, strongly urged Pres. Truman not to recognize the state of Israel in 1948 to avoid angering the Arabs. Eisenhower condemned Israel’s seizure of the Suez peninsula in the 1956 War, and threatened to sever relations with Israel if they did not return it, which they did in 1958. Prior to 1967 Israel’s primary military benefactors were Britian and France, not America. On the eve of the 1967 War, Israel asked America for assistance in the event of hostilities–and was refused. At best, America gave Israel reluctant diplomatic cover both during and after the conflict–that was it. The nebulous charges of Jewish “power” here and elsewhere, lead where they always do when scrutinized–nowhere. It is a conspiracy so powerful that it leaves no trace of itself to be examined.
The facts behind the attack are thus beyond dispute, and there is absolutely no evidence of a “cover-up.” The release of the declassified material resolved all the previous ambiguities and answered all the questions. Any further skepticism is based on conjecture, not facts. The notion that there is still a conspiracy to “cover up” the truth can only rest on a spurious premise: that the lack of proof to substantiate a conspiracy is proof of a conspiracy to destroy all of the proof.
The attack was an accident. Face it David, and get real.
Joshua you can repeat “defensive war” all that you’d like, but you’ve already been given adequate citations which explain that, in accordance with a jus cogens norm of customary international law, no acquisition of territory as a result of the use of force will be recognized as legal. You can read about that in paragraphs 86-87 of the ICJ Advisory Opinion on the Wall. link to icj-cij.org
Pending Palestine’s full membership, the General Assembly Credentials Committee decided that representatives of the permanent observer mission of Palestine can participate in the business of the UN. The UN resolutions and deliberations regarding that decision mention “their State, Palestine”. They describe the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967 as “their territory” and say that “the credentials of the delegation of Israel do not cover that territory”. Many individual UN member states have officially recognized Palestine as an independent sovereign State. See A/58/L.48, 15 December 2003; General Assembly resolution A/RES/58/292, 17 May 2004. The verbatim record of the General Assembly discussion of the resolution indicates the words “pre-1967 borders” had replaced the words “Armistice Line of 1949”. See A/58/PV.87
So, Israel can’t “win” any territory in a defensive war. Israel signed an international agreement with the other lawful inhabitants of the former British mandate and they recognized Israel’s right to occupy the territory that it held. At the same time, Israel recognized the corresponding right of the inhabitants of those communities to occupy the territories that they held. The parties are bound to that agreement by their acceptance and a Chapter VII UN Security Council resolution. The armistice borders laid down in that agreement are also recognized under the principles of a customary international law norm regarding “territorial integrity”. They can only be altered by mutual consent. That consent cannot be given during a belligerent military occupation that has imposed an illegal colonial regime by force.
Israeli Ambassador Abba Eban explained that “Israel holds no territory wrongfully, since her occupation of the areas now held has been sanctioned by the armistice agreements, as has the occupation of the territory in Palestine now held by the Arab states.” see “Effect on Armistice Agreements”, FRUS Volume VI 1949, page 1149
Ernest A. Gross, a senior U.S. State Department legal adviser, authored a memorandum for Under Secretary of State Lovett at the request of the President’s Counsel, Clark Clifford and the representative of the Provisional Government of Israel, Elihu Epstein. See for example John Snetsinger, “Truman, the Jewish vote, and the creation of Israel”, Hoover Press, 1974 & Richard Holbrooke and Clark Clifford, President Truman’s Decision to Recognize Israel via the JCPA website. The memo was titled ”Recognition of New States and Governments in Palestine”, dated 11 May 1948. Gross said that:
*The whole territory of Palestine included Transjordan
*The Palestine mandate mentioned more than one community that had been provisionally recognized as independent nations.
*If the UN failed to implement the partition plan, “We are then faced with the situation where the only agencies claiming to have governing powers over Palestine are organizations within that country.”
*”The Arab and Jewish communities will be legally entitled on May 15, 1948 (the date of expiry of the British Mandate) to proclaim states and organize governments in the areas of Palestine occupied by the respective communities.”
*”The law of nations recognizes an inherent right of people lacking the agencies and institutions of social and political control to organize a state and operate a government.”
*”The United States should not recognize the existence of either an Arab or Jewish unitary state for all of Palestine in the absence of consent by the communities, since to do so would contravene obligations and rights arising out of the provisions of the League Covenant, the mandate instrument, the General Assembly resolution of November 29, 1947, and the principles of the law of nations regarding self-determination of peoples.
The memo is contained in the Foreign Relations of the United States 1948, volume 5, part 2, and starts on page 960. It is cited by Stefan Talmon, in “Recognition of Governments in International Law”, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998, page 36
Countries still cannot recognize a unitary state of Israel/Palestine without the consent of both peoples.
I think that should just about answer your questions.
Yeah, let’s put Deir Yassein aside, and with it, any other such incidents at the time, and also the eye-witness testimony of all the surviving crew of the USS Liberty, and all the information you can find on the USS Liberty web site, and, as well, the Chicago Tribune’s article on the whole years of obfuscation. And let’s not consider why the USS Liberty’s surviving crew was muzzled for so many years, and why the US Congress never did a proper investigation of such an incident, the only time it did not do so in all of US history. After all, what could eye witnesses have to say that’s worthwhile?
And then, of course, that insult upon the men and women who serve the United States (“Your deaths mean nothing! It’s just hysteria!”) is followed by a cut and paste of half-truths, deceptions and typical “make shit up.”
Why do Zionists hate the US military? It’s surprising considering how many troops bend over in a misguided solidarity to Israel. I guess that’s part and parcel of the fifth column — doesn’t matter how cooperative our country is, our military is always a looming threat that needs to be neutralized.
Robert :
“”I said that the war resulted from the Arabs’ rejection of the partition, which it did.”"
++++ Wrong. Israel started ethnic cleansing 6 months before war started.
“”I said the refugee crisis resulted from the war, which it did.”"
++++ Wrong. Because zionists started ethnic cleansing few weeks after the resolution 181 came out.
“”The chain of causation here is undeniable: there would have been no refugee crisis if there had been no war.”"
++++ Wrong. Because there wouldnt be jewish state without ethnic cleansing. Half of a population of coming Israel state was non-jewish.
“”The events which led to the flight of the refugees did not occur in a vacuum; they occurred in the context of a war, a war that resulted from the Arabs’ rejection of the partition.”"
++++ Wrong. Without ethnic cleansing there wouldnt be jewish state today, as little as 1948.
“”The 1948 War was a brutal war, fought in close quarters, sometimes hand to hand where regulars, irregulars, and civilians all confusingly intermingled. It is not surprising that in such circumstances atrocities did occur, as they do in all wars.”"
++++ Back to article : # Everything sucks
“”the hysterical broadcasts”"
++++ Such a “broadcasts” doesnt exist.
“”The attack was an accident.”"
++++ Oh my. IDF is a truly of army of “accident”. Or error. Or wrong target. Or wrongly identified target. Or cut in communication chain.
hophmi, Israel drove the majority of Palestinians into foreign exile and refuses to either compensate them for their stolen land and property, or to allow them to return to their own country. Why did the Security Council even mention a just settlement of the refugee problem in SC resolution 242?
In “exchange for peace” Barak offered to annex 80 percent of the settlers and settlements in the West Bank and to keep al-Haram al-Sharif. The only state he is going to recognize with that stupid offer is a state of war.
