The PennBDS conference is a week away and today the Philadelphia Inquirer ran opposing Op-Ed's on BDS and the conference. In one corner we have Ali Abunimah, and in the other a tag team featuring former CIA-head James Woolsey and Foundation for Defense of Democracies's Jonathan Schanzer.
First up, Abunimah explains the rationale for the conference:
[W]e are coming together to push forward an inclusive movement that supports nonviolent action to promote the human rights of the Palestinian people, because only full respect for these rights can lead to peace. Today, millions of Palestinians live without basic rights under Israeli rule. This intolerable situation is at the root of problems that affect the whole world.
People everywhere, whether they consider themselves "pro-Israel" or "pro-Palestinian" or both, want to see justice and peace. Yet, in recent years, the U.S.-brokered peace process has seen failure after failure.Amid election-year politics, President Obama and his Republican rivals are pledging ever more unconditional support for Israel, even as Israel openly flouts U.N. resolutions and U.S. policy by building Jewish-only settlements on Palestinian land and depriving Palestinians of their rights, including hundreds of children who languish in Israeli military prisons.
There's no chance that the United States will use the billions of dollars it gives Israel in aid as leverage to compel an end to these practices and respect for Palestinian rights. So should we just give up?
The answer from Palestinian civil society is a clear "no." All of us can play a role in ending this terrible situation and securing equal rights for Palestinians rather than superior rights for Jewish Israelis.
Woolsey and Schanzer respond:
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a complex issue, one that deserves serious scholarship and open, civil debate. Expect to see none of that next weekend on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, where the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement is staging a "conference."
Instead, as we should have learned from many past BDS events at colleges around the country, this will be an exercise in disinformation and propaganda, a call for political and economic warfare, and an attempt to foment hatred of Israel. That is obviously bad for Israelis. It is - perhaps less obviously - bad for Palestinians as well.
One simple fact that will be avoided next weekend: Almost all Israelis agree, in principle, to a "two-state solution." They favor the Jewish state and a Palestinian state living as neighbors and living in peace. Palestinian leaders have explicitly rejected that approach.
They then go on, oddly enough, to talk about Syria and push for war with Iran. It seems their real point is that whoever focuses on Israel's violations of human rights and international law is really just anti-Semitic. They end:
Why is it, do you think, that the BDS movement is unconcerned about Arab victims when the oppressors are Arabs, and Muslim victims when the oppressors are Muslim? Why do they focus only on Israelis who would like nothing more than to achieve peace with their neighbors and who are willing to make painful sacrifices to achieve a lasting settlement of the conflict?
PennBDS organizers Abbas Naqvi, Madeline Noteware and Matt Berkman provide a great answer to this last point in an article they wrote last week for Penn's paper The Daily Pennsylvanian:
2. How do you respond to the criticism that your conference applies a “double standard” to Israel?
Speaking to Philadelphia’s Jewish Exponent magazine last week, notorious Israel apologist Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law professor, said “People who support BDS ought to look themselves in the mirror and ask themselves, ‘Why Israel?’ Why not against Hamas … or against Syria … or against Cuba … ?”
The implication that BDS activists don’t also devote their time to combating human rights abuses elsewhere in the world is simply false. We the organizers, and most of our allies around the country, have throughout our activist careers taken part in numerous solidarity actions and protests against violence and oppression in Egypt, Syria, Iran, and other countries. BDS supporters wear many hats.
However, we must also point out that Israel is a unique case. No other systematic human rights abuser in the international system receives $3 billion a year in U.S. military aid or the unqualified moral approbation of nearly every elected U.S. official. If there is a “double standard” in the treatment of Israel, it is the standard applied by Israel’s supporters in the U.S. Congress, not by BDS activists. Furthermore, it is often forgotten by the likes of Dershowitz that Syria, Hamas and Cuba already face extensive U.S. (and in the case of Hamas, Israeli) sanctions. It is only Israel whose systematic denial of rights to an entire population is gleefully applauded by our elected leaders and presidential candidates.
“Woolsey —-The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a complex issue, one that deserves serious scholarship and open, civil debate”
Yea so complex, yada,yada,yada bs.
It’s not complex, it’s simple.
It is only simple if you ignore the parts you don’t like.
Shaktimaan says:
January 30, 2012 at 12:51 am
It is only simple if you ignore the parts you don’t like.”
What parts would those be?
Shorter Woolsey and Schanzer: This is a terribly, terribly complex issue in which everything is the fault of evil Palestinians.
double standard, dual loyalty and israel firstness, the israel supporter’s triad of infamy
“Israel Firster” is nice and concise because it implies, incorporates the tools of double standard and dual loyalty. Most Americans don’t truck with exotic “isms,” such as Zionism. They don’t even know any ideology, or indeed what the word “ideology” means. They do have a sound bite or two under their belts about “democracy,” and they do grasp what “America First” means. That, for those who hate the term “Israel First,” is the problem. What can they do but say the phrase is used by “neo-Nazis”–a common defense on Twitter. Otherwise they are left with “anti-semite” or “Jew-hater.” However that deflective slur has become the boy who cried Wolf once too often, or two or three…
Abunimah is speaking a totally different language. With hims it’s “jewish israeli’s” but the neo-cons just say “Israeli’s” as if they weren’t a million and a half palestinians – to say nothing of other minority groups- living as citizens in Israel. The “pro-israel” people have no defense for their definition of “israeli,” or for what their two state solution really would really look like. The debate is now framed around universal rights, so it stands to reason that rights for non-jews living in the land between the jordan river and the med shouldn’t come at the expense of the rights of non-jews living in israel — what can the “Jewish State of Israel” crowd say to that argument? One thing’s for sure, it will be surely be racist….
And what can they say about this?
link to therealnews.com
Penn BDS has worked hard to make it clear that they do not want to offend the Zionsts. They want to dialogue with them. They are not even pushing for a divestment resolution at Penn itself.
There have been a long line of divestment conferences since 2002, but why should they alarm Israel? These conferences feature the same good speeches, and the same good speakers. They feature tasty workshops and dialogue— and a couple hundred attendees who are too terrified to ever demand divestment on their campuses.
They could change the campuses, and the world. But they are paralyzed and silent.
I have seen no sign that this conference will be any different. No one in this conference will demand a strong divestment resolution at Penn or anywhere else.
So sit back and enjoy your dialogue. I know you have 10 or 20 more years of dialogue ahead of you. That should give Israel enough time to bomb Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran…. until Israel has exhausted its air force and run out of bombs.
Enjoy your dialogue. And enjoy this blog! Lots of tasty talk, never an actual resolution to boycott Israel. Enjoy.
You’re right, Boycott Israel on Campus. It’s all talk. All hat, no cattle.
You seem to thirst for immediate confrontation Boycott on Campus, but this is a long and hard fight coming, you will be ineffective fighting alone, and your cynicism, pessimism and condescension are not the greatest recruiting tools out there.
Bill, Boycott Israel on Campus isn’t that wrong, but the politeness he’s talking about would take 50 more years and not 10 or 20 and by that time, there wouldn’t be anything left to boycott. While the BDS campaign is struggling to block investments or the sale of hummus, it’s too busy to notice how its efforts are being undermined by Arab states fine tuning commercial deals and cultural exchanges with the bad guys. How efficient can a divestment campaign be when an Arab state is about to provide gas to an Israel that’s choking Gaza? Although I agree that BDS is too timid and not targetting the right parties, I still support it.
Bill, Boycott Israel on Campus isn’t that wrong, but the politeness he’s talking about would take 50 more years and not 10 or 20 and by that time, there wouldn’t be anything left to boycott.
You know the South Africans didn’t just have BDS. They also got: a UN arms embargo; the ICERD to prohibit apartheid; the ICSPCA to make it a crime and call for the establishment of an international criminal tribunal; and incorporated the offense of apartheid into the Statute of the International Criminal Court in 1993. So it wasn’t just campus BDS that caused F. W. de Klerk to see the handwriting on the wall.
Palestinian spokesmen only want to talk about Israel’s on-going violations of criminal law outside the court room. Until that changes, a grassroots campus BDS movement will always be viewed with great suspicion. Most Americans will think that “things can’t be all that bad” if the Palestinians aren’t even interested in pursuing the legal remedies that are available to them.
“Most Americans will think that “things can’t be all that bad” if the Palestinians aren’t even interested in pursuing the legal remedies that are available to them.”
Whether or not legal remedies are used by the Palestinians, light years will continue separating the reaction against South Africa’s apartheid and the one aspired against Israel. The whole world (with exception to Israel, of course)) ganged up on South Africa in everything including cultural and sports events. Now you practically have the whole world including the Arabs and Muslims ganging up on the Palestinians by letting Israel get away with its ongoing crimes. The timid BDS effort is working to counter those other monumental efforts siding with Israel. We saw what the Palestinian leadership was up to with the Palestinian Papers that showed them giving the store away. This week, Hamas’ leadership broke with and moved out of Damascus and made up with the very pro-US/Israel Jordan, so we can forget about any Palestinian armed resistance. Passive resistance wouldn’t buy you a cup of coffee with the Israelis. While we are grateful for the BDS campaign, by itself it cannot substantially help the Palestinian cause. Americans in general think that Palestinians are a terrorist/insurgency organization in Israel and it will take more than BDS to change America’s attitude. It took much sacrifice, lives and outside help to end Israel’s 22-year occupation of Lebanon. During most of these years, Lebanon had in its hand a UNSC resolution (#425) ordering Israel out of Lebanon and it couldn’t even get the UN to enforce its own resolution, so how you expect to end the Israeli occupation by blocking the sale of Israeli hummus at US colleges?
