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Hostage

Retired

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• Norman Finkelstein slams the BDS movement calling it 'a cult'
  • Hostage February 15, 2012 at 6:30 am with 1 replies

    Too bad he does not say Israel is recognized as a state based on the 67 border

    That is exactly what he is saying every time that he mentions the 2004 ICJ advisory opinion; the unanimous findings of all the Justices with respect to the applicability of the Geneva Conventions to all of the Palestinian Occupied Territories, of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza; and the existing international consensus.

    The Court affirmed the General Assembly's determinations in the resolution which requested the advisory opinion titled "Illegal Israeli actions in Occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory" it found that the construction of the wall was illegal because it was "in departure from the Armistice Line of 1949 (Green Line) and which has involved the confiscation and destruction of Palestinian land and resources, the disruption of the lives of thousands of protected civilians and the de facto annexation of large areas of territory, and underlining the unanimous opposition by the international community to the construction of that wall". -- link to unispal.un.org

  • Hostage February 15, 2012 at 5:25 am

    Exactly. The equality approach (one state) is the pragmatic solution while the “two states” is neither two states nor a solution – it is just a smokescreen that legitimizes the Apartheid “while (the endless) negotiations continue…”

    The Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid was the first UN treaty that called for the establishment of an international criminal tribunal. The wasn't one during the era of South African Apartheid, so the UN adopted a sanctions regime of collective non-recognition which included recognizing or assisting in the policy of apartheid in the Bantustans.

    The UN has acknowledged Palestine's 1988 Algiers Declaration, adopted the Roadmap, and it was finally admitted as a full member state of one of the UN specialized agencies, UNESCO. So, unlike the Bantustans, it can be considered a victim state and deposit accessions to the Vienna Convention and Rome Statute. Then it can demand that the responsible Israeli officials be investigated and prosecuted for the crime of apartheid.

  • Hostage February 15, 2012 at 5:08 am with 1 replies

    UN Resolution 273 (III) admission of Israel to membership in the United Nations recalls “its resolutions of 29 November 1947 and 11 December 1948” as the basis of accepting Israel as a state.

    No, in Israel's case, the rights mentioned in those resolutions are under the guarantee of the UN and its members. They constitute a Charter obligation of all the member states. So acceptance was a basis for admitting Israel as a member. If Israel's membership were ever revoked, it would simply become a non-member State.

    The PLO recognises the Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship as Palestinians.

    Yes but it does not represent them in the UN organization. The PLO represents Palestinian refugees, but Israel is the sole representative of its own citizens within the UN organization. Conversely, the Credentials Committee has never accepted Israel's credentials as valid for the Occupied Palestinian territories.

    Pending Palestine's full membership, the General Assembly Credentials Committee allows representatives of the permanent observer mission of "Palestine" to participate in the business of the UN without presenting credentials from either the "PLO" or "PNA". The UN reports and resolutions about that also 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", which has recently been formally admitted to UNESCO as a full member state. See A/58/L.48, 15 December 2003; General Assembly resolution, A/RES/58/292, 17 May 2004 and the discussion of those resolutions on page 192 of John Quigley, "The Statehood of Palestine". The verbatim record of the General Assembly discussion of the resolution indictes the words “pre-1967 borders” had replaced the words “Armistice Line of 1949”. link to un.org

  • Hostage February 15, 2012 at 4:40 am

    jamie, we’re talking about individual rights, not state rights.

    It's Catch-22. Only States have the necessary legal standing to pursue legal remedies based upon human and humanitarian rights conventions under international law. Since the leaders of the BDS movement don't want to enforce the existing consensus on that point, or accept the current international consensus on recognition of Palestine's statehood, what is their real agenda? Ali Abunimah has it all wrong. A Bantustan can be a "victim state" with legal standing to pursue a remedy for the crime of apartheid. On the other hand, individual rights (without a remedy) is all you get in most cases if you happen to be stateless.

  • Hostage February 15, 2012 at 4:22 am

    @ Fred: Rights exist in a framework of laws. No, rights superseed laws. -N49.

    Under the existing framework of international law, only a State has the necessary legal standing to pursue claims based upon human rights and humanitarians rights. Before the UNESCO vote, Palestinians had not been represented by an internationally recognized State since the dissolution of the union with Jordan in 1988.

    The problem is that the leaders of the BDS movement won't touch the offer of UN recognition of Palestinian statehood (and locus standi wrt human rights and humanitarian rights) with a barge pole - and Norman knows that. So if the movement isn't about obtaining those equal human rights, what is its agenda?

  • Hostage February 15, 2012 at 3:54 am

    i would support two states if israel would start by defining those borders. it won’t.

    Israel did that when it signed the Armistice Agreements as a provisional measure under Article 40, Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The ICJ cited Security Council resolution 62 and the other relevant resolutions in determining the legal status of the territory. I've noted elsewhere that Israel admitted the status of the territory is unchallengeable in the absence of a new round of negotiations and mutual consent. Palestine is not under any obligation to accept any changes. link to mondoweiss.net

    The international community adopted a consensus definition of the crime of aggression which included any military occupation that violates the UN Charter - and it has long-since applied it to the on-going occupation of the Arab territories captured by Israel in 1967. See for example UN General Assembly resolution 39/146 link to un.org The ICC Assembly of State Parties adopted the consensus definition into the recent amendments to the Rome Statute. So Norman is actually correct. There is an enforceable consensus solution under existing Security Council resolutions 62 & 73 and international law.

  • Hostage February 15, 2012 at 3:21 am with 1 replies

    What does Israel’s ‘right to exist . . . have to do w/ anything?

    It has all of the rights and duties that other states have under international law. While an NGO BDS movement can meddle in the internal affairs of a state, the ability of officials of other states to interfere in essentially domestic matters is very limited.

    For example, when Ali Abunimah and Omar Barghouti say that they want equal rights for Palestinian living in Israel, does that include the right to be represented in the UN by the government of Israel like the other citizens? The citizens of Israel are really not part of the Palestinian polity that the PLO officially represents.

    When Abunimah and Barghouti complain that the PA and Hamas or the PLO have no "mandate" from the Palestinian people, how do they expect them to obtain one? The Palestinians living in Israel can't communicate with members of enemy entities. The PLO/PA have included groups like Hamas since 2007 that Israel considers enemy terrorist entities. Every State has the right to prohibit its citizens from communicating with enemies or terrorists.

    The UN Palestine Conciliation Commission has several mandates to maintain databases for personal property claims stemming from the wars and construction of the wall. The UNRWA has been registering Palestine refugees since it came into existence. How is it possible for the parties to conduct negotiations for 20 years if no one knows how many refugees want to return to their country of origin, or how many simply want compensation? The press has reported that Palestinian polling shows 90 percent of the refugees just want want compensation. One or two spokesmen for the BDS Movement have challenged those findings, but they haven't published their own survey.

    What is the BDS movement's motive for discussing the return of 6 million refugees, if most of them may not be interested?

  • Hostage February 15, 2012 at 2:23 am with 1 replies

    We have a chance to end the conflict now. So why not take it? Why not? Well, some people are far too obsessed with being armchair generals and gurus and winning arguments on the internet. It’s infuriating.

    I agree. Nationality is self-constructed from a shared sense of history and a sense of belonging together. How many states do the Germanic people have, and who would be harmed if the Palestinians had three or four?

    Colonial peoples always split into factions because they are subjected to a deliberate strategy of divide and rule. But that doesn't quite explain the current situation with the Palestinians. There are people who would shed the last drop of blood in Gaza before they would ever accept the idea of its membership in the UN (a 3ss). But it has more territory and a much larger population than many existing UN member states. The population there has been exposed to trials and tribulations that have not been shared with "Palestinians" living in Israel, Jordan, & etc. Why should they, or the people living under occupation in the West Bank care so much about achieving a 1ss vs 2ss - or submit the decision to others living in relative safety somewhere else?

  • Hostage February 15, 2012 at 1:56 am with 3 replies

    Norman is right in thoery but not in reality. The thing he leaves out how we are, or who is, going to force people to do what they know is right and how we are going to force the law to apply the law.

    I'm always fascinated when people say that applying international criminal law hasn't worked, when it has never been tried.