Once again, as Slater pointed out Israel would have merely created isolated enclaves wherein the Israelis retained control of movement, access, and resources. Barak gave the Palestinians nothing; was stalling on the Road map requirement regarding recognition of the Palestinian state; and was worried about the one state solution. There is nothing in that article to support Robert’s absurd argument that the Palestinians turned down a generous offer of a state.
>> It’s a negotiation. It’s called land-for-peace. If you don’t believe in negotiation …
I believe in negotiation, but absolving the thief of his crimes and forcing the victim to beg and barter for the return of some small portion of what was stolen from him is not negotiation.
That Israel refuses even to halt its ON-GOING campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder is a pretty good indicator of just how serious it is about “negotiation”.
The attack was an accident. Face it David, and get real.
Where are you sources? Get real, give them all.
Barak’s entire argument is for negotiation, and nowhere does he suggest that the point of Camp David was to avoid coming to an agreement
I assume you are familiar with the basic history of Camp David. Barak never put any proposal in writing. His “land deal” included a phased plan to recognize a State of Palestine that did not include Jerusalem. If Arafat had accepted that proposal, then Israel would not be holding ant territory in East Jerusalem under belligerent occupation. It’s called the principle of “acceptance” in contract or international law.
He offered to annex 80 per cent of the settlers and settlements to Israel and negotiate phased withdrawal from the rest of the territory leaving it under PA “autonomy”. He suggested that he might consider negotiations on Jerusalem and refugees in three years. So, he was simply thumbing his nose at the five year deadline contained in Article 1 of the Oslo Declaration of Principles and offering pie in the sky in the sweet bye and bye. That is why the Quartet Road map had finally established a deadline for Israeli and international recognition of the State of Palestine within interim borders by 2003.
I’m convinced you are noisy dim wit.
To hophmi and Jonah,
Keep up the good work.
To the rest of you: nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah!
The revisionist accounts about what was offered and refused in the 2000/2001 period that are being offered up here strongly resemble the account given by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, who make the same assertion in their execrable “The Israel Lobby”:
“The official Palestinian response thanked Clinton for his continued efforts, declared that considerable progress had been made, asked for clarification on some points, and expressed reservations about others. . . . Thus both the Palestinians and the Israelis accepted the Clinton Parameters and saw them as the basis for continued negotiation, but neither side accepted them in toto. . . . We will never know if peace was within sight by early 2001, but the charge that Arafat and the Palestinians rejected a last chance for peace and chose violence over reconciliation is false.”
This is a complete and total fabrication staggering in its mendacity. On December 23, the Clinton Plan had been presented to both sides. Israel accepted the Plan in principle, with some reservations. As Dennis Ross would later write, Israel’s reservations were “within” the plan and Arafat’s were “outside” the plan. On December 27 Dennis Ross met with the PA’s Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala) who informed the Americans of the Plan’s inadequacies and its unacceptability. Ross warned him about the consequences of rejection:
“[Y]ou will have Sharon as Prime Minister. He will be elected for sure if there is no deal, and your 97 percent will become 40 to 45 percent; your capital in East Jerusalem will be gone; the IDF out of the Jordan Valley will be gone; unlimited right of return for refugees to your state will be gone. Abu Ala, you know I am telling you the truth.”
The Parameters proposed the following:
(a) a Palestinian state on all of Gaza and 97% of the West Bank (phrased as an Israeli retention of 4-6% of the West Bank and a 1-3% land swap of Israeli land, with 97% thus the midpoint),
(b) a capital in East Jerusalem,
(c) a right of return to the new Palestinian state, and
(d) a massive international compensation fund.
Let us look at the Palestinians’ objections to points (c) and (a).
Let’s listen to the objections to point (a):
“Ultimately, it is impossible to agree to a proposal that punishes Palestinians while rewarding Israel’s illegal settlement policies. A proposal involving annexation of 4 to 6 percent . . . of the land would inevitably damage vital Palestinian interests.”
Got that, folks? The measly 3% of the West Bank that Israel (w/ land swaps) would retain is a non-starter because it would “punish Palestinians,” “reward Israel’s illegal settlement policies” and “inevitably damage vital Palestinian interests.”
3% would do all that?!!
To point (c):
The official January 2, 2001 Palestinian response to the Clinton Parameters thus states:
“We wish to explain why the latest US proposals…fail to satisfy the conditions required for a permanent peace. It would…force the Palestinians to surrender the right of return for Palestinian refugees…We cannot accept a proposal that secures neither the establishment of a viable Palestinian state nor the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.”
And
“The United States proposal reflects a wholesale adoption of the Israeli position that the implementation of the right of return be subject entirely at Israel’s discretion…. Recognition of the right of return and the provision of choice to the refugees is a prerequisite for the closure of the conflict.”
The answer explicitly rejected the alternative of compensation for the refugees and compensated resettlement elsewhere mentioned in the proposal, and could be summed up into two words: no deal.
I don’t know about anyone else here, but I’m failing to detect in the above a spirit of good faith and willingness to compromise. The Parameters were meant to serve as a mere basis for discussion. Yet even here, the Palestinians could not miss an opportunity to sound off about matters not even addressed in the proposal:
“The United States proposal remains silent on a number of issues that are essential for the establishment of a lasting and comprehensive peace. . . . Specifically, the proposal does not address water, compensation for damages resulting from over thirty years of occupation, the environment, future economic relations, and other state-to-state issues etc, etc,etc,etc,etc.”
The Palestinian response simply said no to all points (a)-(d) and even mischaracterized some of the things they were saying no to (i.e., “Cantons”? Please).
The rejection was unequivocal, unambiguous, immutable and incontrovertible: it said no.
How many ways can someone say no?
And how far did the Palestinians move from their stated objections in the Parameters in the subsequent negotiations? The answer: not one inch. Nor have they to this day. They would not consider the Parameters even as a basis for discussion. What, then, was there to negotiate?
Elsa Walsh of the New Yorker wrote in her March 24, 2003 article that Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia—no friend of Israel—said to Arafat on Jan. 2, 2001:
“Since 1948, every time we’ve had something on the table we say no. When we say yes, it’s not on the table any more. Then we have to deal with something less. Isn’t it about time we say yes?…If we lose this opportunity, it’s not going to be a tragedy, it is going to be crime.”
Wrote Walsh:
“Bandar believed that Arafat’s failure to accept the deal in January of 2001 was a tragic mistake—a crime really. [Bandar said] “I was there. I was a witness. I cannot lie…I still have not recovered, to be honest with you, inside, from the magnitude of the missed opportunity that January.”
Said Dennis Ross of Arafat’s rejection of the Parameters:
“[Arafat's] reservations were deal-killers, involving his actual rejection of the Western Wall part of the formula on the Haram, his rejection of the most basic elements of the Israeli security needs, and his dismissal of our refugee formula. All were deal killers.”
These continuing, feeble attempts to deny the Palestinians’ rejection of a sovereign, contiguous state in 2000/2001 and the horrific consequences that have resulted from it, continues to be a disgraceful endeavor requiring ever more lies and argumentative gymnastics. But facts are stubborn things.
“Why did the Security Council even mention a just settlement of the refugee problem in SC resolution 242? ”
Why not? Perhaps one day someone will compensate them and the Jews driven out of Arab countries in the late 1940s and 1950s.
“In “exchange for peace” Barak offered to annex 80 percent of the settlers and settlements in the West Bank and to keep al-Haram al-Sharif. The only state he is going to recognize with that stupid offer is a state of war.”