During most of these years, Lebanon had in its hand a UNSC resolution (#425) ordering Israel out of Lebanon and it couldn’t even get the UN to enforce its own resolution
You should know that there have been many advances in the intervening years to end criminal impunity and that you have to use the new legal framework before you bitch that it won’t work. There was no permanent international criminal tribunal back then. Great Britain, Spain, and other EU countries had not opened the door to enforcing their own arrest warrants or warrants issued by the ICC under the EU Common Action Plan, e.g.
*Council Common Position 2003/444/CFSP of 16 June 2003 on the International Criminal Court
*The Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA, of 13 June 2002, on the European arrest warrant and the surrender procedures between Member States; and
*Decision 2003/335/JHA, of 8 May 2003, concerning the investigation and prosecution of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Palestinian activists need to publicly support efforts to prosecute Israeli officials directly in the ICC without relying on non-judicial UN political forums.
We saw what the Palestinian leadership was up to with the Palestinian Papers that showed them giving the store away.
The only thing I saw in the Palestine Papers was the US attempt to change the Quartet Road map “terms of reference” which had been based upon the Mitchell report, international law, and the applicable UN resolutions. Ironically George Mitchell was one of the guilty parties who spearheaded the effort. The Guardian and Al Jazeera never laid a glove on him for doing that. They did publish quite a few examples of internal discussions between the Palestinians, that were little more than brain storming sessions. Those discussions aren’t normally intended to go beyond the room. I agree with Diane Mason. I too find it difficult to get exercised over the Palestine Papers. See The Palestine Papers As Theatre link to lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com
Hostage, we’re back to the librarian jargon. In plain English and without throwing out a whole series of laws, what has your answer about the “new legal framework” to do with my making an issue of the UNSC not enforcing for 22 years one of its own resolutions ordering Israel to get out of Lebanon? What “new legal framework” did the UNSC use to enforce its resolutions against Iraq, Sudan or Libya and others?
You mentioned that now there is a new international criminal tribunal. That’s the one to which the US had signed up to, did not ratify and subsequently suspended its signature from and still uses to spook third world dictators in going along with its imperialistic wishes. How legitimate is the new court which the US, Israel, Russia and a few others have immunity from? That kind of reasoning can lead one to say there is nothing wrong with Israel having nukes since it never signed the NPT.
About the Palestine Papers, you said that the only thing you saw in them was the US attempt to change the Quartet Road map’s various “terms of reference”. That’s because you don’t want to see anything else. Lawrence of Cyberia may have had a point about the shoddy reporting about Jerusalem but shoddy is also not covering the PA’s discussions with Olmert and Livni that was botching up the right of return. You can read about it and tell me if it’s theatre at:
link to aljazeera.com
what has your answer about the “new legal framework” to do with my making an issue of the UNSC not enforcing for 22 years one of its own resolutions ordering Israel to get out of Lebanon?
Because the EU and other members of the ICC would issue arrest warrants against individual criminals, including the responsible Israeli officials. We already know these people are afraid of risking arrest and that they will change their behavior in response to the threat of being held personally liable.
The UN acts at the state level. The procedures contained in the UN Charter for the provision of armed forces to coercively enforce Security Council Chapter VII decisions have never been implemented, e.g. the special agreements mentioned in Article 43 et seq and 106
link to yale.edu
link to yale.edu
All members are required to supply to the Security Council, on its call, armed forces necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security in accordance with special agreements that were supposed to be negotiated “as soon as possible” after the ratification of the UN Charter. How soon is “as soon as possible”? Well its been more than sixty years and the Pope of Rome still has more forces at his disposal. As a result, the Security Council usually authorizes Chapter VI peace keeping missions or depends upon a “coalition of the willing” operating completely outside the UN framework.
That’s because you don’t want to see anything else. Lawrence of Cyberia may have had a point about the shoddy reporting about Jerusalem but shoddy is also not covering the PA’s discussions with Olmert and Livni that was botching up the right of return.
I saw that Abbas actually rejected Olmert’s offer of 1,000 refugees and said that any settlement agreement would be the subject of a national plebiscite, that would include the refugees in the diaspora. So the people have the final say. He explained that in March of 2009 – long after the March 2007 meeting between Erekat and the Belgian Foreign Minister that Al Jazeera was raising so much hell about on the web page you mentioned. BTW, WTF does an idle conversation with a Belgian have to do with anything? See page 3 of the Negotiations Support Unit meeting here: link to guardian.co.uk
As you can see there were no Israelis at the meeting when Abbas supposedly gave away the farm on refugees. There is no actual record of any meeting in which a Palestinian negotiator said anything along those lines to one of the Israelis present.
Hostage, you’re evidently not going to answer my question on why the UN sat on a resolution 425 for 22 years and I have to guess from your fancy skating around the ICC to skirt the UNSC having shirked its responsability in enforcing it is because you don’t want to or you can’t. It’s not that important so I’ll drop it. Most Lebanese are grateful to Hizbullah for having kicked out Israel since the UN had been incapable or unwilling to do it for 22 years, and this should have sent a clear message to the Palestinians on the futility of their UNSC 242 flag-waving they have been doing since 1967 and what they should do.
You said: “The procedures contained in the UN Charter for the provision of armed forces to coercively enforce Security Council Chapter VII decisions have never been implemented”
Under what provision of the UN charter did the UNSC on June 25, 1950 call up troops to enter the Korean War? Bosnia? Rwanda? Iraq? Somalia? Libya?
Part 2 of your answer: “As you can see there were no Israelis at the (2007)meeting when Abbas supposedly gave away the farm on refugees. There is no actual record of any meeting in which a Palestinian negotiator said anything along those lines to one of the Israelis present.”
This is the kind of answer I’d expect from Israeli semanticists, score keepers and defenders of the faith eee and Hophmi that would say that if something cannot be pinned on Israel then it has to be OK for it to have done it. You discounted Jazeera’s reported (2007) meeting between Erekat and a Belgian discussing Olmert’s offer of 5000 refugees on the basis that it was inconsequential as an Israeli was not present during Erekat’s “idle conversation with the Belgian”.
What about the January 15, 2010 meeting in which Erekat told US diplomats David Hale, George Mitchell and 5 others from the State Dept that the Palestinians offered Israel the return of “a symbolic number” of refugees?
I have to guess from your fancy skating around the ICC to skirt the UNSC having shirked its responsability in enforcing it is because you don’t want to or you can’t.
The role of the Security Council is to prevent armed conflicts, not to cause them. The Israeli troops were withdrawn from Lebanon in June of 1978 and replaced by a Chapter VI peacekeeping force, UNIFIL, in accordance with the terms of SC resolution 425. The UNIFIL was subsequently unsuccessful in maintaining the peace between the parties and helping the Lebanonese government re-establish its authority.
The ICC didn’t exist until 2002 and it is NOT an organ of the United Nations. The ICC is one of the new options, short of armed conflict, that the Security Council can explore to promote compliance with treaty obligations and UN resolutions in cases involving serious crimes. It has also established a number of ad hoc criminal tribunals. including one for crimes committed in Lebanon. The scope of its mandate could be changed by the Security Council if required.
FYI, the Security Council didn’t use armed force to make South Africa comply with its resolution on Namibia either, but it did establish the illegality of the occupation, e.g. Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South West Africa) notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 276 (1970). It has adopted many resolutions that instituted a regime of collective non-recognition by calling upon members not to recognize or assist in the illegal acts committed during the Israeli and South African occupations.
Under what provision of the UN charter did the UNSC on June 25, 1950 call up troops to enter the Korean War? Bosnia? Rwanda? Iraq? Somalia? Libya?
Sometimes, the Security Council has delegated its authority to outside coalitions. The armed forces in the first Gulf War were not taking orders from any commanders wearing UN Blue hats. In the case of Korea, the General Assembly adopted the Acheson Uniting for Peace resolution. The Security Council resolution that you mention above simply called upon members to render every assistance to the UN and to refrain from assisting North Korea. link to un.org
The UN usually calls for the establishment of peacekeeping forces, like the one in Bosnia, under its Chapter VI powers and functions, not Chapter VII. Those missions can be transitioned to Chapter VII mandates by ad hoc agreements between the parties concerned. The Security Council did discuss a Chapter VII mandate for UNIFIL after the 2006 war in Lebanon. The commanders wanted permission to shoot down Israeli aircraft operating in Lebanese airspace.