    The mere threat caused Israeli Generals and Tzipi Livni to run hime and hide under the bed, while their minions ran around shreying about the dangers of universal jurisdiction. For the first time ever, the General Assembly ordered the Secretary General to conduct a symbolic poll to see what members states are willing to do in order to implement the penal sanctions contained in the Geneva Conventions against Israel.

    F*** ‘em. Use whatever you can,
    I agree.

  • Hostage February 15, 2012 at 1:21 am

    Sorry but this is where we must part ways.

    I doubt it. If you check the archives, you'll see that I think that the threat of penal sanctions combined with BDS, and loss of open US support is the only thing that could make Israel change its policies. The real prospect of an imposed 2ss and the sudden realization that both sides would have to abandon parts of their prospective homelands is the only thing that will ever motivate them to seriously consider a 1ss with equal rights. The grassroots approach alone will probably never work.

  • Hostage February 15, 2012 at 1:01 am

    What does this mean? That the UN provides for the expropriation of a refugee’s property willy-nilly? Please explain.

    The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, stipulates: "...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

    The UN resolution contained a minority protection plan that spelled-out certain constitutional rights, including equality under the law. It contained a similar stipulation which allowed the new States to exercise eminent domain:
    

    No expropriation of land owned by an Arab in the Jewish State (by a Jew in the Arab State) shall be allowed except for public purposes. In all cases of expropriation full compensation as fixed by the Supreme Court shall be paid previous to dispossession.

    During the hearings on Israel's UN membership the representative of Lebanon pointed out that Israel was in violation of that provision and Israel made declarations and undertakings to implement resolution 181(II) and 194(III). I'm just pointing out that when Ali Abunimah says that refugees are entitled to both return and compensation, that international law doesn't govern adjudication of claims between a successor State and its own citizens. So ex-pat refugees could be compensated under a different, international framework.

  • Hostage February 15, 2012 at 12:35 am

    Ali Abunimah is correct about the poll’s dishonest question.

    I include Ali Abunimah and Omar Barghouti among the good guys, but they are not elected officials, and their agendas have never been officially adopted by the only Palestinian poll that actually counts.

    Who gives a shit about East Timor in America, Hostage?
    Nobody really, but it still managed to emerge as a separate state after Indonesia had annexed it and signed a treaty with Australia to exploit the oil reserves of "the Indonesian Province of East Timor".

    but some people ‘get it’ (like Ilan Pappe or Jeff Halper when he says Palestinians are becoming a ‘warehoused’ people).

    Chomsky and Pappe recently collaborated on a book together. So far as I know, neither Pappe nor Halper have jumped to the end of their chains and snarled dickish things about Chomsky yet.

  • Hostage February 14, 2012 at 11:55 pm

    Hostage began to filibuster the discussion and side-step the issue.

    No you started offer your opinion and analysis to what Chomsky had actually said in a video where he was asked and answered some specific questions by a group of students. He actually commended their BDS agenda and said they were going about it the right way.

    We get it, you don't like Chomsky. BTW, even if he had been condescending, that doesn't prove that everything he said was wrong or somehow incorrect.

  • Hostage February 14, 2012 at 11:45 pm

    What makes him think a government like this will “uphold the law” for “unpeople” like Palestinians?

    The United States isn't the only country that can apply economic and penal sanctions against Israelis.

    *Israeli cos likely to bid in new Cypriot gas tenders link to globes.co.il

    *Report: Israel Considering Placing IAF Aircraft in Cyprus link to israelnationalnews.com

    By a note verbale dated 19 July 2010, sent to all permanent missions, the Secretary-General drew the attention of all the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (Fourth Geneva Convention) to operative paragraph 3 of General Assembly resolution 64/92. The Secretary-General requested, in view of his reporting obligations under resolution 64/92, information regarding any steps the High Contracting Parties had taken or envisaged taking concerning the implementation of that resolution.
    . . .
    On 10 August 2010, the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Cyprus replied
    to the note verbale. In its reply Cyprus recalled its adherence to the Geneva
    Conventions and noted provisions of its domestic legal framework that governed criminal liability and jurisdiction arising from grave breaches thereof. Cyprus also noted that such provisions provided that breaches of article 147 of the Convention might result in criminal prosecutions, indictments, trials and punishment, irrespective of where the offence was committed. -- link to un.org

  • Hostage February 14, 2012 at 9:41 pm with 19 replies

    Hostage wasted a whole lot of time, looking up a bunch of stuff (that was besides the point) to defend Chomsky’s patronizing/condescending and insulting characterization of BDS as ‘breaking windows’ (while ignoring the argument I made, which was – take these insulting characterizations in context to his comments that he’d move to Israel after the US as a second home, and blah blah blah).

    *The last time I checked, Prof Chomsky wasn't being represented by Prof. Finkelstein. I would disagree with Finkelstein's assessment about the obligations of the Israeli and Palestinian governments under the terms of the minority rights declarations they've each made in accordance with the terms of resolution 181(II). The responsible UN subsidiary organs are on record that there is a continuing legal obligation that flows from 181(II) and 194(III). I've outlined that situation on many occasions and it definitely falls under the category of enforcing existing international law, e.g. link to mondoweiss.net

    The recognition of both the new states that emerged from the former Yugoslavia and EU accession are routinely conditioned upon the acceptance of minority rights agreements as a matter of international law. So Israel and Palestine are not being singled out. See for example the report on “Minority Rights in Albania”, by the Albanian Helsinki Committee, September 1999.

    *One of the joys of being retired is the ability to waste time however I like. Here is some more blah, blah , blah for you. I've commented in the past that the right of return is an individual right. It is nonsense to conduct negotiations without defining the scope of the problem as a preliminary matter. That can only be done by consulting the wishes of the individual refugees who are actually registered with UNRWA. No one else's opinion matters.

    972 Magazine recently ran an article which said that polls conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research indicated 90 percent of the refugees preferred compensation in lieu of the right of return to Israel. Abbas's comments during the March 2009 meeting reflected that there would be a firm requirement for Israeli compensation of the refugees in any event and that the refugees in the Diaspora would be allowed to vote inthe national plebiscite on the final settlement. Ali Abunimah took issue with the poll because "the question offered a choice between return and compensation as if refugees are entitled to only one or the other."

    In reality, opting to exercise the "right of return" will undoubtedly work against an individual's "right to compensation". Resolution 181(II) allowed the states to expropriate property from the members of ethnic and religious minority groups. It gave the Supreme Courts of the respective states the discretion to decide upon the amount of compensation in such cases. Resolution 194(III) did not alter that situation.

    The existing Israeli Supreme Court precedents beginning with CApp 41/49 Simshon Palestine Portland Cement Factory LTD. v. Attorney-General (1950) have cited Hans Kelsen’s article, “Theorie generale du droit international public, problemes choisis”, in vol. 49 of the Recueil des Cours of the Hague Academy of International Law:

    “In so far as concerns debts due to individuals who become, as a result of territorial changes, citizens of the successor State, here there can arise no question of a legal succession based upon principles of general international law itself. The relations between the State and its citizens are in the exclusive jurisdiction of the State in question which can therefore, acting in full accord with international law, decide quite freely whether it will take upon itself debts such as these” (p. 329).

    *I've also pointed out that the Palestinians living in Israel do not want to be incorporated in the new Palestinian State and that they are currently represented in the UN system by the government of the State of Israel, not by the PLO. Membership of the State of Palestine in the UN does not alter that situation. Omar Barghouti, and Ali Abunimah incorrectly claim that Palestinian UN membership would amount to an abandonment of the movement for obtaining equal rights for the Palestinians living in Israel.

    The 2SS is dead.
    The Baltic States, East Timor, and Namibia were also graveyard dead. Try to remember that none of us here are prophets.

• Two new videos take on The Dersh and introduce his toughest client yet - Claus Von Bibi!
  • Hostage February 14, 2012 at 4:21 pm

    Thanks Hostage. That link is from November 2002. Was there a resolution to it?

    Well he wasn't disbarred. The proceedings are confidential. I doubt that he was even reprimanded. He naturally claimed that he had a first amendment right to advocate war crimes and pretended that the Muslim lawyers had done the same thing. link to thecrimson.com

  • Hostage February 14, 2012 at 6:23 am with 4 replies

    Why is he not disbarred . . . Hostage, I hope I am on firm ground when I state that?