What is stupid about it? 80 percent of the settlers and settlements are on a few percent of the land, easily traded for by land swaps. Is there a rule that the final settlement has to be logistically difficult? The Temple Mount (and to Jews it is the Temple Mount) is the holiest site in Judaism. Barak didn’t advocate demolishing the Dome of the Rock.
This offer was apparently good enough for Saeb Erekat to remark on the significant progress made at Camp David.
“Barak gave the Palestinians nothing; was stalling on the Road map requirement regarding recognition of the Palestinian state”
What are you talking about? The Road Map did not come until 2003. Camp David/Taba was in 2000/2001.
Actually, I believe it’s an excerpt from Michael Oren’s book on the Six Day War. If you have credentials as an historian that compete with Michael Oren, please let us know.
“Why do Zionists hate the US military? ”
Of course, most Zionist I know love the US military. But you obviously are in love with it. What have you done to show your love lately?
“I assume you are familiar with the basic history of Camp David. Barak never put any proposal in writing. His “land deal” included a phased plan to recognize a State of Palestine that did not include Jerusalem. If Arafat had accepted that proposal, then Israel would not be holding ant territory in East Jerusalem under belligerent occupation. It’s called the principle of “acceptance” in contract or international law.”
What’s your source on this claim?
I think it is a little bit of a stretch to discuss the concept of “acceptance” in the context of peace negotiations.
“He suggested that he might consider negotiations on Jerusalem and refugees in three years.”
OK, and I’m not sure what you find so unreasonable about this. These are two very difficult issues in the conflict. A demonstrated functioning Palestinian state at peace with Israel would doubtless make it easier to solve them.
“he was simply thumbing his nose at the five year deadline contained in Article 1 of the Oslo Declaration of Principles and offering pie in the sky in the sweet bye and bye.”
Let’s stop the silliness. Palestinian leaders did precious little to prepare their people for peace. There was a suicide bombing campaign that went on for two years. All of this contributed to the failure of the “five-year deadline.” Deadlines are meaningless in international law. The UN sets them all the time. They’re barely ever met.
“That is why the Quartet Road map had finally established a deadline for Israeli and international recognition of the State of Palestine within interim borders by 2003.”
The Road Map was formulated in 2003. link to news.bbc.co.uk
The provisional state is part of Phase II, which could have been accomplished as early as late 2003 (it was not a deadline at all). And as we know, neither side got out of Phase I. The Israelis are still building in the settlements (because settlers apparently are still having children), and the Palestinians have not renounced the use of violence.
Citizen,
When Israel was first recognized, Jewish terrorists had been running amok for more than a decade. They took it upon themselves to murder the UN Mediator for recommending a peaceful solution.
A few years after Israel began openly colonizing the Arab territories with civilian settlers, the Israeli government’s own 1984 Karp Commitee report said that serious cases of settler violence against Palestinians were routinely closed without any investigation whatsoever.
A decade later nothing had changed:
The Special Rapporteurs for human rights in Palestine and the UN and Arab League fact finding missions have all reported widespread settler violence against Palestinians along the same lines as the Goldstone report.
Initial recognition of Israel’s statehood was obviously not conditioned on its government putting an end to Jewish terrorism – and maintenance of diplomatic recognition obviously doesn’t depend on ending settler violence against Palestinian civilians. The Quartet isn’t holding Israel and the PA to the same standards.
Yespam,
The summary of the Liberty attack is my own. I could not possibly list every book I have read on the Liberty attack over the years, since most of what I read was contained in books I read about the Six-Day War of 1967, but here are a few that dealt specifically with the Liberty attack:
“The Assault on the Liberty: The True Story of the Israeli attack on an American Intelligence Ship,” by James M. Ennes, hardback edition (1979) and paperback edition with author’s new preface (1987).
“Conspiracy of Silence: The attack on the USS Liberty,” by Anthony Pearson, (1978).
“Blue on Blue: A History of Friendly Fire,” by Geoffrey Regan (1995).
Michael Oren does indeed devote a few pages to the Liberty attack in his excellent “Six Days of War” (2002) but the sole source of my information concerning the declassified information is from “The Liberty Incident” by former naval aviator and navy JAG lawyer AJ Cristol. Cristol spent decades doing countless interviews with both American and Israeli personel involved in the incident and in investigating it and he has plowed through literally bushels of declassified American and Israeli documentation of the incident. He concludes it was an accident, and copiously documents his conclusions.
But facts are stubborn things.
And if they were facts you would give the source of your cut and paste quotes wouldn’t you?
OOOH! Michael Oren, huh? Yeah, no conflict of interest there.
Not that I need to be interrogated by a loser turncoat like you, hophmi, but several of my friends are veterans and quite naturally the anti-war advocacy group are participate in raises awareness of veteran issues (untreated trauma, joblessness, other neglect of returning troops) as an important, related issue to dealing with the war.
And what have you done, lately? You’re supposed to be a lawyer. There’s an awful lot of advocacy you could be doing, right? So are you?
The summary of the Liberty attack is my own.
Really, looks like a cut and paste from wikapedia to me. I read that page a couple of days ago.
“OOOH! Michael Oren, huh? Yeah, no conflict of interest there.”
Again, if you have anything that contravenes his view, present it.
“Not that I need to be interrogated by a loser turncoat like you, hophmi, but several of my friends are veterans”
What a surprise! I have friends who are veterans too.
“And what have you done, lately?”
You’re the one accusing those who disagree with you of being traitors and not patriotic. It’s up to you to answer that question, not me. Maybe you should join Fox News. I hear they like to accuse people of being unpatriotic also. You might fit in.
Here’s all you need to know about Michael Oren –
From – link to ussliberty.org
Also, see Norman Finkelstein’s comments on Hamas -
More from Dr. Finkelstein – from: link to quotesstar.com
“When Israel was first recognized, Jewish terrorists had been running amok for more than a decade. They took it upon themselves to murder the UN Mediator for recommending a peaceful solution. ”
Count Folke Bernedette was killed by Lehi, the most extreme group in the Yishuv, that represented less than 1% of the Yishuv. Abba Eban attended the funeral on Israel’s behalf. Lehi was forcibly disarmed after the attack.
Hamas is a mainstream group within the territories, not a tiny fringe group. It isn’t remotely a comparable situation.
The number of deaths caused by settler violence is remote compared with the number of deaths caused by suicide bombing. How many PA commissions have investigated suicide bombing?
The only preparation required for peace is an agreement and a ceasefire. As I already pointed out, the Israelis had not had a single discussion about evacuating trhe settlements, which does indeed require preperation.
False. The Quartet makes that call, and the Quartet is exceptionally happy with the progress that Abbas and Faayad have made in the West Bank, and the Quartet has not the slightest complaint about how Abbas and his gang have fullfilled all of their obligations under the Road Map.
link to un.org
“The only preparation required for peace is an agreement and a ceasefire. As I already pointed out, the Israelis had not had a single discussion about evacuating trhe settlements, which does indeed require preperation.”
Uh-huh. So I guess you’ve been in on every meeting the Israeli government has ever had on the settlement issue. Oslo did not require the Israelis to evacuate the settlements.
“False. The Quartet makes that call, and the Quartet is exceptionally happy with the progress that Abbas and Faayad have made in the West Bank, and the Quartet has not the slightest complaint about how Abbas and his gang have fullfilled all of their obligations under the Road Map.”
Uh-huh. Phase I requires the cessation of violence. Nowhere in this press release do I see the Quartet recognizing that the Palestinians have fulfilled that condition. Indeed, it would be silly, since it clearly hasn’t happened. And can I take it from this that you now support the work of Salam Fayyad and Mahmoud Abbas?