What about the January 15, 2010 meeting in which Erekat
Yes it was also an inconsequential discussion about a previous set of proposals that had not resulted in an agreement. Abbas had insisted on compensation for all of the refugees, and those terms were rejected. Abbas had already told Erekat and the others in 2009 that the whole agreement would be subject to a national vote including the diaspora refugees and that they would have to wait to negotiate with Olmert’s sucessor. Netanyahu refused to use those discussions as a starting point for negotiations so they had no legal consequences.
P.S. I’ve already discussed the fact that no treaty agreement between Israel and the Palestinian leadership can waive individual rights or codify a serious violation of international law.
Bill is right. My ugly attitude towards my only “allies” is not going to encourage them to go demand boycott against Israel. A good organizer is supportive and encouraging of every baby step the BDS movement might take — even if it’s just another speech from Ali, Allison, Anna, or Ilan.
However, I’ve seen 10 years of INCREASING timidity on the part of the BDS crowd, which is still totally cowed. The only thing you have is your loud sense of outrage against Israel, your loud public demands for action.
In all these years, the only loud demand for action that I have heard is from BDS types telling me to shut up so they can dialogue some more, and enjoy their private speaker events, private film showings, etc.
So I think BDS is really dead and buried. These conferences are noble attempts to jump-start the membership, but the membership is terrified and silent. Now and forever.
It’s really, really hard to disagree with Boycott Israel on Campus here.
Equally hard to understand is the sectarianism from our resident “jewish voice for peace” member, Hostage. The “Palestinian Spokesmen” should probably just shut up and let the Jews handle it, eh?
Funny that Boycott’s comments are critical of BDS as being too timid, and a “jewish voice” comes to set him straight – but aren’t “jewish voices” some of the main reasons for the timidity in the advocacy of BDS?
“but aren’t “jewish voices” some of the main reasons for the timidity in the advocacy of BDS?”
Yes they are, Dan, the “voices” want to hold hands with the bad guys and I don’t think that would ever work; they’re in the same function as J Street that’s a mild version of AIPAC, but with the same vocation, which is looking out for Israel, not Palestinians. I’m not disappointed in BDS and I’m actually glad it’s around but I’m not overly thrilled about it or its results. But I don’t think it really matters to anyone what I feel since I’m not Palestinian.
Equally hard to understand is the sectarianism from our resident “jewish voice for peace” member, Hostage.
I’ve pointed out before that Jewish Voice for Peace is open to membership and participation by anyone, not just Jews. So that isn’t an example of “sectarianism”. Jewish Voice for Peace shares the aims of the Palestinian Boycott National Committee — ending the occupation, achieving equality for Palestinians now living in Israel, and recognizing Palestinian refugees’ right of return. I could care less if that’s achieved through a one state or two state solution.
On the other hand, I think that a rational response to the everyday occurrence of violent crime requires attempts to enforce the existing laws, including international penal sanctions. Those criminal sanctions somehow get left out of the “S” in the BDS movement by most spokesmen.
The “Palestinian Spokesmen” should probably just shut up and let the Jews handle it, eh?
I actually support the efforts of the various official spokesmen that the Palestinians elected to represent them. The PLO and Hamas have both endorsed a state within the 67 borders, giving priority to non-violent resistance, and have joined Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations in asking that the UN and ICC follow-up on recommendations contained in the many fact finding reports and communications regarding serious crimes committed in the Palestinian territory.
The BDS movement can dialog, campaign for academic boycotts, demand TIAA-CREF divestment, and a host of other side issues – but if it fails to say or do anything about on-going criminal impunity – it will prolong the problem at the expense of the Palestinians.
It is ultimately about getting some damn justice, for everyone, including kids and grandmas. That’s the point. Chipping away with cultural inconveniences, while useful as a message to the unknowing that something is wrong, does zip to get foundational rights in place unless you demand them, and use the international courts to stop the injustices.
I agree with both BIOC and Hostage.
Well, let me say that for all of the international legal sanctions against Apartheid South Africa, it continued – and it continued because of it had “the one vote” that mattered, give you one guess who it was. In fact, toward the end of Apartheid, the US was increasing it’s cooperation and trade with SA- Israel too.
“Palestinian activists need to publicly support efforts to prosecute Israeli officials directly in the ICC without relying on non-judicial UN political forums.”
—————–
So, I agree here. I think using every avenue available makes complete sense, but I also have to think of how little Israel and the US care about the law. And I also have to think of the disdain that international institutions have shown to the Palestinians – why advocate using these institutions to solve the problem? They didn’t solve the problem in SA. And that isn’t even mentioning the huge gap between sympathy for Blacks in South Africa and Palestinians living anywhere — we’ve had decades of propaganda bashing them, to many they are all terrorists, shouldn’t the emphasis be on creating mass solidarity instead of shepherding their cause behind the closed doors of international court rooms – whose judgements will be meaningless?
The other thing I have to mention is how the law is often used to strip away the perceived right of people to advocate for and defend themselves — if it’s “in the courts” then public action is all but meaningless, right? And isnt the law the mechanism for justifying the unfair? In other words, equality before the law justifies inequality elsewhere. Why worry about what a court of elites has to say, when you can gather mass opinion around the world? Here we are 45 years into a blatantly illegal military occupation….yet somehow the courts are the answer? Like Malcolm said about the civil rights act: Yea, now we got laws….that no one can enforce.
Well, let me say that for all of the international legal sanctions against Apartheid South Africa, it continued – and it continued because of it had “the one vote” that mattered, give you one guess who it was.
There were no agreed upon international criminal sanctions available for the crime of apartheid prior to the entry into force of the Rome Statute of the international criminal court on 1 July 2002. The preparatory work of the International Law Commission started in the 1980s and picked up steam after the Security Council established the first post-Nuremberg UN criminal tribunals in 1993. See for example The Final Report on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court for the Implementation of the Apartheid Convention and Other Relevant International Instruments [PDF] from tourolaw.edu
MC Bassiouni… – Hofstra L. Rev., 1980 link to digitalcommons.tourolaw.edu
And I also have to think of the disdain that international institutions have shown to the Palestinians – why advocate using these institutions to solve the problem? They didn’t solve the problem in SA.
The ICC didn’t exist and the EU had not promulgated a common action plan for arrests and prosecutions during the Apartheid era in SA. The ANC pushed for criminalization of apartheid and the establishment of an international criminal tribunal. They would have certainly employed one if it had been available.
The 171 state parties to the First Additional Protocol pushed for criminalization of the transfer by the occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies. The statement of the head of the Israeli delegation to the UN Diplomatic Conference on the Rome Statute explicitly acknowledged that the settlements were a serious crime of concern to the international community as a whole. See the statement of Judge Eli Nathan link to iccnow.org
Why worry about what a court of elites has to say, when you can gather mass opinion around the world? Here we are 45 years into a blatantly illegal military occupation….yet somehow the courts are the answer?
Everyone on MW talks as if the International Criminal Court has been in operation for 60 years. In fact the Court started trying its first cases in 2005 and there is no earlier precedents for some of the things it is tasked to accomplish. The African Union has complained that its members have been unfairly targeted. The new Prosecutor is from Africa. She recently acknowledged that her first order of business is to establish that it isn’t just another Western Court targeting Africans or third world countries. link to bosco.foreignpolicy.com
“You know the South Africans didn’t just have BDS. They also got: a UN arms embargo; the ICERD to prohibit apartheid; the ICSPCA to make it a crime and call for the establishment of an international criminal tribunal; and incorporated the offense of apartheid into the Statute of the International Criminal Court in 1993. So it wasn’t just campus BDS that caused F. W. de Klerk to see the handwriting on the wall. ” — Hostage
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So, forgive me for saying “legal” sanctions and not just “international sanctions” — but it seems like we agree that the legal route you insist on for Palestine could not have been instrumental in bringing about an end to Apartheid in South Africa – you say it is because the means were not available, fine – that in no way negates my general point about the irrelevance of the courts.
So, the International Criminal Court (in statute form at least?) was around in ’93 as you say, but wasn’t taking cases until 2005?(after coming into form on ’02) What the F were they doing for those 12 years?? This is my most basic point with the masturbatory high society institution crowd – it’s what they do in between cocktails and telling each other how great they are. Im sure it took that long to get implemented because all involved cared so much and were exceedingly diligent. Still not sure what the F these people were doing before 1993…..
This is the same “will not have jurisdiction over aggression until 2017″ ICC? The one that can’t prosecute crimes that took place before 2002? I have to say, this argument is almost comical – these cats are in the hip pocket of the Security Council states. The US voted against the Rome statute, which almost by definition means it will completely disregard it.
Of course, the 800 gorilla in the room is – the US itself is a lawless country. kind of ironic, we got lawyers coming out of our ass and yet we are not governed by the law….
So, the International Criminal Court (in statute form at least?) was around in ’93 as you say, but wasn’t taking cases until 2005?(after coming into form on ’02) What the F were they doing for those 12 years??