    Dershowitz habitual cheerleading for the use of torture did get on the nerves of defense lawyers representing detainees and Muslim legal groups, e.g.:
    

    An American Muslim legal group today announced the filing of a complaint with the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers demanding disciplinary action against Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz. The Muslim Legal Defense and Education Fund (MLDEF) says Dershowitz violated rules of professional conduct when he advocated the commission of war crimes and the use of torture.

    link to antiwar.com

• Sh*t the David Project says about Israel
  • Hostage February 13, 2012 at 5:43 am with 1 replies

    Its really only been 64 years. It just seeeemmms like 3000 years.

    LOL! I'll say. I was just poking fun at the twin myths about the total Jewish exile from Aelia Capitolina and the 3,000 year-long continuous Jewish presence there.

  • Hostage February 13, 2012 at 4:26 am with 4 replies

    People who are Jewish have been in the place for 3,000 years.

    Well then, the mythical sages went to great lengths to lie about the literal fulfillment of the prophecy that Jerusalem had become completely desolate and they invented a story about the foxes using the grounds around the old Holy of Holies for their dens. Who am I supposed to believe, you or the Midrash contained in Makkoth 24b? link to halakhah.com

  • Hostage February 12, 2012 at 3:48 am

    a more apropos video would be called, “Sh*t Zionist say to Palestinians.” However, no one has made that video yet.

    See All Your Base Are Belong To Us
    *In A.D. 2101 war was beginning;
    *Someone set us up the bomb;
    *What happen?;
    *All your base are belong to us;
    *You have no chance to survive make your time;
    *Israel are refuse to accept the Quartet Road Map (see the Government of Israel's two resolutions A & B and 14 reservations);
    *We won't accept Palestinian government Hamas participates, unless:
    A) acknowledges Israel's right to exist;
    B) Hamas also agree Quartet committee's conditions. link to english.pnn.ps

• Hasbara PennBDS wrap-up: Pro-Israel students are ignorant
  • Hostage February 18, 2012 at 12:41 am

    Zionism isn’t about seeking the re-establishment of the Kingdom of David or anything.

    On the day he introduced the Law of Return and the Nationality Laws, during the 160th Sitting of the First Knesset, David Ben Gurion said that Israel was the revival of the ancient Jewish State. He quoted the Jewish historian Josephus and also said: "These two laws determine the special character and destiny of Israel as bearer of the vision of the redemption of the Jewish Nation. . . . On 14 May 1948 the Jewish State was established not as something completely new but as the restoration of our ancient glory, 1813 years after our independence had been destroyed, supposedly forever, at the time of Bar Kochba and Rabbi Akiva. . . . Neither can the revival of the Jewish State be understood without knowing the history of the Jewish people during the period of the First and Second Temples, the history of Jewish prophecy, spirit and vision, the history of the Jewish diaspora and the concept of messianism, and its various manifestations, the incessant attempts of the wandering nation throughout the generations to return to its land and the history of the eternal culture which was forged in this land and its influence on the Jews and the rest of the world." The motives for unconditional immigration to Israel that he cited were "yearning for redemption, ancient memories, religious sentiments and love of the homeland". He said "The Law of Return is one of the State of Israel's Basic Laws. It encompasses one of the central missions of our country, the in-gathering of the exiles." See Lorch, Netanel (ed), Major Knesset Debates, 1948-1981, Volume 2, JCPA/University Press of America, 1993, pp 611 - 613.

    So, he invoked the First and Second Temples, the prophets, messianism, redemption, The Antiquities of The Jews by Josephus (aka the Bible), the in-gathering of purported exiles, and the revival of the Jewish State.

  • Hostage February 18, 2012 at 12:22 am

    Noooo, not ANY question. Just questions of the kind outlined in article 18(2) like you posted.

    In that case Article 18(3) would be superfluous. It contains no such limitation on the scope of the other questions that may be decided:
    

    3. Decisions on other questions, including the determination of additional categories of questions to be decided by a two-thirds majority, shall be made by a majority of the members present and voting.

    Look, people have certainly made the argument that the UNGA has the right to codify binding law wrt Palestine

    That is certainly true, but irrelevant. I'm discussing the explicit declarations and undertakings of the representatives of the government of Israel in which they unconditionally accepted the terms of the resolution, including the chapter containing the minority protection plan. That plan was cataloged in the 1950 study done by the Secretariat on treaties concluded after WWII. The Treaty of Berlin, Article 13 of the Mandate, and the chapter on minority rights in 181(II) were cited in paragraph 129 of the ICJ Advisory Opinion as instruments that contained safeguarding clauses regarding the "existing rights" of the Palestinian people.

    Even the example you gave are offered with extreme conditions attached that you seem to be ignoring for some reason. Had the UN’s partition plan actually been considered binding at any time then it did an extremely poor job of fulfilling its responsibilities in allowing Jordan to occupy east Jerusalem, the Palestinians blockading it, the Arab states invading it, etc.

    In his statement to the 51st session of the Ad Hoc Committee on Membership, Mr. Eban declared that Israel had supplied the necessary declaration on minority rights. He also acknowledged that the undertaking was an obligation that was capable of acceptance by Israel alone, and was not at all affected by the attempt by the Arab States to alter the resolution by force. See page 7 of the pdf file containing the verbatim UN record of his remarks, A/AC.24/SR.51 link to un.org

    The report to the Security Council from the panel of experts serving in one of the UN's own subsidiary organs described that as "unreserved agreement by Israel" to honour its commitments under the Charter of the United Nations, and from its specific undertaking, when applying for membership of the United Nations, to implement General Assembly resolutions 181 (II) of 29 November 1947, safeguarding the rights of the Palestinian Arabs inside Israel, and 194 (III) of 11 December 1948, concerning the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes or to choose compensation for their property. This undertaking was also clearly reflected in General Assembly resolution 273 (III). -- -- link to un.org

  • Hostage February 17, 2012 at 11:43 pm

    The people in these groups were ultimately absorbed into the Haganah after they disbanded, effectively ending their existence as paramil orgs.

    Nope the units themselves were absorbed into the Haganah. One of the disputes that erupted into the Altalena Affair was that Begin wanted the arms earmarked for the end use of the Irgun units in the Haganah. The IDF leadership objected to the maintenance of an "Army within the Army". See the Wikipedia link that you supplied.

  • Hostage February 17, 2012 at 10:12 pm

    This is untrue. My comment was not unsourced and your source does not contradict my assertion in the least.

    Robert I’ve already explained twice now that the leaders and members of the Haganah were legal accomplices to the massacre under the terms of the existing laws and customs of land warfare: link to mondoweiss.net

    You denied that. Now you are quoting a portion of a letter from the Haganah District Commander which establishes beyond any doubt that he was planning an unprovoked attack and occupation of a civilian population located beyond the borders of the proposed Jewish state in the Corpus Separatum. The IDF article says that he was consciously violating a non-aggression pact by authorizing that action.

    That makes him responsible for the crimes that subsequently occurred in the village under the customary terms outlined in the Nuremberg Charter, i.e. planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing; and being an accessory to the crimes against the civilian population committed by the Irgun/Stern/Haganah forces that took part in the attack:
    

    Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan.

    -- link to avalon.law.yale.edu

    Phil and Adam need to explain why the moderators here don't consider whitewashing and justifying the Haganah role in this series of crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity as a blatant example of Nakba denial. I'm beginning to agree with the others here about moving on to my regular haunts and letting you have the place all to yourself.

  • Hostage February 16, 2012 at 7:45 pm

    Just look it up dude. UNGA = non-binding.

    I have looked it up dude. The term "non-binding" does not appear in the text of Chapter IV of the UN Charter on the General Assembly. link to un.org

    Article 18(2) & (3) of the UN Charter explicitly state that the General Assembly can adopt decisions on any question:
    

    2. Decisions of the General Assembly on important questions shall be made by a two-thirds majority of the members present and voting. These questions shall include: recommendations with respect to the maintenance of international peace and security, the election of the non-permanent members of the Security Council, the election of the members of the Economic and Social Council, the election of members of the Trusteeship Council in accordance with paragraph 1 (c) of Article 86, the admission of new Members to the United Nations, the suspension of the rights and privileges of membership, the expulsion of Members, questions relating to the operation of the trusteeship system, and budgetary questions.