“Hamas is a mainstream group within the territories, not a tiny fringe group.”
Not “the territories.” It’s called Palestine.
“It isn’t remotely a comparable situation.”
No, it isn’t; the Jews weren’t subject to the type of brutal, multi-generational occupation to which they have subjected the Palestinians. Had that been the case, who know? The Lehi could have been the dominant group.
But your attempt to distance Israel form the Lehi is nonsense. They got one of their own terrorists to be PM and for pete’s sakes, Israel created a military ribbon that all the Lehi pigs can wear when they stomp on stolen Palestinians lands in military parades.
Please furnish some documentation for your statement that Bernedette was killed with only the support of less than 1% of the Yishuv. Thanks, hophmi.
And backed 100% by the Israeli government.
The Lehi was led at the time by Yitzhak Shamir, who was later to become Prime Minister of Israel.
The Lehi operated throughout the war. Thy were given a general amnesty in February 1949.
In other words, a pat of the back for a job well done.
Oslo did require the Israelis to stop builging them.
Phase I requires the cessation of violence.
False. What we see is this:
“Palestinian leadership issues unequivocal statement reiterating Israel’s right to exist in peace and security and calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire to end armed activity and all acts of violence against Israelis anywhere. All official Palestinian institutions end incitement against Israel.”
What it means is that, so long as Abbas co are committed to non-violence, then that provision has been fulfilled, and the Quartet has indeed recognized this commitment as being fulfilled.
And don’t bother bringin up Hamas, because the only group recognized as the “Palestinian leadership” is Abbas And His Bunch.
So the short answer is you do jack shit for veterans and men and women in uniform, hophmi. Got it, thanks. Certainly you spent more effort right here defending crazy Zionist assassins than you would have for any loyal American.
“But your attempt to distance Israel form the Lehi is nonsense. They got one of their own terrorists to be PM and for pete’s sakes”
Oh please. This wears thin after a while. Shamir became Prime Minister in the mid-1980s, nearly 40 years later. You act like he became Prime Minister the next day.
I mean, the situations could not be more different. Lehi was a fringe group that was reined in by Ben-Gurion and the government. It was never more than a fringe group. Their actions were repeatedly condemned by the Yishuv. Hamas has never been treated similarly. The closest was in the mid-1990s, when Arafat cracked down, and only then for a short time.
“the Jews weren’t subject to the type of brutal, multi-generational occupation to which they have subjected the Palestinians”
Not to quite the same degree. But they were under British occupation for 31 years, had a number of their leaders imprisoned and hung, faced Arab terror attacks for most of those 31 years, and had to deal with this while millions of their brothers and sisters were murdered elsewhere and the remnants kept in DP camps.
Stop lying. That’s not what I said.
Es it does. What happened in 1967 went perfectly to script as l;aid out by Ben Gurion in 1936.
You’re clearly not an American then, because any American wil tell you that Washington is absolutely synonomous with America.
Of course it was. The poll read, 56% of Israelis support construction, not that 56% of Israelis oppose Obama. The poll did not mention anything about capitulating to foreign pressure. Indeed less than half of respondents supported Obama’s request.
Robert,
Yes, I believe that. It was a wonderfully creative work of fiction. Your account is the first one I have read that claims any Israeli vessemade any attempt to extended help or medical attention to the Liberty’s crew.
Ennes concludes that Israel ‘s attack was deliberate.
Pearson concludes that Israel ‘s attack was deliberate.
“Blue on Blue: A History of Friendly Fire,” by Geoffrey Regan (1995).
Regan’s book has become an object of ridicule, with scores of false claims and conflated events.
There’s no point even adresseing Michael Oren’s piece of propaganda. It’s riddled with lies and holes, been resoundingly debunked by Fimkelstein.
Cristol was not a JAG lawyer, but bankruptcy judge.
Not only did he NOT do countless interviews with both American and Israeli personnel involved, he actually dismisses eyewitness accounts of those on the ship out-of-hand. Eyewitnesses, he claims, are not reliable, as they are too close to the event to be believed.
In other words, Cristol is insisting we should not believe our lying eyes.
Ward Boston, an attorney and a retired United States Navy Captain (and chief counsel to the Naval Board of Inquiry investigating the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty) personally concluded that the attack was most likely deliberate. And stated the court was ordered by superiors to ascribe the attack to an accident, rather than to deliberate hostility.
Rather than refute Boston or even debate him, Cristol accused Boston of being part of a propaganda effort emanating from “a small but well-funded and very vocal group of people and organizations principally supported by Saudi Arabian money”.
Needless to say, Cristol never offered any evidence of his slander against Boston.
Cristol isnsits there is no official investigation needed into the attack because he claims there have been repeated investigations that has exonerated Israel. That claim is pure fantasy. There has never been any congressional inquiry into the attack on the USS Liberty and Congress has never investigated the attack. Israeli culpability for the attack on the USS Liberty has never been investigated by any agency of the United States government.
Robert,
What makes the ground breaking publication by Walt and Mearsheimer execrable Robert? As with Chomsky, you Hasbrats have been throwing everything but the kitchen sink and these two and their peer reviews scholarly publication and come up with zero.
It’s hardly surprising therefore, that the best you can come up with is to dismiss it as execrable and not bother to elaborate as to why.
Now that’s what I call a deliberate act of deceipt, what is indeed staggering in its mendacity. You simply cute and pasted this from wikipedia and deliberately left out the following sentence that states:
“A different view is that both Israeli and Palestinian reservations questioned fundamental aspects of the Clinton parameters.”
Arafat formally accepted the Parameters on January 3, 2001 as did Israel. Both sides expressed reservations. As we all know, the Clinton Parameters were not the terms of a final deal, but guidelines for final accelerated negotiation. Each side could accept it or reject it as is, and may not offer any changes to it.
Dennis “Israel’s lawyer” Ross (aka AIPAC lobbyist), was one of the actors responsible for sabotaging the negotiations at Camp David and Taba. Shlomo Ben Ami met with Anu Allan directly in Taba and recounted that:
Within the negotiations, we had the second track trying to reach an agreement, and he even agrees to all kind of things that he was not very open to before that.
Ross tried to railroad Abu Ala into an agreement by threatening what would happen once Sharon came to office. What Ross failed to mention was that even if an agreement had been made, Sharon would have killed the deal once he came to power. Barak didn’t have the numbers in the Knesset and would never have been able to ratify it before the Israeli elections.
Shlomo Ben Ami recalls that during Taba:
…we were practically nonexistent. Our legitimacy as a government to negotiate such central issues as Jerusalem, as Temple Mount, the temple, etc., was being questioned, not only by the right that was making political capital out of it, but by the left, people from our own government.
As for the parameters, here are a few corrections:
(a) a Palestinian state on all of Gaza and 94-96% of the West Bank (not 97%)
(b) a capital in East Jerusalem (divided according to ethnic lines)
(c) A Palestinian state would have authority to decide who it’s migrants would be, thus to describe the mogration of Palestinian refugees as right of return is beyond the pale.
(d)The international compensation fund was $30 billion, hardly masive
The things you left this out Robert:
(e) Israel would retain a military presence throughout fixed locations in the Jordan Valley, so the occupation would effectively continue.
(f) Israel would also set up three radar facilities in the West Bank.
(g) Israel would have access to Palestiniuan air space.