The ILC began work on a draft statute that became the starting point for the United Nations Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court. It was finally convened in Rome from 15 June – 17 July 1998. The Rome Statute entered into force after achieving 60 ratifications from the signatories in July 2002. That was just a green light. It was still necessary to obtain funding from the members; enter into a formal agreement on the relationship with the UN; nominate and elect the Judges and Prosecutors; adopt court procedures and rules of evidence; & conduct evaluations and investigations of situations that had been self-referred by a few of the new member states. The number of members doubled in the first decade. As of 1 January 2012, 120 states have ratified or acceded to the Rome Statute.
Oddly enough, the United States was instrumental in pressing for a permanent court and then opposed the idea. It would like the UN to control the ICC, but the Court was established as an independent organization outside the UN framework. It has its own legislative organ, the Assembly of State Parties, that can, and has already amended the Statute. So it can easily evolve over time, unlike the UN.
“even if it’s just another speech from Ali, Allison, Anna, or Ilan.”
You’re right, they’re doing their best but their efforts should be directed at Israel and not merely at the occupation. Those occupiers are not from another planet but Israelis that are there because Israel enticed them to move there, gave them money, roads, electricity, water, industry, protection and so on so the guilty party in all of this is Israel. I find the effort timid because it’s directed mostly against the occupation and the occupiers when the guilty are the Israeli people living inside Israel. Most of the water stolen on the WB is going to the people inside Israel and the garbage being dumped on the WB is in good part coming from Israel as is the industrial polution because rogue industries have been made to relocate to the WB to dump their poisons there.
“Enjoy your dialogue. And enjoy this blog! Lots of tasty talk, never an actual resolution to boycott Israel. Enjoy”….BIOC
O.K. what would you have us do?
Some like me don’t live within striking range of the campus movements, don’t have any contacts at Penn. When the bioc reaches my alma mater or somewhere I have any affiliation with at all I will chime in.
I’ve probably done over a hundred letters, faxes, phone calls over the years—to my congressmen, to other politicians, calls to the secretaries of house and senate committees on Israel issues, to Church officials like the Presbyterians when they announced they were considering divestment, encouraging them, a letter to Caterpillar’s CEO as one of their former customers about their bulldozers supplied to Israel. I have written and called and complained, and gotten like minded friends to also, to so many people on so many outrages I can’t even remember them all. My last call was to my own Senator expressing my utter disgust with the Netanyahu ovation by congress and with Hoyer’s trip to Israel to reassure them that even if Americans starved Israel would still get it’s billions. And a lot of the things I wrote and called about, I saw at this site, it’s a one stop shop for what is going on.
Every single political donation I have made for years has been to congress people like Betty McCollum for standing up to AIPAC or Brian Blaird for his position on I/P and his effort to pass a resolution to recongize the death of Rachel Corrie or Jim Moran of Va when AIPAC tried to smear him or to my own congressman for calling Perle a flat out liar in the house hearings on Iraq.
You’ve also got people on here like kathleen who goes 24/7 pushing on the media.
Just because individuals spend a lot of time on comments here, mainly to release their frustrations like me probably, doesn’t mean they aren’t doing other things also.
I can’t be the only one tired of the lectures from BIOC. What makes you think that reading this blog is all anyone does? How does talking about something prove that that is all you do? As for resolutions to boycott, it is counter productive to put up resolutions that will fail, the groundwork needs to be done first. Here in Oz almost every union has passed some form of boycott resolution with many going the full BDS route (mostly relevant in the divestment column as unions aren’t really big purchasers of soda streams or Strauss group food). So have church/religious bodies. Those who advance resolutions without doing the grassroots campaigning FAIL. How many resolutions have you successfully been instrumental in passing BIOC?
Yeah, where exactly is the complexity?
What a proper American policy towards Israel and Palestine should and should not be is remarkably simple. There is no good reason for arming and bankrolling Israel, its ethnic cleansing and domestic Jim Crow. Not from the point of view of human rights, not from the view of US national self-interest. It’s not always that these two values are in such alignment.
Props to PennBDS organizers Naqvi, Noteware & Berkman and to Ali Abunimah for getting under the skin of Woolsey and Schanzer. You know you’re getting somewhere when they have to wheel out the big guns to shoot you down–even if all that happens is the usual noisy neocon misfire with a concern-troll sonata as finale. Well done.
Abunimah’s points are clear, strong, and constructed on a framework of human rights that Americans, and especially idealistic younger Americans, can relate to. Woolsey and Schanzer come across as obfuscatory, boring, and weak (e.g. note they try to diminish the PennBDS meeting by putting “conference” in quotes- pathetic!). No wonder the Penn BDS conference has had to close its registration due to overflowing interest!
James Woolsey big pusher of the invasion of Iraq. Repeated the falsehoods. Read somewhere that he has some big investments in defense technology. Was able to ask him a question about the invasion when he was the main speaker at the Ohio University Baker Peace Conference. Never quite sure why the folks who put this conference choose people like Woolsey and Dennis Ross to be the big speaker. I forget exactly what I asked Woolsey. Know I asked politely. But he became so pissed he demanded that I sit down and shut up. The crowd booed. He is one pissed off spooky dude
latest piece over at Race for Iran.
HIGHLY INFORMED WESTERNERS AND IRANIANS KNOW THE WAY OUT OF THE NUCLEAR IMPASSE…BUT THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION WON’T TAKE IT.
“It is possible that there will another round of nuclear discussions between the P5+1 and Iran in the near future. Given the extent to which Israel, the United States, and America’s European partners are ratcheting up tensions over the nuclear issue, one hopes that additional talks would help the parties find a peaceful and productive way forward. But that is unlikely unless the Western powers are prepared to accept the reality that Iran is enriching uranium, that it will continue enriching uranium, and that it has every right to do so under international law.
“But [Woolsey] became so pissed he demanded that I sit down and shut up. The crowd booed.” Excellent, Kathleen. It’s hard to believe he was founder and president of Yale Citizens for Eugene McCarthy for President. His latest folly is Islamophobia, supporting the ban on Sharia in his home state of Oklahoma and assisting the Clarion films Third Jihad and Iranium. But nothing will ever top his role taking us into Iraq.
But nothing will ever top his role taking us into Iraq.
CIA Director Woolsey helped bankroll the Rendon Group to the tune of close to $200 million for their work in creating and supporting the myth of the so-called “Iraqi National Congress” – led by Ahmed Chalabi. He signed letters from PNAC, Center for Defense of Democracy, and a host of other think tanks demanding that Clinton an Bush invade Iraq; recognize Chalabi and the Congress as the rightful government of Iraq; and presenting the trumped-up claims about the danger of Sadaam’s weapons of mass destruction.
If he could do all of that, and still manage to avoid going to prison, then Congress must have been on-board with the Rendon Group scheme from the very beginning, way back in 1993.
That Rendon story is something few Americans know about. Ditto Hill & Knowlton.
“That Rendon story is something few Americans know about. Ditto Hill & Knowlton.”
I was aware of Hill & Knowlton; watched its Senate hearing masterpiece on live TV and I thought that it had handled the whole Kuwait issue but what’s the Rendon story?
what’s the Rendon story?
Beginning in 1991, Bush senior ordered the Pentagon and CIA to create the conditions necessary to overthrow the government of Iraq. The agencies contracted with Rendon Group and others to invent the Iraqi National Congress (INC). The bogus group was the driving force behind the Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998 and planting black-flag style propaganda about WMDs in the media. Rendon was paid close to $200 million and hundreds of milions were funneled through the INC.
In Your Media is Killing You, William Rivers Pitt explained:
Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration sought to capitalize on the tragedy by using it as an excuse to invade Iraq, something the power-pitchers in the administration had wanted for more than a decade. A shadowy and little-known media consulting company called The Rendon Group got a $100,000-a-month contract from the Pentagon right after the attacks. The Rendon Group was getting paid to offer media strategy advice. Or, in other words, propaganda.
The Rendon Group has been around a long time, and stands at the center of the media’s failure to report accurately on the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The Rendon Group has received close to $200 million from the Pentagon and CIA over the last several years to spread anti-Hussein propaganda far and wide. One of the first steps they took was to create in 1992, out of absolute thin air, the Iraqi National Congress. The Iraqi National Congress, and its most famous spokesperson Ahmad Chalabi, are entirely the creation of a media strategy company doing the bidding of the United States government.
Since 1992, the Iraqi National Congress has become accepted completely by the mainstream news media as a legitimate group. They were embraced by the American Congress under Newt Gingrich and given hundreds of millions of dollars. They were, with the help of the aforementioned Congress, the driving force behind the passage of the Iraqi Liberation Act in 1998, an Act which made the removal of Saddam Hussein a matter of American law. All this for a group made out of nothing by what amounts to a media consulting company.
The post-9/11 money paid to the Rendon Group returned handsome dividends for the investment. Rendon creation Ahmad Chalabi, who has since been accused of giving vital national security secrets to Iran, arranged an interview between Judith Millerof the New York Times and an Iraqi defector named Adnan Ishan Saeed al-Haidieri. al-Haidieri claimed to have personal knowledge of the vast and growing stockpiles of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Miller, thinking Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress were worthy sources, believed al-Haidieri and printed an exclusive report on the threat posed by Iraq in the Times.