    3. Decisions on other questions, including the determination of additional categories of questions to be decided by a two-thirds majority, shall be made by a majority of the members present and voting.

    ICJ President Taslim Olawale Elias wrote about the legal effects of General Assembly resolutions. He said it seems clear that, as far as General Assembly recommendations in respect of the nine specifically enumerated matters in Article 18(2) are concerned, its "decisions" in the form of "recommendations" are binding upon all once a draft resolution is adopted by a two thirds majority and that a decision on any other important question can be adopted by a simple majority. I hope you don't think that when the General Assembly adopted resolutions which expelled Taiwan from the UN or refused to accept Rhodesia's credentials, those decisions were non-binding or subject to an appeal.

    The representative of the Jewish Agency, Mr. Shertok, who subsequently served as Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister of Israel, stated his opinion regarding the "binding force" of resolution 181 on April 27, 1948:

    "With regard to the status of Assembly resolutions in international law, it was admitted that any which touched the national sovereignty of the Members of the United Nations were mere recommendations and not binding. However, the Palestine resolution was essentially different for it concerned the future of a territory subject to an international trust. Only the United Nations as a whole was competent to determine the future of the territory, 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

    There have been a number of international court decisions which settled the question. In the "Certain Expenses" case the ICJ said that it was a mistaken view to assert that, just because the General Assembly had the power to make a recommendation, that its powers were limited to making hortatory statements. The Court affirmed the fact that the General Assembly can adopt legally binding decisions that have operative effects in the real world and that its authorization of the deployment of the UNEF forces in the Sinai and allocation of funding and assessments for that purpose did not exceed its authority and were within its explicit powers and functions under the Charter.

    In other cases, like the South West Africa/Namibia cases, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled that the absence or lack of consent from one of the permanent members of the Security Council could not prevent one of the other responsible organs from acting validly in cases like the Korean War and the General Assembly's "Uniting for Peace" resolution. It also ruled that the General Assembly can adopt binding decisions to terminate mandates or in connection with non-self-governing peoples and territories. See ICJ Reports 1971, p. 16, at para. 22 . In the Wall case (para 49) the Court noted that the United Nation's permanent responsibility toward to the Question of Palestine was based upon the Covenant of the League of Nations and 181(II) and other relevant resolutions of the General Assembly, including e.g. General Assembly resolution 57/107 of 3 December 2002.

    In Jan Klabbers, "An introduction to international institutional law", Cambridge University Press, 2002, the author explains that the Covenant of the League of Nations was silent on the topic of the legal force of resolutions. In the absence of an express provision they are generally held to have been non-binding. In the 1931 Railway Traffic Case, the Court used the mundane contract law theory of acceptance and held that, since the parties had participated in adopting the resolution, they were bound by the terms of their acceptance. link to books.google.com

    In the earlier Treaty of Lausanne case, the PCIJ employed the same logic. It said that powers of the Council, in regard to the settlement of disputes, are dealt with in Article 15 of the Covenant, and that, under that article, the Council can only make recommendations, but that the parties were bound by the terms of their own acceptance. So, by virtue of their previous consent in accordance with the provisions of Article 3, paragraph 2, of the Treaty of Lausanne, the Council had the power in this instance to compulsorily settle their dispute. See printed page 27 of Series B Advisory Opinion No. 12 link to icj-cij.org

    The General Assembly subsequently recognized declarations supplied by Israel and Palestine as being in line with the requirements contained in resolution 181(II). See resolutions 273/3; 43/177;

  • Hostage February 16, 2012 at 9:51 am

    …and the altalena
    link to en.wikipedia.org

    Let me know what parts you still think are rubbish.

    The only thing that's notable about the Altalena affair is that the Provisional Government didn't convene a tribunal and prosecute Begin for insubordination. All of the European ex-pats took it as an article of faith that the state had to establish a monopoly on the use of force within its jurisdiction. In many other countries, Begin would have been sitting in jail instead of the first Knesset.

    The Wikipedia article notes that the provisional government had already absorbed the Irgun within its borders and had refused to make the cargo available for its exclusive use, because they were not viewed as "an Army within the Army".

    The story also illustrates that Israel was violating the UN truce and arms embargo.

  • Hostage February 16, 2012 at 3:55 am

    The differences between his ideology and mainstream zionist thought were vast.

    Nonsense Jabotinsky was placed in charge of the Zionist Organization's entire Propaganda Department in 1921 and that's when he first mentioned the Iron Wall in meetings of the Zionist Executive. He published the idea in 1923. His differences with the Labor Socialists weren't over the need to carry-on colonization against the will of the Palestinians under the protection of an armed force. As far as mainstream Zionists and the IDF are concerned today its practically a mitzvah.

  • Hostage February 16, 2012 at 3:32 am

    Wow, are you serious? There was no treaty, haha.

    Yes. 90 percent of the post WWII international treaties are contained in UN resolutions. That practice continued the tradition which began with the League of Nations Mandates. With the notable exception of Iraq, had of the mandate instruments were simply resolutions of the League of Nations. The Minority Protection Plan in resolution 181(II) and the defunct League of Nations agreements were cataloged in 1950 as part of a survey of legal instruments containing minority protection treaties.

    *The UN considers the instruments and accessions that it concluded after WWII to be agreements in force. E/CN.4/367, Date: 7 April 1950 (see Chapter III The United Nations Charter And The Treaties Concluded After The War, resolution 181(II) of 29 November 1947, “The Future Government of Palestine”, pages 22-23)

    *The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People reported to the Security Council that:

    19. In this respect, it was pointed out that Israel was under binding obligation to permit the return of all the Palestinian refugees displaced as a result of the hostilities of 1948 and 1967. This obligation flowed from the unreserved agreement by Israel to honour its commitments under the Charter of the United Nations, and from its specific undertaking, when applying for membership of the United Nations, to implement General Assembly resolutions 181 (II) of 29 November 1947, safeguarding the rights of the Palestinian Arabs inside Israel, and 194 (III) of 11 December 1948, concerning the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes or to choose compensation for their property. This undertaking was also clearly reflected in General Assembly resolution 273 (III).

    Mr Eban accepted that agreement on behalf of Israel and you can read more about that in this comment: link to mondoweiss.net

  • Hostage February 15, 2012 at 6:07 am

    Most important of all, the Perushim learned to ‘work the system’, by petitioning the Ottomans, paying bribes and wrangling foreign citizenship from Russia, England, Holland, etc., and using than using their newly acquired European citizenship to extract ‘foreign concessions’ from the Ottomans.

    Exactly. Foreigners invaded the place with the intent of operating outside the Ottoman laws. They obtained immunity from consular officials of other nations, not a Jewish nation. That behavior incited antisemitic resentment, not religious hatred. The Socialists and anarchists didn't even pretend to have any religion, but went along with the same scam anyway. There was nothing messianic about the motives of their members. Stop kidding yourself.

  • Hostage February 14, 2012 at 11:22 pm

    “Men in Palestine call their fellows ‘Jew’, as the lowest of all possible words of abuse”.

    This is from the 20th & 21st Century:I was present at the Qana massacre by Israeli gunners in 1996 – "Arabushim" (the equivalent of the abusive term "Ayrab" in English), one of the gunners called the 106 dead civilians, more than half of them children, in the Israeli press. Then the Israeli government of Nobel laureate Shimon Peres said there were terrorists among the dead civilians – totally untrue, but who cares? – and then came the second Qana massacre in 2006 and then the 2008-09 Gaza slaughter of 1,300 Palestinians, most of them children, and then... Robert Fisk, link to independent.co.uk

    But a contemporary eyewitness Ermete Pierotti, an Italian engineer who lived eight years in Jerusalem until 1864, ‘All the native population unfortunately hold the opinion that to injure a Jew is a work well pleasing in the sight of God.