(h) The Palestinian state would also be demilitarized, maming it compeletely at the merdy of Israel
Israekl also erserved the right to deploy military forces to Palestine by simoply dcalring a military threat to Israel’s national security (the same loophole the Netenyahu exploited to sabotage Oslo)
Let us look at the Palestinians’ objections to points (c) and (a).
Let’s listen to the objections to point (a):
And rightly so. The 3% of the West Bank was stolen by Israel because it was considered the most valuable. After all, if the 3% was so measly, then why was Israel refusing to give it up?
Like all Israelis propagandists, Robert argues from the position of the Dennis Ross interpretation. Everything is framed in terms of what Israel wants (as opposed to what it is legally entitled to), and thus, whatever it gives up is made out to be a huge concession. However, if you frame things in terms of what Israel was legally entitled to under international law, then Israel made precisely and exactly zero concessions. All the concessions were made by the Palestinians
Let’s remember that Arafat was negotiation of the remaining 22% of Palestine not 50%.
To point (c):
The official January 2, 2001 Palestinian response to the Clinton Parameters thus states:
“We cannot accept a proposal that secures neither the establishment of a viable Palestinian state nor the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.”
That sounds perfectly reasonable. What would be the point of accepting a deal that offered neither of these? Dennis Ross openly admits that the US did not behave as a mediator, so much as Israel’s legal team
False. The statement you quote explicitly states there should be a “provision of choice to the refugees”, so that the refugees could decide if they wanted to return to Israel proper, to historic Palestine or another country.
As Ben Ami aknowledges that this is not an unreasonable position, only that it is not feasible.:
“We need to draw a line between an Israeli state, a sovereign Palestinian state, and solve the best way we can the problem, by giving the necessary compensation to the refugees, by bringing back the refugees to the Palestinian state, no way to the state of Israel, not because it is immoral, but because it is not feasible, it is not possible. “
Giving up the right of return on behalf of 6 million refugees id not compromise, it’s capitulation.
The Parameters were meant to serve as a mere basis for discussion about the issues that were unresolved at Camp David. There was no terms laid down during the Taba talks that ruled out discussion or negotiation about issues not address by the Clinton Parameters.
Water is an essential to the viability of any state. Israel had annexed most of the water resources in the West Bank and the PLO would have been negligent not to raise this matter. Israel destroyed the Palestinian economy during it’s occupation, so the case for compensation is equally legitimate.
False, there was no rejection, there were reservation.
(a) They wanted 100% of 22%, as opposed to 97% f 22%. That’s no saying no. They have already given up 78%.
(b) They agree to the sharing of East Jerusalem with some reservations.
© Israel were the party that were refusing to budge.
And clearly, the Palestinians never said no to (d) .
False again. As Ben Ami recounts in his meeting with Anu Allan
..he even agrees to all kind of things that he was not very open to before that.
And to suggest they haven’t budged to this day is pure delusion, as exposed by the Palestine Papers, which revealed that the PA went far beyond the terms of the Clinton Parameters. Not only that, but Israel have already laid waste to the Clinton Parameters in every sense.
Oh how awesome, a quote from Bandar Bush.
Nice try but a fail.
The fact that you’ve been reduced to exclusively quoting Dennis Ross, an AIPAC lobbyist and Israeli bag man, reels how desperate and pathetic your argument is.
Dennis Ross, known throughout Washington as Israel’s lawyer, has no credibility. Even within the Obama administration, he has worked to undermine Obama’s foreign policies and sabotaged George Mitchell’s appointment. He is without doubt, one of the most vile and destructive operators in Washington since Henry Kissinger.
“Barak gave the Palestinians nothing; was stalling on the Road map requirement regarding recognition of the Palestinian state”
What are you talking about? The Road Map did not come until 2003. Camp David/Taba was in 2000/2001.
You and I are discussing an article written by Barak in August of 2003. Try to focus when you are posting kilobytes of ignorant hasbara talkback posts. You are supposed to be “explaining”.
Barak was bemoaning the fact that the Sharon government was going to be required to recognize a Palestinian state and loose its leverage on the issues of right of return and East Jerusalem. He was suggesting a way to slow things down, just like he slowed down the Oslo Accord process at Camp David.
Shingo–somewhere in this very long thread I applauded Hostage’s posts. I need to add some praise here for yours. I’m awestruck by both of you in this thread.
And glad you two have the patience to deal with Robert Werdine. People have caught him in numerous inconsistencies in this thread alone, but none of it phases him. There’s something really fishy about this guy (which I would not say about any of the other pro-Israel posters on this site.)
Robert, why am I not surprised that you happened to have an exhaustive analysis of the Liberty affair in reserve to trot out at a moment’s notice? No, I still don’t know who you are or how you operate, but your behavior is very consistent. I feel like I’m arguing against an extremely well-equipped attorney who believes he can get away with any lies he tells in court, as long as he tries to dominate the discourse in sheer volume. I’ve been in this position before.
I will not bother to respond to your lengthy Liberty analysis -others already have done so – except to add this. In keeping with your other defenses of Israel, you disparage the contention that the attack was intentional as a wild, easily dismissible “conspiracy theory” that only the “deranged” could believe. The term “conspiracy theory,” used in its usual negative sense, may have some applicability to situations when an apparently non-involved person or entity is accused of complicity in a dastardly deed. Example: the Israelis or Jews were behind 9/11 because thousands of Jews were warned to stay away from the World Trade Center; or the Pentagon was hit not by a plane but by a cruise missile fired by the US Air Force. I’m sure you would like to treat the Liberty matter similarly, but what happened to the Liberty was entirely different, as you well know. Israeli planes and ships mercilessly attacked a US intelligence vessel in broad daylight over the course of hours. It is not a discredited “conspiracy theory” to presume that the Israeli attackers intended to do what they admittedly did. An extremely heavy burden falls upon anyone making the highly implausible excuse of “accident” or “mistake” under such circumstances. Neither you nor anyone else you cite has come close to meeting that burden. The only other thing I need add is that you are unable to explain why none of the hundreds of surviving sailors has ever publicly given the slightest credence to the “mistake” excuse you find so overwhelmingly credible that anyone less gullible must be “deranged.” btw, that’s a nice word used to describe the many sailors who have the audacity to blame Israel for what Israel did to them and their buddies on the most horrifying day of their lives.
As for my accusations of your dishonesty about Arafat and Qibya, the record is quite clear. You may pretend that you don’t understand the nature of those accusations but no one else is fooled. You have boasted that you made a 180-degree turn on I/P during the Oslo years, in part because of Arafat’s “screaming violent death-to-Israel speeches,” but you are unable to supply actual video or audio evidence of a single one. When called on this, you refer to a number of reported statements, some of them true and some of them unverifiable, in which he makes much milder statements, including hopes for a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. None of the “screaming violent” speeches that you originally described that would have been necessary to convince a supposedly pro-Palestinian youngster like yourself that Arafat was a devious madman bent on genocide. Now you throw into the mix speeches made to Western audiences in which he presents a more moderate viewpoint, answering the non-existent contention that such speeches were not made.
Qibya: again you look like a fool. You did concede a massacre, but absurdly soft-pedaled it by saying that it was “a retaliatory raid obviously [that] lapsed into an massacre of civilians.” You then quoted at length from Ben-Gurion, the man who ordered the “retaliatory raid” on innocent civilians sleeping in a village, defending the action. When I accurately accused you of defending the massacre, you howl in protest that you admitted it was a “massacre,” or at least a “lapsed” massacre, leaving out the Ben-Gurion part. You can’t even try to defend yourself from my ridicule over your terms “lapsed” and “retaliatory raid.” Why did you use those absurd terms unless you trying to defend, at least in part, the massacre? You essentially said, “OK, so it was a massacre, but it didn’t start out that way, and Ben-Gurion offered a good reason to take some action. That’s an attempt at a defense, Robert, no question about it.