Time and a little legwork has since exposed al-Haidieri as a total fraud, but Rendon’s propaganda got out there; as the New York Times goes, so goes the rest of the mainstream media. Miller’s report, released in 2001, created a landslide push towards war, and allowed George W. Bush to sell the American people a frightening and utterly inaccurate portrait of why war was necessary, and necessary now.
link to web.archive.org
link to sourcewatch.org
link to sourcewatch.org
“Beginning in 1991, Bush senior ordered the Pentagon and CIA to create the conditions necessary to overthrow the government of Iraq.”
Thanks, Hostage, I knew about Chalabi but had no idea he had been groomed by the PR agency; thought it was the work of the State Dept only.
rolling stone did a really good article on rendon. will see if i can dig up.
Almost all Israelis agree, in principle, to a “two-state solution.”
Ho-hum. When the people of the Union of South Africa were threatened with BDS, they also agreed, in principle, to separate states for whites and blacks. In both of these cases, one group denied the basic human rights of the other inhabitants and then proposed separate states as part of a scheme to perpetuate their domination.
It’s time for the international community to prosecute Israeli officials for the settlements, or else demand equal rights and the vote for Palestinians in a single state.
South Africa was a single nation. Israel and Palestine have always been considered two distinct nations. The conflict is about land and borders, not equal rights within a single society. The “international community” does not have the legal right to dictate to either nation an obligation to include their foremost enemy into their own state.
Nor does it possess standing to prosecute Israeli officials for violating the Geneva Conventions over settlements.
“Considered two separate nations”? Tell that to the people in the West Bank.
And since Israel is a occupying force, it is bound by the Geneva conventions.
(Are they outsourcing hasbara to India, now, Shaktimaan
The Palestinians in the west bank are aware of it already. They voted for their own Prime Minister and government. They control the area that 95% of west bankers reside in. And both the Palestinians and Israelis consider themselves sovereign nations with no desire to merge them together.
The conflict is over terms, not direction.
Yes, the Geneva Conventions apply. But what organization has the standing to try and prosecute an Israeli leader for violating them? And what leader is prosecuted?
Yes, the Geneva Conventions apply. But what organization has the standing to try and prosecute an Israeli leader for violating them? And what leader is prosecuted?
The ICJ noted the PLO’s legal undertaking to apply the terms of the Fourth Geneva Convention. It also noted that Israel had established settlements in violation of its obligations under Article 49(6) of the 4th Geneva Convention.
Abbas serves in the dual capacity as Chairman of the PLO Executive and President of the Palestinian Authority. He authorized the Justice Minister and Foreign Minister to deposit an Article 12(3) declaration with the Registrar of the ICC accepting the Court’s jurisdiction over crimes committed on the territory of Palestine since July 2002. That would permit the ICC to prosecute the Israeli officials who have participated in the joint criminal enterprise that authorized, funded, or granted permission for construction of illegal settlements since July 2002.
That’s false. Anyone with any honesty would agree that Israel controls 100% of the West Bank.
“South Africa was a single nation. Israel and Palestine have always been considered two distinct nations”
You are just exhibiting ignorance. A “nation” is an arbitrary definition and has no real-life organs or implication except for self-identification. A state on the other hand is very real – it has institutions, military, government, etc.
Your claim of “two nations” was also claimed by White Nationalists in S. Africa in order to argue for separate states (i.e. Bantustans ruled by White Nation S. Africa), so the S. Africa analogy is only confirmed by your argument.
While I do not rule out the idea of two states, the facts on the ground created one state long time ago (thanks to Israel) and now the only solution is equality. I hope you have nothing against equality.
And no, I don’t think that 20 more years of negotiations over the “two states” is an option. We have been to that movie already, we don’t need a re-run.
I’m aware of what a nation is, thanks. How am I being ignorant by using that entirely apt designation? Two states do NOT exist yet. There is one state and a pre-cursor to a second state. Thus, two nations, as described by themselves.
Your desperate attempt at drawing a parallel to apartheid isn’t working. That was a single state. Here we have two distinct entities that have no desire to merge, nor would merging offer wither any tangible benefits. It would carry a great deal of risk though.
Your assertion that the possibility for two states is gone doesn’t offer much in the way of evidence. Israel left Egypt pretty easily. It left Gaza easily. The tough part is hammering out terms. Once terms are agreed to then just about any idea can be accomplished.
A single state is a pointless endeavor. It carries no possible benefit for Israel yet almost certainly guarantees the end of Zionism. Why would they ever consider such a thing?
I’m aware of what a nation is, thanks. How am I being ignorant by using that entirely apt designation? Two states do NOT exist yet.
Well then you ought to be aware that nations are spatial entities comprised of people and the territory they inhabit. Due to the nearly universal adoption of both the UN Charter and the ICCPR they have the right to determine their own political status, including the option of unilaterally declaring their own statehood.
International law is the legal system adopted by the international community of States. The UN Charter and ICCPR are part of that legal framework. States are persons of international law. They confer the legal status and the rights and duties of statehood on one another when they formally recognize each other and establish mutual relations. The majority of other existing states admitted Jordan to full membership in the UN; accepted its credentials; and have long since recognized its successor, the State of Palestine. That was recently affirmed again when the majority of the international community voted to admit Palestine as a member state of UNESCO.
FYI, the United States recognized the political union of Arab Palestine and Transjordan. It also recognized the sovereignty of the new joint entity, Jordan, over the combined territory. See the 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 in the Foreign relations of the United States, 1950. The Near East, South Asia, and Africa, Volume V (1950), Page 921 link to digicoll.library.wisc.edu
The subsequent Israeli invasion and occupation did not cause Arab Palestine to cease to exist. The Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States § 201 Reporters Note 3 says “The United States will treat States the territory of which is under foreign military occupation as continuing to exist.”
A single state is a pointless endeavor. It carries no possible benefit for Israel yet almost certainly guarantees the end of Zionism. Why would they ever consider such a thing?
This statement is the epitome of the Zionist mindset.
You gave the context, “Thus, two nations, as described by themselves”, and then completely ignore one of them.
Therefore, to balance this, I rephrase your statement:
“That was a single state. Here we have two distinct entities ”
Nonsense, Nakba denier. For 40 years, the Israeli Jews have controlled the lives of everyone living from the Med to the Jordan under the Israeli state. It is one state that is arbitrarily kept separate as a matter of law, but not as a matter of fact, in order that ethno-religious supremacy can be practiced while, at the same, pretending to be a modern democracy.
“nor would merging offer wither any tangible benefits”
Sorry, Nakba denier, this merger would end the occupation. That is the greatest benefit.
“It left Gaza easily.”
Nope, Nakba denier. Gaza is still occupied. Israel controls all borders, air space, etc.
“It carries no possible benefit for Israel yet almost certainly guarantees the end of Zionism.”
Really, Nakba denier? You can’t imagine a single benefit to a people by instituting a government in which all people are free and equal?
Nonsense, Nakba denier. For 40 years, the Israeli Jews have controlled the lives of everyone living from the Med to the Jordan under the Israeli state.
Actually, 40 years ago things were different. Remember that most of the people you’re referring to were actually Jordanian citizens until 1988 or so. But the occupation of Palestine hardly negates their claim as a sovereign people.
Sorry, Nakba denier, this merger would end the occupation. That is the greatest benefit.
I said TANGIBLE benefits. Ending the occupation in favor of starting a civil war is not my idea of a wise tradeoff.
Nope, Nakba denier. Gaza is still occupied. Israel controls all borders, air space, etc.
You realize that calling me “nakba denier” doesn’t bother me, right? It is just kind of nonsensical. If any of my ACTUAL standpoints were debatable then I’m sure you would be referring to them instead of inventing imaginary ones.
By the way, Israel doesn’t control all of Gaza’s borders. There a whole Egyptian border that Israel has nothing to do with. Besides that, if you look up the internationally accepted legal definition of “occupied” then you’d notice that merely blockading an area does not meet the qualifications of an occupation.
You can’t imagine a single benefit to a people by instituting a government in which all people are free and equal?
I can’t imagine a single state where anyone would be free and equal. Neither group can even currently guarantee freedom and equality to all of their constituents. And I have yet to see the Palestinians bring such an ethos to the execution of ANY of their endeavors. Why would they suddenly bring it to a single-state shared between them and their enemies? Come on! When Hamas is asked about this possibility they don’t even pay lip service to “freedom and equality” for all. They just say that they intend to expel all Jews who were not inhabiting Palestine from before Zionism.
“Actually, 40 years ago things were different.”
Bullshit, Nakba denier. For 40 years, Israeli Jews have held the rightful owners of the land under their jackboots. It’s one entity, in fact, that is legally segregated, in practice, because Zionism = racism.
“I said TANGIBLE benefits. Ending the occupation in favor of starting a civil war is not my idea of a wise tradeoff. ”
Nakba denier, ending the occupation IS a tangible benefit to the Palestinians. If you’re concerned about not starting a civil war then tell the fucking Israeli Jews not to start another one, like they did before.