    But there's no evidence that was religious hatred as opposed to antisemitism or that the Jews of the Old Yishuv even considered themselves members of a Jewish nation. In fact they continued to self-identify as Romaniot, Ashknazim, Sephardim, and in most cases remained isolated in their own communities. The western powers had long-since immunized their Jewish subjects and so-called proteges from Ottoman lawsuits, military service, taxation, & etc. They placed them under the jurisdiction of their own extraterritorial consular courts.

    That was the main reason that Ashkenazi Jews immigrated to Safed instead of Jerusalem. The Pascha Farrukh had banned them from the district of Jerusalem altogether, while allowing Jews who were Ottoman subjects to remain. Many of the Askenazim had refused to pay their debts and could only be sued in the foreign consular courts under the terms of the Ottoman regime of capitulations. See for example:
    *Dovid Rossoff, Safed: the mystical city link to books.google.com
    *Leland J. Gordon, The Turkish American Controversy over Nationality link to jstor.org

    Ruth Kark wrote in "American consuls in the Holy Land, 1832-1914" that the available statistics indicate that by the year 1872, about 770 citizens and 2473 proteges were registered in the foreign consulates. A census in 1839 showed 150 families of about 1500 Jews living in Safed. link to books.google.com

    Now can we please get back to the real issue at hand. That is, that several waves of emigration to Eretz Yisroel, over a period of 600 years, were made by thousands of religiously inspired Jews….

    Perhaps, but most of them were long gone before the 18th Century. There were only 30,000 Jews in all of Syria and Palestine by then, mostly in the vicinity of Damascus. The few who remained formed semi-autonomous "communities". They retained their own languages, separate nationalities, synagogues, and courts. Entire volumes have been written on the subject, e.g. Avigdor Levy, "Jews, Turks, Ottomans: A Shared History, Fifteenth Through the Twentieth Century", Syracuse University Press, 2002

  • Hostage February 14, 2012 at 3:38 pm

    Hostage. . . . Your best efforts to obfuscate matters have failed the singular subject of Morgenstern’s article which is this . . . Several waves of emigration to Eretz Yisroel, over a period of 600 years, were made by thousands of religiously inspired Jews.

    I didn't obfuscate at all. The 1996 9th grade history textbooks, with material from the New Historians, came out after Morgenstern had left the Ministry of Education. They were withdrawn shortly after his 2002 article as a result of complaints from the far right. There was no such thing as Jewish nationalist history in the medieval era. It was invented by Jewish political hacks starting in the 19th century. I noted that Morgenstern didn't cite any actual medieval historical records. The primary source of his analysis and historical material was a work published in 1975 :
    *Benzion Dinur, “The Messianic Fermentation and Immigration to the
    Land of Israel from the Crusades until the Black Death, and Their Ideological
    Roots,” in Benzion Dinur, Historical Writings (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1975),
    vol. ii, p. 238.

    Unlike you, I read page 100 from Morgenstern’s article where he said:
    “In 1625, Jerusalem came under the control of the Ibn Farukh family.

    If there's anything I like less than a bigot, it's an ignorant bigot. I read that too, but I happened to know that the Ibn Farukh family were actually Circassians from Eurasia, not Arabs. See for example, The Farrukhs in Dror Zeʼevi, An Ottoman century: the district of Jerusalem in the 1600s, State University of New York Press, 1996, (mid page) 43 link to books.google.com

    FYI, the Egyptian ruler mentioned by Morgenstern, named Muhammed Ali, was actually an Albanian mercenary. He was neither an Egyptian nor an Arab. When you get finished making a total ass out of yourself, please take your blinders off and apologize to the nice Arab readers. More often than not, their ancestors saved your ancestor's asses when the chips were down. Truth be told, the Muslims were no worse than the Christians or Jews. During this same 600-year time period the Jewish Perushim and Hassidim delighted in persecuting one another on account of their religious differences, while Hus and Tyndale were tortured and killed by their own Christian brethren.

    Here is a little more from Arendt on the modern development of:
    

    ANTISEMITISM, a secular nineteenth-century ideology—which in name, though not in argument, was unknown before the 1870's—and religious Jew-hatred, inspired by the mutually hostile antagonism of two conflicting creeds, are obviously not the same; and even the extent to which the former derives its arguments and emotional appeal from the latter is open to question. The notion of an unbroken continuity of persecutions, expulsions, and massacres from the end of the Roman Empire to the Middle Ages, the modern era, and down to our own time, frequently embellished by the idea that modern antisemitism is no more than a secularized version of popular medieval superstitions, is no less fallacious (though of course less mischievous) than the corresponding antisemitic notion of a Jewish secret society that has ruled, or aspired to rule, the world since antiquity. Historically, the hiatus between the late Middle Ages and the modern age with respect to Jewish affairs is even more marked than the rift between Roman antiquity and the Middle Ages, or the gulf—frequently considered to be the most important turning-point of Jewish history in the Diaspora—that separated the catastrophes of the First Crusades from earlier medieval centuries. For this hiatus lasted through nearly two centuries, from the fifteenth to the end of the sixteenth, during which Jewish-Gentile relations were at an all-time low, Jewish "indifference to conditions and events in the outside world" was at an all-time high, and Judaism became "more than ever a closed system of thought." It was at this time that Jews, without any outside interference, began to think "that the difference between Jewry and the nations was fundamentally not one of creed and faith, but one of inner nature" and that the ancient dichotomy between Jews and Gentiles was "more likely to be racial in origin rather than a matter of doctrinal dissension." This shift in evaluating the alien character of the Jewish people, which became common among non-Jews only much later in the Age of Enlightenment, is clearly the condition sine qua non for the birth of antisemitism, and it is of some importance to note that it occurred in Jewish self-interpretation first and at about the time when European Christendom split up into those ethnic groups which then came politically into their own in the system of modern nation-states.

  • Hostage February 14, 2012 at 5:26 am

    Hostage. I’m still waiting for your comment on the Arie Morgenstern article I linked.

    Your earlier comment wasn't addressed to me. You linked to 62 pages of drek from a Zionist historiographer and that takes a few minutes to digest.

    Morgenstern was actually bemoaning the fact that upstart Jewish historians with PhDs have recently started to publish dissertations and journal articles debunking the accuracy of the artificially constructed Zionist historical narrative about the longing for Zion and colonial urges. He didn't really mention a damn thing about Arabs consistently treating Jewish pilgrims badly by the way. So you wasted a great deal of my time. Nothing that he said changed the fact that Nahum Sokolow's History of Zionism, 1600-1918, Volume 1 was stretching the point quite a bit and that the very first Zionist Congress in 1897 narrowly missed being a 20th century event.

    You claimed that Jews had been making ‘aliyah’ to Eretz Yisroel since at least the 13th century and the Arabs there consistently treated these ‘religious Zionists’ badly. Morgenstern buries all mention of Sabbatai Zevi in a few footnotes. He never mentions that the ancient Jewish Kingdoms had conquered or persecuted other peoples; that the Maccabees had forced the Idumeans to mutilate their genitals and observe Jewish laws; that Jews have holidays which celebrate violence against Gentiles; or admit that "messianic fervor" included plans to initiate another Crusade, appoint Jewish Princes, and restore the Kingdom by subduing Palestine under the leadership of literal Messiahs like Bar Kochba or Sabbatai Zevi, et al.

    The first reference to an "Arab of Tiberias" appears 37 pages into the 62 page article, and only then as the source of a report that Rabbi Abulafia “told the Jews who lived there that the Messiah would soon come."

    The only documented case of Arab violence that the author cites is a lone, cherry-picked, version of a report from Rabbi Shmuel Heller regarding an Arab attack on Safed during the 1834 revolt against the rule of Muhammed Ali of Egypt. Martin Sicker's account of the sack of Safed in "Reshaping Palestine: from Muhammad Ali to the British Mandate, 1831-1922 is also based upon Rabbi Heller's account. Unlike Arie Morgenstern, Sicker relates that the Jews fled and were saved by the friendly Arabs in the neighboring village of Ein Zietim. Neither of these historians provided any statistics on the purported number of casualties. Rabbi Shmuel Heller gained notoriety on account of his miraculous sightings of the Ari (Rabbi Yitzhak Luria), sitting in 19th century Safed - long after Luria had died in 1573.