As for 1947-1948, once again you scream foul at my reasonable interpretation of your own words. You said that “the entire refugee problem was created by the Arab’s [sic] rejection of the 1947 partition.” Which Arabs were you talking about? Surely the Palestinians were Arabs who overwhelmingly rejected partition. This was not a case of the Palestinian “leadership” rejecting a compromise desired by the Palestinian “masses.” Thus, by wholly blaming “the Arabs” for causing the refugee crisis by rejecting partition, you were blaming, in part, the refugees themselves, This is not strained logic on my part, as it inexorably follows from the very language you used. You blamed the victims, pure and simple. You also blamed the victims for being gullibly misled by “Arab propaganda” about Deir Yassin. In your view, it was not the fault of the Yishuv for perpetrating that high-profile slaughter of innocent civilians, it was the ignorant Palestinians for believing that the same could happen to them if they stayed. My goodness, how those “Arab propagandists” fiendishly exploited Deir Yassin (a lapsed massacre, perhaps?) by encouraging ignorant Palestinian masses to take seriously the threat of additional massacres! I know, you didn’t exactly say this, Robert, but on the other hand, you really did, even while belatedly admitting that there were many other massacres as well.
If you want to accuse me of something, try this. I compared your statements over the past few days with the statements you made weeks ago, and exposed your duplicity and dishonesty. To that, I plead guilty.
Finally, Robert, consider yourself lucky if you’re only “bored” that I exposed (only some of) your repeated lies. Most people would be embarrassed or even humiliated. If you bother to respond, don’t forget to end with “Sad, very sad, David.” Otherwise, I’ll suspect someone’s pinch-hitting for you. And if you don’t respond, here’s a word of advice. When you try to foul the comments section of another website, keep your lies straight and consistent, even if they’re told over the course of several weeks or months. What you said earlier can easily be called up and compared with your present lies. 21st century technology, dammit!
Robert ,
That’s pretty amusing coming from someone who devoted nearly 400 words to a vacuous, fact free diatribe about Araft.
The accusation that you lied about Araft “talking peace with gullible western audiences, and screaming violent death-to-Israel speeches to Arab ones, sometimes in the same day” still stands. In fact, true to Zionist form, that statement includes not one but 2 lies.
1.You have failed to cite a single “death to Israel” speech made by Arafat
2.You have failed to cite a single “death to Israel” speech made by Arafat on the same day he talked peace with gullible western audiences
Not one of your quotes comes even close to fitting this description, and that includes the one from South Africa.
Speaking of the South Africa speech, I looked it up and unsurprisingly found out that you misrepresent that too, but what I find most amusing, is that the denunciation of Olso you level against Arafat mirrors the very attitude that Barak and Netenyhu also expressed towards Olso.
As is always the case with your hasbsrats, it’s only an outrage when a Palestinian does it.
You’ve had at least 3 opportunities to provide a single example that fits your description of Araft “talking peace with gullible western audiences, and screaming violent death-to-Israel speeches to Arab ones, sometimes in the same day”. And the best you can now do is tell us to go and find them.
You lied and your lies have been exposed. Just man up, admit it and move on.
And seriosly Robert, you are doing yourself no favours by insisting your claims are beyond dispute when you haven’t even produce evidence of them.
The above rant perfectly encapsulates your unique method of obfuscation. You did not blame the crisis on the refugees themselves, but you did blame it on those who were to become refugees. As David pointed out, your claimed that the “flight” of the refugees was predominantly caused by Arab propaganda, which inflated the severity of the massacres.
That too is false.
First of all, there were 2 phases of the war, the civil war and then the wider Arab conflict. The wider Arab conflict followed Israel’s declaration of independence because Israel had already invaded and conquered parts of the UN Partition Plan’s proposed Arab state.
False again. The refugee crisis resulted from Israeli expulsion of Palestinians, and was facilitated by the war. While the expulsion was facilitated by the war, there is no doubt that Israel had planned to expell/transfer/cleanse the Arabs from Israel and were simply waiting for an opportunity to do it. They began doing so in 1948 during the civil war and continued during the Arab war in 1948.
Absolute rubbish. The Israeli forces were modern and well trained, most benefiting from British training.
There is no evidence of hysterical broadcasts exaggerating the scale of the massacres. Indeed, it would be difficult to hype something like the Deir Yassin massacre, in which 250 civilians were butchered and their bodies thrown down wells.
I have to hand it to you Robert. Your recollection of the Israeli attack o the USS Liberty has to be one of the most creative, inventive and novel works of fiction I have ever come across in relation so the incident.
Now, let’s correct your fictional account.
What immediately stands out in your propagandistic account is your deliberate omission that for a period of more than 6 hours (between 6 am and 1pm) Israel surveyed the USS Liberty with naval vessels and unmarked aircraft.
0600: Israeli Nord 2501 Noratlas (flying boxcar) reconnoiters Liberty.
0603: Reconnaissance aircraft reports to Israeli naval headquarters that “GTR-5” is written on the ship, identifying it as an NSA intelligence vessel.
0720: Fresh American flag is raised.
0900: Jet aircraft approaches Liberty, then veers off towards Gaza. Liberty crewmen unable to identify markings.
1000: Two unmarked, rocket-armed, delta-winged jets circle Liberty three times. Liberty officers can count rockets and see the pilots, but see no identifying marks on the plane. The jets radio Israeli headquarters that the ship is flying an American flag.
1030: Israeli “flying boxcar” with Israeli markings circles Liberty at about 200 feet. Crew member Larry Weaver says, “I was actually able to wave to the co-pilot, a fellow on the right-hand side of the plane. He waved back, and actually smiled at me.”
1055: Pinchas Pinchasy, naval liaison officer at Israeli air force headquarters, reports to Naval Headquarters that the ship cruising slowly off El Arish is “an electromagnetic audio-surveillance ship of the U.S. Navy, named Liberty, whose marking was GTR-5.”
1100 & 1130: Israeli reconnaissance aircraft again circle Liberty.
1205: Three Israeli motor torpedo boats leave Ashdod at high speed headed toward Liberty. They are followed by Israeli air force fighters, loaded with 30mm cannon ammunition, rockets, and napalm.
1215 & 1245: Israeli reconnaissance aircraft again circle Liberty.
1341: Israeli torpedo boats spot Liberty and call for an immediate air strike.
1358: Two unmarked delta-winged Mirage jets attack Liberty. After taking out gun mounts, they target ship’s antennae and bridge with heat-seeking missiles.
They still lied about it. Israeli Lt. Col. Michael Bloch falsely claims that the Liberty had been mistaken for the Egyptian supply ship El Queseir because it was not flying a flag. As I pointed out, Israel had surveyed the ship at 1100, 1130, 1215 & 1245. They knew what it was.
At first, Israel refused to pay for the LIBERTY damage. It wasn’t until 1980 that Israel agreed to pay $7.6 million damages for the $40 million ship, but then went back on the agreement when U.S. aid to Israel was cut to $71 million (down from $121.7 the previous year) in 1970. The bill remained unpaid (and never deducted from the increased U.S. Aid).