“You realize that calling me “nakba denier” doesn’t bother me, right?”
Well, Nakba denier, the purpose isn’t to bother you, it’s to hopefully get the mods to notice your Nakba denial and frag your account and send you scurrying back to whatever rat hole in Tel Aviv you come from.
“By the way, Israel doesn’t control all of Gaza’s borders. There a whole Egyptian border that Israel has nothing to do with.”
Well, Nakba denier, first, if you don’t believe that Israel wouldn’t move against the Philadelphi Route the second Egypt permitted that border to be open, so that the Palestinians freedom fighters could arm themselves again their evil foes, then you are a fool. Second, the string pullers in Tel Aviv have Washington by the balls, so if you don’t think that any move by Egypt to do the right thing wouldn’t prompt a response by the Zionist pet in the White House against Egypt, you’re an even bigger fool.
And, no, Nakba denier, the effective military control of Gaza by the Zionist Entity is more than “merely blockading.”
“And I have yet to see the Palestinians bring such an ethos to the execution of ANY of their endeavors. ”
And the Jews occupying Palestine have, Nakba denier??
“Why would they suddenly bring it to a single-state shared between them and their enemies?”
Well, Nakba denier, probably because they are sick and tired of being oppressed by a bunch of paranoid maniacs and simply want to go on with their lives without being hounded and oppressed by an alien people stealing their land.
“They just say that they intend to expel all Jews who were not inhabiting Palestine from before Zionism.”
Well, Nakba denier, the Jewish terrorists who constituted the Yishuv claimed what is now Jordan, too. They settled for something less.
Besides that, if you look up the internationally accepted legal definition of “occupied” then you’d notice that merely blockading an area does not meet the qualifications of an occupation.
There are actually no agreed upon rules which allow for the use of a naval blockade. Less than thirty countries participated in the San Remo conference process so it does not have customary status. The commentary explained that several of the participants felt that the customary prohibition of all forms of collective punishment reflected in the First Additional Protocol had rendered naval blockades illegal. link to books.google.com
Article 2 of the Fourth Geneva Convention says:
“The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance.”
The 1907 Fourth Hague Convention says:
“Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.”
The Israeli government has placed all of the territorial waters and airspace of the entire State of Palestine under the operational control of the IDF. It obviously exercises authority over all of it as part of either the blockade or the land closure regimes. The IDF has announced additional closed military zones along all of the border fences. So, it certainly does meet the definition of both an armed conflict and a military occupation. That fact has been affirmed by the responsible human rights and humanitarian rights treaty monitoring bodies.
I don’t see how controlling the border, even if Israel controlled the entirety of Gaza’s borders, (which it doesn’t), constitutes authority of anything beyond the borders themselves, the airspace and the shipping lanes. How does it extend to the governing of Gaza in it’s entirety?
Israel doesn’t have a single person there. They don’t police the people there, create, distribute or archive any kind of permits, and so on. Nothing that could remotely be considered “authority” on any matter is exercised by the Israelis over Gaza itself, with the exception of fishing/boating/shipping, the land border with Israel, and airspace restrictions. (All of those things ARE under Israeli authority, so you can see the difference in what it looks like compared to the rest of Gaza.)
They specifically included this qualification to narrow the definition and make it’s definition more precise: “The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.” I think that any unbiased observer would probably agree that Hamas exercises considerably more authority within Gaza than Israel does.
We can debate the legality of Israel’s use of a naval blockade. It seems like the issue of legality might not be 100% clear in either direction but that’s kind of besides the point of this debate. Even an illegal blockade does not qualify as an entire “occupation” over Gaza. Israel does not even exercise control over the Gazan border with Egypt.
I don’t see how controlling the border, even if Israel controlled the entirety of Gaza’s borders, (which it doesn’t), constitutes authority of anything beyond the borders themselves, the airspace and the shipping lanes. How does it extend to the governing of Gaza in it’s entirety?
You’re muddying the waters again, Shaktimaan. Control is not the same as “governing”.
The question of Israel’s obligations to the residents of Gaza under the Law of Occupation is discussed at length in Gisha’s “Disengaged Occupiers: The Legal Status of Gaza” (ch. 4): link to gisha.org
Bullshit, Nakba denier. For 40 years, Israeli Jews have held the rightful owners of the land under their jackboots.
Perhaps you are not understanding me. 40 years ago the official policy of the PLO was that The West Bank and East Jerusalem belong to Jordan. Thus, even if Israel decided to pursue a support of establishing a Palestinian state in the WB, it had no mechanism for giving it to “Palestinians.” The Arabs living in the WB were Jordanian citizens whose official policy was that the Palestinian state should be on the land that Israel was using for its own state, while the WB was part of Jordan. Israel could only return the land to Jordan, who had been attempting its own illegal annexation of it.
Well, Nakba denier, the purpose isn’t to bother you, it’s to hopefully get the mods to notice your Nakba denial and frag your account and send you scurrying back to whatever rat hole in Tel Aviv you come from.
Ah, I see. In that case good luck. Quick question… since I’m pretty certain that I never denied the Nakba in any of my posts and am in fact NOT a denier of the Nakba, what exactly do you expect that they might notice? (Besides you referring to me as a “nakba denier” I mean.)
if you don’t believe that Israel wouldn’t move against the Philadelphi Route the second Egypt permitted that border to be open, so that the Palestinians freedom fighters could arm themselves again their evil foes, then you are a fool.
Seeing as how Egypt has already permanently opened the border crossing at Rafah for people and Hamas is still engaging in unrestricted trade across the border at other points via their tunnel system, why and how do you think that Israel or the US would “respond?” to Egypt allowing above-ground trade? Don’t you think that Israel would almost certainly warn Egypt to close off the border again before Israel “moved” against them?
And, no, Nakba denier, the effective military control of Gaza by the Zionist Entity is more than “merely blockading.”
Really? Because it seems to be EXACTLY blockading to me. What actions are they taking beyond blockading Gaza?
And if Israel possesses “effective military control of Gaza” then why were they having those Qassam problems where Hamas fired thousands and thousands of rockets at Israel for years?
And the Jews occupying Palestine have, Nakba denier??
Good point. Not really, no I haven’t. So why do you think either side would suddenly be able to pull off freedom and equality wrt their enemies when they can’t even do it for themselves?
Well, Nakba denier, probably because they are sick and tired of being oppressed by a bunch of paranoid maniacs and simply want to go on with their lives without being hounded and oppressed by an alien people stealing their land.
I might have more faith in this certainty had anyone besides yourself mention it. Or had there not been SUCH bloody clashes for control between Palestinian groups following Israel’s withdrawal in 2005. Or if the immediate (within hours) response to Israel’s withdrawal had not been to resume firing Qassams
at Israeli civilians. Does that sound like the behavior of people who, “simply want to go on with their lives”?
Please stop pretending to be that stupid, of course Isael ontrols all of Gaza’s borders. Egypt does exactly as it is told by Washington/Israel with rearpect to the Rafah crossing.
The internationally accepted legal definition of “occupied” includes control of a territories resources, so yes, it is occupied, which is why the UN regards it as such.
If the laws says they are free an equal, then even if the state can’t guarantee freedom and equality, the contituents at least have legal avenues to ensure their freedom and euqality is protected. This clearly does nto apply to apartheid Israel.
Nor have you seen a Palestinian state in which this could even theoretically be demonstated.
False. Please stop lying, your fascist slip is showing.
What rubbish! They control Gaza’s water, electicity, food, and even dump raw sewage inot the territory. Israel routinely bobs and invades Gaza. Israel routinely sets fire to farms and crops in Gaza.
Who issues the permits to carry out any of these activities?
I think that any unbiased observer would probably agree that Isael exercises considerably more control of Gaza than hamas does.
Israel does not even exercise control over the Gazan border with Egypt.
Actually it does, certainly by proxy.<blockquote
Yes it is working, which is why Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandella, and Hendrik Verwoerd, then prime minister of South Africa and the architect of South Africa’s apartheid policies, all agree that Israel is an apartheid state.
Not for Israel, but certanly for the Palestinians.
Only a fool would suggest otherwise. Israel’s colonization of teh West Bakn and East Jerusalem, as well as it’s presdence in the Jordan Valley mean that a Palestinian state is impossible.
Israel left Gaza to secure the West Bank. There were only 8,000 settlers there and the right wing in Israel decided it could not justify using the resources to protect those settlements. There are 700,000 settlers in the West Bank who have not only thretaned civil war if they are aske to leave, but are even attacking the IDF as we speak.
It is an innevitable outcome. The fact you don’t want it doesn’t make it pointless.
Egypt does exactly as it is told by Washington/Israel with rearpect to the Rafah crossing.
Which is what, exactly? Let’s say that your assertion is 100% true and Egypt does whatever Israel says. Doing so is still a policy decision of Egypt’s that they could easily reverse if they felt the need. There is a big difference between inferring that Egypt follows Israeli orders and Israel exercising direct control.