    The actual reports of medieval Jewish pilgrims, like Petahiya of Regensburg, have been rejected by modern historians as fanciful, fantastic, legendary and folkloristic. The pilgrims who made aliyah to Palestine usually left due to disappointment, poverty, plague, or natural disasters, not persecution. While his article has the ambitious title "Dispersion and the Longing for Zion, 1240-1840", Morgenstern doesn't actually cite any medieval Jewish sources at all. He is complaining about these authors and works:
    *Jacob Barnai, Historiography and Nationalism: Trends in the Research of
    Palestine and Its Jewish Population, 634-1881 (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1995),
    *Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, The Nationalist Portrayal of the Exile, Zionist
    Historiography, and Medieval Jewry, doctoral dissertation, Tel Aviv University,1996
    *Elhanan Reiner, Pilgrims and Pilgrimage to the Land of Israel, 1099-1517,
    doctoral dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1988

    I've discussed similar works here in the past. See Israel Jacob Yuval, "The Myth of the Jewish Exile from the Land of Israel: A Demonstration of Irenic Scholarship", Common Knowledge - Volume 12, Issue 1, Winter 2006, pp. 16-33 link to muse.jhu.edu

    BTW, Hannah Arendt addressed the subject of the post hoc, invented, nature of Jewish nationalist history very succinctly in the Preface to the 1968 Edition of Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, starting on page xii. She cited several earlier works, so Arie Morgenstern's must be pretty high if he thinks this is something that only became increasingly popular in recent years.

    Here is an excerpt. Arendt's quotes are taken from Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and tolerance: studies in Jewish-Gentile relations in medieval and modern times, Behrman House, Inc, 1961:
    

    The history of antisemitism, like the history of Jew-hatred, is part and parcel of the long and intricate story of Jewish-Gentile relations under the conditions of Jewish dispersion. Interest in this history was practically nonexistent prior to the middle of the nineteenth century, when it coincided with the rise of antisemitism and its furious reaction to emancipated and assimilated Jewry—obviously the worst possible constellation for establishing reliable historical records.

    Since then, it has been the common fallacy of Jewish and non-Jewish historiography—though mostly for opposite reasons—to isolate the hostile elements in Christian and Jewish sources and to stress the series of catastrophes, expulsions, and massacres that have punctuated Jewish history just as armed and unarmed conflicts, war, famine, and pestilence have punctuated the history of Europe. Needless to add, it was Jewish historiography, with its strong polemical and apologetical bias, that undertook to trace the record of Jew-hatred in Christian history, while it was left to the antisemites to trace an intellectually not too dissimilar record from ancient Jewish authorities. When this Jewish tradition of an often violent antagonism to Christians and Gentiles came to light, "the general Jewish public was not only outraged but genuinely astonished," so well had its spokesmen succeeded in convincing themselves and everybody else of the non-fact that Jewish separateness was due exclusively to Gentile hostility and lack of enlightenment. Judaism, it was now maintained chiefly by Jewish historians, had always been superior to other religions in that it believed in human equality and tolerance. That this self-deceiving theory, accompanied by the belief that the Jewish people had always been the passive, suffering object of Christian persecutions, actually amounted to a prolongation and modernization of the old myth of chosenness and was bound to end in new and often very complicated practices of separation, destined to uphold the ancient dichotomy, is perhaps one of those ironies which seem to be in store for those who, for whatever reasons, try to embellish and manipulate political facts and historical records.

    I could go on, but you probably get the point. Arie Morgenstern was a Zionist apparatchik for the teaching of history in the Israeli Ministry of Education. I've commented elsewhere that there is a struggle going on over the inclusion of declassified material in the history textbooks that tends to debunk Zionist myths. That's what Morgenstern is really shreying about. link to mondoweiss.net

  • Hostage February 13, 2012 at 9:58 pm

    During the golden era of the Arab Caliphate Jund Filastin was an official military district with its own capital. The seat of government was initially located in Lod, was moved to Ramla, and finally ended up in Jerusalem. Wikipedia has an article about it. link to en.wikipedia.org

    The United States has posted Consuls to the country of Palestine ever since the early 19th century and treated it as a formal jurisdiction. For example, the US Government addressed the Ottoman Pasha as “his excellency Raouf Pasha Governor of Jerusalem and Palestine”. link to digicoll.library.wisc.edu

    Annual reports on Trade and Commerce of the country of Palestine were submitted to the US Bureau of Foreign Commerce from the Consuls in "Jerusalem, Palestine". See for example the report for 1884.

    The 19th century Jews certainly knew where Palestine was located. The documentary record proves that they repeatedly asked the US Consuls in Palestine and Constantinople for help in immigrating to Palestine. For example, The Ottoman Sultan had issued a firman permitting Jewish settlement in Syria that prevented Oriental and European Jews from settling in Palestine. Palestine was marked on most of the maps of the era. The first Jewish Aliya was carried-out in violation of that prohibition on mass Jewish immigration. In 1882, the American Consul summed up an immigration request from a group of Romanian Jews living in the Ottoman Empire this way:

    In conclusion, there is nothing to prevent all the Israelites on the earth from settling in Asiatic Turkey. They shall not settle in Palestine-’that is the only prohibition.

    The actual text of Basle Program of the First Zionist Congress did NOT use the term Eretz Israel, it used the term Palistina. link to upload.wikimedia.org

    It's amazing to most of us that you modern-day Zionists need finding aids and citations to locate Palestine. It's fairly obvious that your ancestors knew about it, managed to find the place, and even corresponded with the government officials there without too much difficulty.

  • Hostage February 13, 2012 at 9:14 pm

    Is discussing the historically factual instances of violence and ethnic cleansing directed toward the native Jewish population of Palestine somehow a denial of the nakba?

    I'm happy to discuss attacks on Jews in Palestine, but not the spurious legends that 7 Arab States invaded the territory of Israel, or that there was a conspiracy on the part of the Arab leadership to ethnically cleanse Palestine.

    *The Mufti did not enjoy much popular support and all his efforts to organize a popular resistance to the Partition Resolution were unsuccessful. According to Ian Bickerton, Carla Klausner, "A Concise History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict", 4th Edition, Prentice Hall, 2004, few Palestinians joined the Arab Liberation Army and many Palestinians favored partition and indicated a willingness to live alongside a Jewish state (page 88).

    *Ben-Gurion rebuffed the various efforts of more pragmatic Palestinian Arabs to reach a modus vivendi since it was his "belief ... that Zionist expansionism would be better served by leaving the leadership of the Palestinians in the hands of the extremist Mufti than in the hands of a 'moderate' opposition. 'Rely on the Mufti' became his motto." Blocked by Zionist policy from officially expressing their opposition to war, the Palestinian Arabs arranged "non-aggression" pacts with their Jewish neighbors. The relatively few who did take up arms did so primarily to defend themselves against feared attacks by the Jews. See the review of Simha Flapan's The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities

    Ezra Danin worked in various capacities in the Jewish Agency and the Arab department, "Sherut Yediot", the "Information Service" of the Haganah. In January of 1948, Danin wrote "I believe the majority of the Palestinian masses accept the partition as a fiat accompli and do not believe it possible to overcome or reject it." See Document 90, page 128 "Political and Diplomatic Documents Central Zionist Archives/Israel State Archives, December 1947- May 1948, Jerusalem, 1979.

    In the final analysis, the Arab leaders who advocated negotiations and co-existence with the Jews from the very beginning ended up governing the overwhelming majority of the territory of the former Palestine mandate in the East and West banks.

  • Hostage February 13, 2012 at 8:55 pm

    The Lavon Affair was in the early 1950′s. . . . Egyptian pogroms against her Jews occurred in the 1940′s.