Israel did not pay any compensation to the victims. As was to become the status quo from that day forth, all compensation was paid by the US taxpayer. The compensation eventually paid by Israel is a fraction of the agreed sum. No money whatsoever is given to the US government
Ward Boston, Jr., an attorney and a retired United States Navy Captain and chief counsel to the Naval Board of Inquiry investigating the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, told the Navy Times that the naval court was a politicized sham with conclusions preordained to exonerate Israel. He also signed affidavit stating that Johnson and MacNamara had ordered Kidd, that the assault be ruled an accident, and to reach the conclusion “that the attack was a case of ‘mistaken identity’” despite “overwhelming evidence to the contrary.”
On the 8th of June the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Reconnaissance Center (JRC) ordered the Liberty to go from 12½ to 20 nautical miles off coast. An error by the U.S. Army Communications Center at the Pentagon results in message never reaching the ship.
JRC orders Liberty to approach no closer than 100 miles to the coasts of Egypt and Israel. Due to misrouting it took 16½ hours for message to reach Liberty.
Rubbish. At 1100 & 1130 am, Israeli reconnaissance aircraft circled Liberty, and furthermore, a fresh American flag had been raised at 07:20.
At 1215 & 1245 Israeli reconnaissance aircraft again circle Liberty. Any confusing about whether the ship had left the area would have been put to rest.
Correction. Two unmarked Mirage fighters targeted the ship’s antennae and bridge with heat-seeking missiles.
Also false. Statements by an Israeli pilot involved in the attack confirm that in spite of the positive identification, HQ ordered pilots to continue the attack on the ship regardless. The attack ended as soon as the USS Saratoga acknowledged the distress call and signalled that F-4 Phantom jets were on their way.
There was no breakdown in communications. Israel were panicking because they believed US jets were on the way, so they improvised and pretended to help.
False. All survivors that day reported that the weather was calm and still and furthermore, the markings on the ship were unmistakable, not to mention that the ship was many times larger and more modern than any Egyptian cargo ship.
On the contrary. There is overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
1.Every surviving passenger who witnessed the attack reported otherwise
2.Israel lied about the ship not flying the flag and conducted many fly bys to identify the ship
3.The Israeli jets were unmarked, which meant that the attack was pre meditated. There is no other explanation for why they were unmarked.
4.Israel attacked the lifeboats of those abandoning the ship.
That was easily explained by the fact that they thought US F4 Phatom jets had been dispatched by the USS Saratoga and were on their way.
As I explained earlier, Israel pulled back when they heard the response from the Saratoga, confirming that US jets were on their way. It would have been impossible for Israel deny they’d sunk the ship, and they had no time to ensure the ship was underwater by the time the F4′s arrived.
Cristol is a liar and a fraud, who dismissed the collective testimonies of all the surviving passengers and eye witnesses on the grounds that he claimed, eyewitness accounts are not reliable, as they are too close to the event to be believed.
Did you get that? Let me repeat it. According to Cristol (a bankruptcy judge), eyewitness accounts cannot be believed because they are too close to the event.
Admiral Kidd repeatedly referred to the Israeli forces responsible for the attack as ‘murderous bastards.
After Boston submitted his affidavit, Critsdol become completely unhimged and came up with conspiracy theories that someone had helped Boston with his initial affidavit and declaration, and that Boston belonged to a propaganda effort emanating from “a small but well-funded and very vocal group of people and organizations principally supported by Saudi Arabian money”.
That is a very good question, but the “power” and “influence” was clearly demonstrated by the event. Why else would Kidd have threatened all the survivors, fellow Americans, with court-martial, prison and worse were it not for extremely powerful political pressure from above?
Why else would there have been no Congressional Investigation into the incident? Why else would every investigation ever conduced into the incident, have deliberately omitted the testimony or evidence of the hundreds of eyewitnesses and survivors, who in many cases were not only ignored, but denied permission to attend the hearings?
Again Robert, you can claim that the Facts behind the attack are thus beyond dispute, but this case is much in dispute and will continue to remain in dispute until the glaring contradictions, the holes in the story and the absurd explanations are resolved.
And that Robert, is beyond dispute.
I think it is a little bit of a stretch to discuss the concept of “acceptance” in the context of peace negotiations.
The principle of acceptance and pacta sunt servanda were the only disputed issues in a number of cases in the PCIJ and ICJ. The courts have always ruled that parties were bound by the terms of their acceptance and that any such agreements must be kept. For example, in the Article 3 Treaty of Lausanne case that meant that, although the Council of the League of Nations was only empowered to make non-binding recommendations, the parties had agreed in advance to accept its decision on the boundary between Turkey and Iraq. See pdf file page 45 of 57 You can find similar examples of the consequences of principle of acceptance in the Upper Silesia case mentioned there and in the Railway Traffic Between Lithuania and Poland Case.
Here are a couple of examples where the government of Israel has employed the principle of acceptance:
*The representative of the Jewish Agency, Mr. Shertok stated that “Only the United Nations as a whole was competent to determine the future of the territory of Palestine, and its decision, therefore, had a binding force. –U.N. Doc. A/C. 1/SR. 127, P. 7 (27 April 1948) cited in An International Law Analysis Of The Major United Nations Resolutions Concerning The Palestine Question
*Although Israel had accepted General Assembly resolution 181(II) as legally binding, Abba Eban contended that the subsequent acceptance of the armistice agreements by the UN Mediator and Security Council meant that Israel and the Arab states no longer held any territory in Palestine illegally. See “Effect on Armistice Agreements”, FRUS Volume VI 1949 page 1149
*Dr Alan Baker disagrees with the ICJ advisory opinion and insists that the central claim was always that settlers were living in the area contrary to international law, which forbids the transfer of a civilian population to an occupied territory. He says that now they are living there by agreeinent—by the force of an international treaty which determines that their status will be decided in the final agreement. The Oslo Accords expired on September 13, 2000, but Baker seems to think that the settlers can remain so long as Israel refuses to negotiate a final settlement.
The principle regarding acceptance of Security Council decisions was codified in Article 24 and 25 of the UN Charter, i.e. the Security Council acts on the members behalf – and the members agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the Charter.
That fact was cited in the Namibia case, the Treaty of Montreal case, and the Wall case.
The Security Council publishes analytical tables of its decisions in order to make the evidence of customary international law more accessible. See for example “IV Measures for Settlement”> “E. Provisions bearing on issues of substance including terms of settlement”> “5. Call for settlement of refugee problem”> Situation in the Middle East (II):> “Decision of 22 November 1967 (resolution 242 (1967)) para 2(b). in pages 5-6 of the “Repertoire of the Practice of the Security Council”. link to un.org
That means Israel has agreed to accept and carry out that decision regarding refugees. The Charter of the United Nations does not confer the power on the Security Council or Israel to arbitrarily strip citizenship, land, property, and the right to enter a persons own country from them in the final settlement agreement.
Thank you for your kind words Donald,
Coming from you, that is indeed a serious compliment.
I agrree about Robert. He is indeed a strange case, and he is clearly determined to score some kind of victory, but in any case, I have actually foun dit to be a productive excercise.
Reading Hostages posts alone has been worth it. The guy is a mental giant.
Count Folke Bernedette was killed by Lehi, the most extreme group in the Yishuv, that represented less than 1% of the Yishuv. Abba Eban attended the funeral on Israel’s behalf. Lehi was forcibly disarmed after the attack.
Oh please, the IDF has a service ribbon for the Irgun and Lehi. The remains of the assassins of Lord Moyne were brought back to Israel and reburied on Mount Herzl with full military honors. Menachim Begin was elected to a seat in the very first session of the Knesset and both he and Shamir served as Prime Minister. A simple review of the governments own reports shows that Israel has never been able to stop the terrorist activities of its own settlers or misconduct by the IDF. The PA is no better or no worse. It has nothing to do with statehood anyway, so give it a rest.