If the laws says they are free an equal, then even if the state can’t guarantee freedom and equality, the contituents at least have legal avenues to ensure their freedom and euqality is protected. This clearly does nto apply to apartheid Israel.
It doesn’t? What about the court system? Israel’s avenues of challenging illegal discrimination are exactly the same as America’s.
False. Please stop lying, your fascist slip is showing.
Hamas has pretty much always been consistent on this. I have no reason to lie, you can easily just look this up. The reality is bad enough.
Israel doesn’t have a single person there. They don’t police the people there, create, distribute or archive any kind of permits, and so on.
Should we believe you, or our own lying eyes? We have videos here of the Israeli naval forces attacking Palestinian fishing boats and international observers in the territorial waters of Palestine. So far as I’m concerned, Israel always has forces inside the 12 mile limit stipulated in the Oslo Accords.
The rest of your comment is argumentative nonsense. The relevant treaty monitoring bodies still consider Israel to be an occupying power that exercises control over the territory of Gaza.
Perhaps you are not understanding me. 40 years ago the official policy of the PLO was that The West Bank and East Jerusalem belong to Jordan. Thus, even if Israel decided to pursue a support of establishing a Palestinian state in the WB, it had no mechanism for giving it to “Palestinians.”
Yes it could have withdrawn its armed forces and allowed the lawful inhabitants manage their own affairs. One half of the seats in the lower house of the Jordanian Parliament were reserved for representatives from the West Bank.
Let’s read the declassified State Department memo from 1950 regarding US recognition of Jordanian sovereignty over the West Bank together:
– 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, Foreign relations of the United States, The Near East, South Asia, and Africa, Volume V (1950), Page 921 link to digicoll.library.wisc.edu
Keep it closed to enfore the Israeli blockade.
No, it’s a distinction without a difference – and I did say indirect control.
You man these courts?
link to news.antiwar.com
If you’re a Zionist you have plenty reason to lie, but it is amusing that you would accuse Hamas of callign for a JEw free territory, while not even mentioning Lukniks like yourself and Benny Morris, who advocate an Arab free Israel.
Gaza is not occupied?
Why did I need the permission of Israel to exit at Erez and enter Gaza? I have travelled in every continent except Antarctica and I have NEVER before or since required the permission of the state I’m LEAVING to enter another.
Why do you have to be very careful not to wander within 300-500 meters of the Gaza border (on the GAZAN side) so as not to be shot by Israeli snipers?
Why can’t people in Gaza build any structures or plant any crops within that arbitrarily imposed buffer zones because if they do the tanks roll back in an demolish them?
Why does Israel think they have the right to prevent Gazan access to their own territorial waters?
Hello Djinn, I was on vacation. No idea if you still check this but I figured I’d answer your questions.
Why did I need the permission of Israel to exit at Erez and enter Gaza? I have travelled in every continent except Antarctica and I have NEVER before or since required the permission of the state I’m LEAVING to enter another.
Because they are in a state of conflict. If you try and cross a border between two nations that are fighting then you would experience added security like this. It’s not really that uncommon at all.
Why do you have to be very careful not to wander within 300-500 meters of the Gaza border (on the GAZAN side) so as not to be shot by Israeli snipers?
Again, because there is a conflict. If Gaza was occupied then there would be less security at the order, not more. Why would Israel need to have snipers patrol a border if they control both sides of it?
Why can’t people in Gaza build any structures or plant any crops within that arbitrarily imposed buffer zones because if they do the tanks roll back in an demolish them?
So that there are clear lines of fire to protect the border fence against terrorists who would breach it, bomb it, set up mortars nearby it, etc. Again, if this area were occupied then such actions would be unnecessary. That said Israeli tanks do not enter Gaza.
Why does Israel think they have the right to prevent Gazan access to their own territorial waters?
Israel has imposed a blockade in response to Hamas firing rockets and mortars into its territory. They believe they have the right based on their interpretation of the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflict at Sea. This belief is reinforced by the UN’s Palmer Report which has supported the legality of the blockade.
Yeah right, less security as in the check points and apartied wall that Israel built – hardly any security at all huh?
And there is a conflict because…Gaza is occupied.
Because they have snipers patrolling the West Bank too.
Rubbish. The prohibition on building apply to all of Gaza. Yo’re obviously just making this up as you go along.
Hence they occupy it. After all, they wouldn’t be entering Gaza with tanks if they weren’t.
That has been debunked and frankly, I am astounded at your stupidity for even bothering to post this crap.
Actually, that too has been debunked.
The Palmer Report was not granted the terms of refernce to determine the legality of the blockade. The UN has already determined it is illegal.
Shaktimaan you’re off the hasbara reservation. The Israeli government doesn’t use these arguments itself regarding terrorism or Israeli operations in Gaza, e.g. See Terrorism obstacles to peace, Hamas war against Israel, Operation in Gaza, Factual and legal aspects, Applicable legal framework, 5 Aug 2009 at the MFA website link to mfa.gov.il
The ICRC official commentary on the San Remo Manual, noted that only 26 countries, including Israel had participated. Several countries stated in connection with Article 102 that the prohibition against collective punishment had rendered blockades illegal. FYI, there is ample precedent for that position. For example, in 1967 Prime Minister Eshkol cabled President Johnson explaining that Israel went to war because of the “illegal blockade” and “the insolent defiance of the international and maritime community.” See the page on the telegram from Israeli PM Eshkol to President Johnson
Anne Bayefsky let the air out of the Palmer inquiry before it ever got started. It was intended to make the real fact finding missions go away in order to prevent criminal prosecutions. She complained about the implementation of the behind the scenes deal that led to its creation:
The Palmer report noted that the inquiry didn’t conduct its own investigation. So it doesn’t support its own conclusions, much less Israel’s.
Well put as always Hostage. It”s a pleasure to watch you decimate these habrats.
Like I said, Shaktimaan is simply making this up as he goes along.
OK, I am really just dying to know what you think has debunked the fact that the blockade was enacted following Hamas’ firing of rockets and mortars into Israel? (I realize that you inhabit a parallel reality, but this seems too much even for you.) I’m ignoring all of the other absurdities in favor of learning what you think about this single point of history.
In 2005 Israel left Gaza, pulling out its civilians, military and leaving greenhouses. Then what do you think happened?
Ummm, Hostage, your link is about operation Cast Lead, not the blockade. I’m not surprised that San Remo wasn’t mentioned on an entirely off topic matter. What you think it proves is beyond me.
And the blockade of the Tiran in 67 violated the terms of the cease fire agreement and was considered a casus belli. In this case Gaza attacked Israel first, re: Qassam and mortars. Had Israel instigated the blockade without cause then your example would apply more aptly.
Okay, I can’t help it.
Rubbish. The prohibition on building apply to all of Gaza. Yo’re obviously just making this up as you go along.
What do you mean by this? Do you think that the Palestinians are not allowed to build on their own in Gaza… that Israel prohibits construction within Gaza in some way (beyond the cleared area that directly butts up to the border fence?)
shak, i just posted a link here:
link to mondoweiss.net
it demonstrates the plan to blockade gaza was in place years before. this was written in 04:
this plan was in force before any evacuation in gaza. furthermore, ‘the blockade’ went into effect directly after hamas won the elections, and was planned prior to them even winning, it was called an economic embargo
link to en.wikipedia.org
you can’t blame that on hamas rockets, they weren’t even in power when it was planned. they just changed the name(from economic embargo to blockade) and then pretended it was ‘a response’ to hamas rockets when in fact hamas rockets were a response to gazans being starved and cut off and attacked:
look at the timeline: Gaza beach explosion (2006)
link to en.wikipedia.org
and now they continually claim the blockade began in 07. it didn’t. this is no different than the framing of ending one war on the same day as starting another and then claiming the second war was initiated by the action that happened on that day (the ‘civil war’/'war of independence’ ending and beginning on may 14th)
Leaving Greenhouses? You are the worst hasbarat ever. Are you going to tell us that Israel was a land without a people for a people without a land as well?
Israeli Settlers Demolish Greenhouses and Gaza Jobs – NY Times
OK, I am really just dying to know what you think has debunked the fact that the blockade was enacted following Hamas’ firing of rockets and mortars into Israel? (I realize that you inhabit a parallel reality, but this seems too much even for you.)
Well for starters the International Court of Justice had already advised that the limitations on Palestinian freedom of movement in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem were illegal in 2004 and that they could not be justified on the basis of security or necessity. That’s because the Court found that Israel’s actions had contributed to the so-called state of necessity. That was before the total closure was imposed in 2007.
Under the terms of the Oslo Accords, Israel was required to treat the West Bank and Gaza as a single territory for political, economic, legal and other purposes. Israel started to build a 60-kilometer fence around the Gaza Strip shortly after the implementation of the Accords in 1994. The fence was completed in 1996. Israel pursued a policy of illegally limiting the freedom of movement of the Palestinians living in Gaza through five entry control points and strict policies and practices resembling those of a concentration camp. The fence and entry control measures were all in-place prior to the second intifada or the Israeli withdrawal.