    Historian Shlomo Ben-Ami explains that, after the Arab revolt, a new military offspring of the Haganah, the Poum, led almost routine reprisals and collective punishments against Arab villages in Palestine. Do you thinkthat was a big secret in Egypt?
    link to books.google.com

    The Jewish Agency had permanent offices in the major cities of Egypt, including Cairo and Alexandria. During the mandate era, members of the Egyptian Jewish communities participated in the Kibbutz movement, the Jewish underground, helped facilitate illegal immigration to Israel after the 1939 White Paper Policy was adopted, participated in all of the Zionist-affilated sports and youth movements, and were represented in the Zionist Congresses. I've discussed elsewhere that the attitude of Zionist spokesmen was openly hostile to the Arabs, e.g. In 1943 the US Consul at Cairo cabled the State Department:
    

    "I have noted in discussions with Zionist spokesmen visiting Cairo recently a marked hardening in their attitude (possibly owing in part to increased confidence resulting from alleged large-scale clandestine arming by Jews in Palestine) which in several cases has taken the form of frankly admitting that it is idle to continue to talk of "negotiations" with Arabs, in balance obvious that any solution satisfactory to Zionists would have to be "imposed" on Arabs by threat or use of force and this latter the only realistic line of action to adopt.

    -- Kirk link to digicoll.library.wisc.edu

    Zionist spokesmen and pundits openly lobbied leaders in Arab countries to support various schemes for forced exchanges of populations. After the Arab League was established, Eliyahu Sasson made regular visits to lobby for support of the partition of Palestine. The public in Egypt knew perfectly well that the Zionists planned to attack and dispossess their Arab brethren in Palestine. For example, on the day after the partition plan was adopted, the Palestine Post ran a front page article saying that the influential Cairo newspaper, Al Mokkatam, had published an editorial supporting the partition of Palestine. The editorial explained:

    “We stand for Partition because we believe it is the best final solution for Palestine. If rejection of Partition would have solved the problem we would have welcomed it, but in fact it will lead to further complications that will give the Zionists another space of time to complete their plans of defense and attack.”

    See page 1 of the Palestine Post, 30 November 1947 link to jpress.org.il

    For more background see Michael Doran, Pan-Arabism Before Nasser, Joseph Heller, "The birth of Israel, 1945-1949: Ben-Gurion and his critics", Joel Beinin, The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry, and the Foreign Relations of the United States series on the Middle East.

  • Hostage February 13, 2012 at 9:31 am

    Hostage says: ‘Mossad black flag operations like the Lavon Affair’. . . . More drivel. The Lavon Affair was a rogue Mossad operation that sought to disrupt a growing entente between Egypt and the United States. It had nothing to do with immigration.

    Correction Lamezionist777, I never said the Lavon Affair was about immigration. I said that the botched black flag operations like the Lavon Affair had contributed to the exodus from Arab countries in some cases. See for example Naeim Giladi, Ben Gurion's Scandals, Glilit, 1995 & 2003 link to archive.org

  • Hostage February 13, 2012 at 8:35 am

    The link, which you probably didn’t read, shows a scholarly dispute about the precise location of the ancient Temple on the Temple Mount. The link does not dispute the connection of the Western Wall (a retaining wall actually) to the Jewish Temple.

    No I've actually read it. The link that I provided was just one example. That's what the "e.g." (vs. "i.e.") always indicates. Here is another response to an earlier discussion here at MW in which I cited several examples of Temples and theories regarding the location, including one from a scholar who claimed the Temple must have been located in Silwan, not inside the area retained by the Wailing Wall:
    

    … Q:that the wall is part of a Roman fort Should this be true, than Christianity and Islam are both rendered pagan cults and have no credibility.

    A: Amillennialist Christians are underwhelmed by the whole thing. I doubt there would be any theological impact if the so-called Temple Mount really was Fort Antonia and Silwan turned out to the site of the Temples, e.g. See Ernest L. Martin, The Temples That Jerusalem Forgot, ASK, 1994. Even the Temple Mount organization maintains a webpage on various theories or conjectures, i.e. the “Northern Conjecture” and the “Southern Conjecture”.
    There were Jewish Temples all over the place anyway. The prophet Samuel was raised in a Temple at Shiloh. An Israelite Temple at Arad has been excavated. It included one of the largest collections of ostraca discovered to date. There were references to the the priestly families Pashur and Meremoth which are mentioned in the books of Jeremiah and Ezra.

    Ingrid Hjelm advised that“The duration of the Samaritan temple, which was dedicated to ‘Yahweh-el-‘Eljon’ (Magen 2000: 108, 113) was not the 200 years stated by Josephus (Ant. 13.256), but rather closer to the 343 years, he ascribes to the existence of the temple in Heliopolis / Leontopolis (War 7.436), stories of which, Josephus mingles with stories about Gerizim (Hjelm, in SJOT 13/2, 1999; Hjelm, The Samaritans and Early Judaism, 2000: 227-232).” 480 inscriptions were discovered. According to Ephraim Stern this is the largest collection of building inscriptions, some of which are quite large, ever found in Israel.
    A Jerusalem High Priest named Johanan built the Jewish Temple at Leontopolis in Egypt (cf Isaiah 19:19). So, there were several other Jewish Temples in operation during the Persian, Greek, and Roman periods including Leontopolis, Elephantine Island, Arad, and Mt. Gerizim. During the Second Commonwealth most Jews chose to live outside Judea and many of them may have had their own altars and Temples. Finding a Temple in Jerusalem would not vindicate the principles that it stood for, if they happened to be false in the first place.

    link to mondoweiss.net

    FYI, the same scholar argued that unequivocal references to the current "Wailing Wall" (as part of the Temple) are missing from the Jewish literature until the middle ages, e.g. link to askelm.com

  • Hostage February 13, 2012 at 6:49 am

    For the record, the initial purpose of the operation that led to the massacre was for the Stern/Irgun to secure Deir Yassin for the Haganah to occupy.

    Robert is constantly making gigabytes of unsourced comments for the record. In this case he is contradicting the official IDF account that was published for the record at the link that I supplied above.

    Deir Yassin was located beyond the borders of the proposed Jewish State - in the Corpus Separatum. A Haganah-Irgun/Lehi plan to violate the non-aggression pact and the UN transition plan, evict the population, and place a portion of the Corpus Separatum under Jewish military occupation would have constituted a crime against peace in violation of a formal international agreement and an attempt to alter the UN plan of partition by force.

    Werdine & Co. pretend that they can't grasp the simple concept of being an accessory or accomplice to a crime that deliberately targeted a civilian population outside the jurisdiction of the proposed Jewish State. I'm not interested in debating this or continuing to fund a website that provides Werdine and his partners a platform to whitewash Haganah's role in deliberately erasing 400+ villages, including Deir Yassin.

  • Hostage February 13, 2012 at 5:26 am

    Jabotinsky believed in the forced colonization of both banks of the Jordan, if you are asking if I support that, I do not. Otherwise I’m not sure what you mean.

    So did Ben Gurion, he simply tried to conceal his long term ambition to redeem 100% of the territory of the Palestine Mandate and settle Jews on both sides of the Jordan. Here is how one Zionist historian summed it up:
    

    As a historian of Zionism, Gideon, you must know Ben-Gurion’s words in the 20th Zionist Congress in 1937 (this time in Zurich not in Basel): ‘If I had been faced with the question: a Jewish state in the west of the land of Israel (note the emphasis of the ‘west of the land of Israel’ meaning there is also a ‘east of the land of Israel’) in return to giving up on our historical right to the entire land of Israel I would have postponed the (establishment) of the state’. And he added (as far as I know, to applause from many of the delegates): ‘No Jew is entitled to give up the right of the Jewish nation to the land. It is not in the authority of any Jew or of any Jewish body; it is not even in the authority of the entire nation alive today to give up any part of the land’. This sentence has won great attention also in the St. James committee. He concluded by stating the view of the majority (then) in the Zionist movement: ‘this is a standing right under all conditions. Even if, at any point, the Jews choose to decline it, they have no right to deprive future generations of it. Our right to the entire land exists and stands for ever’. In view of the things that are being said today, it is hard to avoid the gloomy realisation that, sixty years after Ben-Gurion announced Israeli independence, the current Israeli president, Prime Minister and not a small coalition of Knesset Members seem willing to relinquish this historic claim. If nothing else, they have no right to do so because this land belongs to those who have left us, and those who are yet to come. Without them, it is impossible to make a decision.

    link to jewishquarterly.org

    In 1946 the Jewish Agency under Ben Gurion's leadership, claimed that the mandate was indivisible and that the Jewish people still had a secured legal interest in the territory of Transjordan and that the provisions of the mandate with regard to the Jewish national home had only been "temporarily waived". The Agency claimed that the plans for Transjordan's independence violated Article 80 of the UN Charter. See the Palestine Post, April 9th, 1946, page 3 link to jpress.org.il

  • Hostage February 13, 2012 at 5:02 am

    He’s not in any way representative of the mainstream Zionist leadership of his time.