He became prime minister, he didn’t dissapear into obscurity. Would you expect Tommothy McVeugh to be elected to president in 2035?
No it wasn’t. It was a terrorist group that Ben-Gurion (synonimous with Israel) supported and allowed to raise hell during the 1948 war.
Phase I requires the cessation of violence. Nowhere in this press release do I see the Quartet recognizing that the Palestinians have fulfilled that condition.
Is there a requirement that participants in the talkback programs be illiterate? “Rule of law and human rights” were included in the six key areas that the UN reported on in the Press Release which said the PA was ready for statehood.
Wow, that’s priceless.
Shamir became Prime Minister in the mid-1980s, nearly 40 years later. You act like he became Prime Minister the next day.
I mean, the situations could not be more different. Lehi was a fringe group that was reined in by Ben-Gurion and the government.
How exactly does a government that is employing terrorists to relay targeting information about objectives in the Suez Canal Zone, and to plant bombs in Egyptian movie houses and US State Department reading rooms “reign in” former Irgun and Lehi terrorists, like Shamir, by recruiting them into key positions in the Mossad?
FYI, the international community is still prosecuting 97 year-old war criminals for acts they committed during WWII. The people that Menachim Begin killed in the King David Hotel bombing were still dead when he took office in the first Knesset. The same holds true for victims of the David Ben Gurion and Moshe Sneh decision to bomb the Semiramis Hotel. The applicable principles of law say that certain acts result in individual criminal responsibility regardless of local laws, local amnesty deals, or local statutes of limitation.
I do have one correction to make for this thread about Deir Yassin. There was an investigation conducted by someone at Birzeit University which concluded that the death toll was under 120, rather than the 254 reported at the time.
link
Palestine remembered link
It was war and as is usual in war, both sides had an interest in propagandizing. Normally you’d expect the Zionist side to have downplayed the atrocity, but they had an interest in spreading panic and driving out refugees.
I don’t have time to look, but I’m not sure Deir Yassin is even the biggest massacre of the 1948 war. But the other later massacres were successfully expunged from popular knowledge for decades.
Yes, Shingo, you speak the truth. Robert’s comments regarding the
USS Liberty incident and its cover-up are grossly misleading at best in character. It’s obvious to anyone who has studied the incident and its cover-up Robert is only interested in a whitewash
painted so that the uninformed will think Israel attacked the USS Liberty due to simple negligence by tired Israeli air pilots. But the evidence aggregate clearly shows high gross negligence at bare minimum and much more probably, intention to wipe out the US ship and its entire crew.
Summary of Events for all Americans to read:
The following summary of events surrounding the USS Liberty incident is taken from the formal War Crimes Report filed with the Secretary of Defense.. link to gtr5.com
It includes the findings of the 2003 Moorer Commission, an independent commission of highly regarded experts.
I defy anyone who reads it to not conclude that the US Navy was much more interested in hastily
covering up the attack than investigating it’s intentional nature, and still is to this day, right along with the US government, despite the fact the attack stands as the only one with such significant loss of life–the crew suffered a 78% casualty rate (dead and wounded)–in US history that has never been fully investigated by the US Congress.
The following conclusion by the Liberty Vets is based on the formal War Crimes Report filed with the US Sec of Def:
The USS Liberty Veterans Association has established, prima facie, the commission of war crimes by the state of Israel against US military personnel and civilians. These Americans volunteered to serve their country. They followed all orders given to them. In the course of following those orders, they were suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the state of Israel and their country did absolutely nothing to protect them or seek justice on their behalf..
The failure of the United States government to undertake a complete investigation of the Israeli attack on USS Liberty has resulted in grievous harm to the surviving victims, as well as to the families of all crew members. Equally serious, this failure has resulted in an indelible stain upon the honor of the United States of America. It has sent a signal to America? s serving men and women that their welfare is always subordinate to the interests of a foreign state. The only conceivable reason for this failure is the political decision to put the interests of Israel ahead of those of American servicemen, employees, and veterans.[66]
Finally, the fact that the Israeli government and its surrogates in the United States have worked so long and hard to prevent an inquiry itself speaks volumes as to what such an inquiry would find.
Here is the Chicago Tribune’s update of the USS Liberty controversy, published 10-2-07; it makes it more imperative than ever to keep pushing the US Congress to do it’s duty and open a full investigation before the US is pushed forever into the sea by the agents of a foreign government within our own partnering with our own lackey representatives who care about nothing except gaining and keeping political power and the perks that go with it:
link to chicagotribune.com
PS: Cristol, a Jewish bankruptcy judge from Florida, published his whitewash book in 2002.
The US Congress should proclaim the eighth day of June of every year as
USS LIBERTY REMEMBRANCE DAY, in order to commemorate USS Liberty’s heroic crew; and to educate the American people of the danger to our national security inherent in any passionate attachment of our elected officials for any foreign nation.
Hophmi,
Kudos to you in your exchange with Hostage.
In reading hostage’s puerile attempts to justify Palestinian terror by suggesting an analogue to similar actions by Jews I was indeed reminded of the breaking of the Lehi/Stern gang by the Israelis after the Bernadotte murder and their refusal to view it as anything other than a heinous criminal act.
I was also reminded of the reaction of Yitzak Rabin to the Baruch Goldstein mass slaughter, telling Arafat that it was a “loathsome, criminal act of murder.” The reaction of shock and outrage of all but the most loathsome extremists to the killings, the vociferous condemnation by the Israeli government, the passing of a law in 1999 prohibiting monuments to terrorists and the destruction of the grotesque shrine by Goldstein’s grave by the IDF, have no analogy in Palestinian society.
Compare that to Arafat’s eulogy of Yahya Ayash, the Hamas mastermind behing a string of suicide bombings in 1996.
But by no means strain to reach back that far. Indeed, a little over a month ago, an interesting article in the March 28, 2011 issue of the Palestinian daily Al Hayat told of a story celebrating a happy, happy occasion. It was a celebration of Passover. Well, sort of. Issa Karake, the PA Minister of Prisoner Affairs, presented an official, festive plaque to the family of Abbas al-Sayed, the Hamas suicide bomber who perpetrated the infamous Passover Massacre on March 28, 2002, killing 30 mostly elderly people.
Keep in mind: it was the PA marking this festive occasion, not Hamas.
So here is Israel’s “peace partner.”
It would be honorable at this stage, werdine, to just admit that your Bin J’bail story is…. well…. shall we just say you ‘mispoke’ when you posted your history on mondo several weeks ago.
I would actually tip my hat to you if you were to demonstrate this level of intellectual honesty and integrity.
Hostage,
You write: Many individual UN member states have officially recognized Palestine as an independent sovereign State. See A/58/L.48, 15 December 2003; General Assembly resolution A/RES/58/292, 17 May 2004. The verbatim record of the General Assembly discussion of the resolution indicates the words “pre-1967 borders” had replaced the words “Armistice Line of 1949”. See A/58/PV.87
First, you know better than me that resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly are legally not biding and only serve as advisory statements, the more so since there is a anti-Israel majority in the General Assembly. The Security Council alone can compel nations to take action, that means is intitled to decide binding resolutions, but even then only under Chapter VII. Oddly enough, the mentioned Resolution is in contraddiction with Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 as basis for the permanent settlement, that state that a final settlement should be achieved through negotiations, also concerning the boundaries.