FYI, collective punishments like that are illegal regardless of the motive involved. For example, the closure of the Straits of Tiran was enacted after Israel downed a Syrian MIG over Damascus in April of 1967. Despite the fact that any such attack would automatically trigger the mutual defense pact with Egypt, Israeli PM Eshkol insisted that its response was an “illegal blockade”.
Ummm, Hostage, your link is about operation Cast Lead, not the blockade.
Try reading the name of the link in your address bar on that MFA webpage. The page also discusses Supreme Court decisions regarding applicability of the Geneva Conventions that predate Operation Cast Lead Those certainly did deal with the status of Gaza and the closure regime.
P.S. Ben Gurion had declared the unilaterally declared the Armistice Agreements null and void after the Suez Crisis. Shooting down MIGs over Damascus violated the cease fire agreements too.
As Annie has already expained to you, the blockade was in place, and certainly planned, long before Hamas began firing rockets. In addition, as McClathcy reported in June 2010, according to Israeli documents, the blockade has nothing to do with security or rocket attacks, but was part of a policy of “economic warfare”.
link to mcclatchydc.com
Where to begin?
1. Between September 2005 and May 2006, Israel fired 7,700 shells into Gaza, which kinda debunks your theory that the Hamas roattacked first.
2. As Civlian pointed out, the greenhouses wer not left but destroyed. After a rocky few weeks, it turns out that the greenhouses were restored to working order a month later by the Palestinians.
link to nytimes.com
So, to wrap up, the settlers houses were destroyed by Israeli soldiers as part of Israel’s disengagement, not by the Palestinians. Some settlers dismantled some of the greenhouses and equipment prior to the disengagement. And, according to news reports, about ten percent of formerly Israeli greenhouses were destroyed by Palestinian looters immediately after the disengagement, mostly stealing plastic irrigation pipe, plastic sheeting, and water pumps . That destruction was repaired within a month or so by the Palestinians and the greenhouses were up and running within 2 months.
3. In 2005 Hamas ran it’s election campaign did not calling for an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
4. In 2005 Hamas signed the Cairo Declaration of 2005 and the National Reconciliation Document, which, as interpreted by Haniyeh and
Maschaal, means that Hamas “fully respects” the previous agreements between the Palestinians and Israel.
Interestingly, Avigdor Liberman declared that there previous agreements were null and void as soon as he came to power.
5. In February, 2006, Khaled Mashaal declared that “(Hamas) cannot oppose the unified Arab stance expressed in the resolution passed by the Arab
League summit. That resolution, approved in Beirut, speaks of recognizing Israel and normalizing relations with it in exchange for a
full withdrawal and a solution to the refugee problem”.
6. Hamas won the election and continued to observe the unilateral ceasefire until Israel, responding to rocket fire from militants (not Hamas) attacked Gaza in June 2006 killing 220 civilians.
Quassm (Hamas’ military branch), then captured Gilad Shalit to
exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
In 2006, Prime Minister Haniyeh of Hamas wrote to Pres. George Bush
offering a 20 year ceasefire with Israel during which there could be
an exchange of ambassadors, in other words, official recognition of
Israel.
In early 2006 in Gaza, Hamas (and the small parties who were
shooting the Qassam rockets –Islamic Jihad, PFLP, DFLP and Al Aqsa’s
Martyrs’ Brigade), agreed to participate in a workshop and large march
under the banner: Two Peoples, Two States, One Peace. (The
Fatah-Hamas conflict prevented the workshop and march from being
held.)
By Israel and no one else. Neither the US nor the UN or any other state agreed with Israel’s interpretation.
As I explained earlier, Israel did instigate the blockade without cause. They came up with an explanation (ie. rockets) which in Israeli documents showed had nothign to do with the blockade.
Israel has banned the importatipon of cement and all other building materials, which would not be the case if they were merely prohibting structure being built within the “buffer zone”.
Do you think that the Palestinians are not allowed to build on their own in Gaza
You seem to have forgotten were are talking about the definition of occupied territory from the Hague regulations.
Israel never permitted the UNEF to deploy on its side of the cease fire line or for one square inch of the DMZs to remain unoccupied. However it always establishes kill boxes called no-go-zones in other people’s territory. In the case of Gaza, the depth of these buffer zones is 2-3 kilometers and they take in an area of 87 Km2, or 24 percent of Gaza’s land area. They were established and marked by the IDF acting under orders from the Prime Minister. So, they are occupied territory under the control of the Israeli military in accordance with the definition contained in the Hague Regulations. Of course the owners can’t build or farm there without being killed. Sheesh. link to poica.org
South Africa was a single nation.
No it is one state comprised of several nations, like the Zulu, Thembu, and etc.
Just like Israel, South Africa tried to annex the former League of Nations mandate territory of South West Africa. The UN did not consent. It continued to occupy the territory for several decades after the United Nations had adopted a two state solution for South Africa/Namibia. It imposed a policy of apartheid and created Bantustans in both Namibia and South Africa.
Nor does it possess standing to prosecute Israeli officials for violating the Geneva Conventions over settlements.
Of course they do. You need to read Article 49(6) of the Geneva Conventions, Article 85 of the First Additional Protocol, and Article 8 of the Rome Statute.
Israelis who would like nothing more than to achieve peace with their neighbors and who are willing to make painful sacrifices to achieve a lasting settlement
Well, there are a few, but they get called “self-hating Jews” or traitors, and treated accordingly.
There’s a pro-Israeli blogger who claims he has refuted each one of the BDS claims, over here
link to pennbds-oy.com
But he has also invited supporters of BDS to respond to him. Someone might wish to rise to the challenge.
Winnica,
I went and looked at this guy’s blog to check him out. I chose his section on Palestine and International Law to see if there is anything real to him.
There isn’t.
Despite the fact that everyone knows what the international finding are on the illegal settlements, all he had was the same regurgitated Israeli hasbara nonsense.
If he doesn’t know the difference between what international law says on Israeli settlements and what Israel makes up then the rest of his stuff is probably just as silly.
American,
International law regarding settlements is hardly as cut and dry as some people might assume it to be. Especially regarding areas like east jerusalem.
I don’t expect you to give this comment any consideration, but the assumption that Jewish settlements are illegal would necessarily call into question the legality of Palestinian refugee “settlers” who left what is now Israel to settle in East Jerusalem. As they were granted Jordanian citizenship at the time, we are actually talking about Jordanian citizens settling in an area that was under Jordanian occupation.
My point is to demonstrate that the same rules regarding settlements that are currently used to disallow Jewish settlers in the territories can just as easily be used against Palestinian refugees settling in east Jerusalem or the west bank in 1949.
Shaktimaan, I await Hostage’s linked (and legal) response to this, which I am sure he has at his fingertips, because this is patently false (they owned the land, sweetheart, they were living there for centuries):
Excuse me, could you say that again? I’m not sure you could possibly mean what you wrote. An immigrant family from Brooklyn who by choice moves into a home on private property confiscated by an occupying authority from indigenous inhabitants is to be judged equally with a refugee family evicted from a village in one part of Palestine and moves against its will to a camp or neighborhood in another part of Palestine? On the other hand you might have an interesting point to pursue, – where would you suggest the Palestinian “settlers” go? I know where the settlers from Brooklyn could go. Don’t even go into comparing the Jordanian administration of the West Bank with the Israeli occupation. There are issues with it, but not ones that would support a Zionist hasbara. The main grievance being that it was done in tacit collusion with Israel and served to guard the 1948 armistice line from refugees intent on going back to their villages to retrieve property or commit some retaliation against those living in their homes.
“My point is to demonstrate that the same rules regarding settlements that are currently used to disallow Jewish settlers in the territories can just as easily be used against Palestinian refugees settling in east Jerusalem or the west bank in 1949.”
Shaktimaan, any which way you try to rationalize it, in the end you just can’t put lipstick on Israel’s thievery. That’s what its disgraceful history is about.
Maybe Shaktimaan’s handle ( it means powerful) indicates a might is right philosophy
Maybe Shaktimaan’s handle ( it means powerful) indicates a might is right philosophy
That and the hexagram on the Indian superhero’s chest: link to en.wikipedia.org
A little subtler than calling himself Captain Israel, I guess: link to captisrael.com
International law regarding settlements is hardly as cut and dry as some people might assume it to be. Especially regarding areas like east jerusalem.
Actually it is cut and dried, especially in the case of East Jerusalem. I’ve already discussed that subject at great length and you can refer to the archives.
link to mondoweiss.net
link to mondoweiss.net
“Maybe Shaktimaan’s handle ( it means powerful) indicates a might is right philosophy”
Thanks for the help with the geographical orientation; I’ve been scratching my head about the name.
This blogger (“he”, sounds like a singular?), is probably the neighbouring department and are payed by the same fund as the Winnicas are although Winnica might not know.
They don’t even know the difference between the State of Israel and the Jewish state.
And, why did they start the blog in March 2009, right after the Gaza Massacre?
The guy is an idiot. He sets up a blog no one has heard about and regurgitates Hasrba talking points, then ries to make out that because Penn State has not responded to those talking points, that they are running away from the debate.