    Don't be silly, he was elected to the Executive Council of the Zionist Organization. So of course he was representative of the leadership. The fact is that Prime Minister Menachem Begin cited the policies of Ben Gurion's governments to support his own policies and the invasion of Lebanon. He claimed that the only difference was that Ben Gurion had resorted to subtrfuge. See Simha Flapan, The Birth of Israel Myths and Realities, pages 5-6.

    In his latter years Ben Gurion abandoned the effort to disguise his policies and started publishing selections from his own diaries and mandate era correspondence. That, and the publication of Shertok's diaries, supported Begin's claims .

  • Hostage February 13, 2012 at 4:07 am

    Shakt was thus right. The Haganah did not participate in the massacre

    Robert I've already explained that the members of the Haganah were legal accomplices to the massacre under the terms of the existing laws and customs of land warfare: link to mondoweiss.net

    And how does a person deny the charge without further incriminating themselves of the offense in the eyes of the Nakba police?

    I don't know Werdine, but you and your tag team partner are giving it one hell of a try. I've supplied you and him with the relevant extracts from official Israeli publications, Plan Dalet and an the IDF Journal, together with extracts from the Nuremberg Charter and the EU Framework on Racism. They amply illustrate a joint criminal enterprise undertaken by the officials of the nascent state of Israel to commit acts against civil population centers that were, by definition, war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is hardly the first time you've publicly condoned, denied, or trivialized these events, so I assume that the new comment policy on Nakba denial is either devoid of any meaning whatsoever or that Phil and Adam should finally ban you.

  • Hostage February 13, 2012 at 3:42 am

    Great. But do you think Israel in any way violated that caveat? I don’t see how.

    Yes. The State of Israel continues to violate its obligations under the terms of the minority protection plan contained in UN General Assembly resolution 181(II) and it remains bound by the terms of its acceptance of that treaty obligation. See the discussion and references provided here:
    link to mondoweiss.net

  • Hostage February 13, 2012 at 3:21 am

    If Jewish self-determination was such a necessity, we wouldn’t have a world in which more than half the world’s Jews refuse to excercise that self-determination.

    But they actually have. Most Jewish communities in the West have opted for incorporation in other existing states, and that is one of the valid methods of exercising the right of self-determination according to the Declaration of Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation Among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the safeguarding clauses contained in the Palestine Mandate.

    Even in Israel the structure of the Rabbinate reflects the existence of more than one Jewish community, e.g. there are two Chief Rabbis. In Greco-Bulgarian Communities (Opinion No. 17) and Minority Schools in Albania (Opinion A/B 64) the Permanent Court of International Justice provided a standard legal definition of a "community" that applied to Jewish and other national minority communities of the day. It is:

    " .... a group of persons living in a given country or locality, having a race, religion, language and traditions of their own and united by this identity of race, religion, language and traditions in a sentiment of solidarity, with a view to preserving their traditions, maintaining their form of worship, ensuring the instruction and upbringing of their children in accordance with the spirit and traditions of their race and rendering mutual assistance to each other."

    That's why the safeguarding clauses in the Mandate and the Entente between PM Ben Gurion and the heads of major Jewish organizations in this country were such big deals. We've opted NOT to form a single Jewish community (and certain whackos won't take no for an answer).

  • Hostage February 13, 2012 at 2:56 am

    Besides, the report was wrong. Palestine did solve the problems facing world Jewry. Are you really arguing that the predictions in a report from 1946 have greater validity than the actual historical events that have taken place since then?

    The report was quite correct. It noted that the limited area and resources of Palestine could not be used to solve the problems of World Jewry without violating the rights of the Arab majority. That is exactly what has been happening ever since. BTW, the majority of the world's Jews have opted to live elsewhere, including a large number of Israeli ex-pats.

  • Hostage February 13, 2012 at 2:47 am

    Self-determination is the right of a nation to sovereignty.

    It is actually the right of legally recognized communities, acting together as a people, to determine their own political status in accordance with Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. link to www2.ohchr.org

    According to the UN General Assembly, 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:
    

    The establishment of a sovereign and independent State, the free association or integration with an independent State or the emergence into any other political status freely determined by a people constitute modes of implementing the right of self-determination by that people.

    But there is a major caveat:
    

    Nothing in the foregoing paragraphs shall be construed as authorizing or encouraging any action which would dismember or impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and independent States conducting themselves in compliance with the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples as described above and thus possessed of a government representing the whole people belonging to the territory without distinction as to race, creed or colour.

    link to unhcr.org

  • Hostage February 13, 2012 at 2:33 am

    Why are you just quoting one of the most extreme Zionists of his time period? Jabotinsky was not the voice of a majority movement. Why choose him?

    ROTFLMAO! Here is some relevant info for you from the Isaac Landman (editor), The Universal Jewish encyclopedia, 1942, page 3:
    

    Jabotinsky, now universally acclaimed as a Jewish hero, was elected a member of the Zionist Executive (1921) and given charge of the departments of propaganda and Palestine Foundation Fund (Keren Hayesod).

    Jabotinsky first used the phrase "The Iron Wall" during a meeting of the Zionist Executive Council in 1921 and it was the central motif of the organization's propaganda during his term of office. See Jacob Shavit, Jabotinsky and the revisionist movement, 1925-1948, Psychology Press, 1988, page 253: link to books.google.com

  • Hostage February 13, 2012 at 2:03 am

    The nationality was strictly provisional as per the Versailles Treaty and fell under the purvue of the British mandate. It was never a real nation.

    The new states were only "provisionally" recognized from January 1920 until March of 1920 when the treaty provisions regarding recognition of the new frontiers and payments of shares in the Ottoman public debt to foreign bondholders on that basis came into force. Article 434 of the Treaty of Versailles stipulated that Germany was required to recognize the dispositions made concerning the territories of the former Ottoman Empire, "and to recognize the new States within their frontiers as there laid down." The other Central powers and the treaty articles that required them to recognize the new states were:
    *Bulgaria Article 60 of the Treaty of Neuilly;
    *Hungary Article 74 (2) of The Treaty of Trianon
    *Austria Article 90 of The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye

    People were stripped of their US citizenship for becoming naturalized citizens of the very real state of Palestine. Let's all read the decision of the US District Court for the District of Colombia in the 1953 case of Kletter v Dulles:
    

    The contention of the plaintiff that Palestine, while under the League of Nations mandate, was not a foreign state within the meaning of the statute is wholly without merit.

    When the Congress speaks of a 'foreign State,' it means a country which is not the United States, or its possession or colony- an alien country- other than our own, bearing in mind that the average American, when he speaks of a 'foreigner,' means an alien, non- American. Uyeno v. Acheson, D.C., 96 F.Supp. 510.

    Furthermore, it is not for the judiciary, but for the political branches of the Government to determine that Palestine at that time was a foreign state. This the Executive branch of the Government did in 1932 with respect to the operation of the most favored nations provision in treaties of commerce.

    The decision notes that the petitioner had also been arrested and deported from Great Britain after he unsuccessfully claimed to be a British subject (R v. Ketter). link to dc.findacase.com

    The Treaty of Lausanne required that disputes about the legal status of the new states be submitted to a Court of Arbitration and that its judgment was to be final. In 1925 a Court of Arbitration setup by the Council of League of Nations ruled that the joint Palestine mandate contained two distinct states, Palestine and Transjordan. See Volume I of the Reports of International Arbitral Awards (United Nations, 1948), “Affaire de la Dette publique ottomane. Bulgarie, Irak, Palestine, Transjordanie, Grèce, Italie et Turquie. Genève, 18 avril 1925″, pages 529-614

  • Hostage February 13, 2012 at 1:33 am

    The Bedouin claim the entire Negev as their own but it is not like it was ever purchased or settled in any conventional way.

    Same ol' hasbara bullsh*t different day. The Darb el Hajj or "Pilgrim's Road", from Africa through Egypt to Mecca, passed out of Sinai from the west at Umm Al-Rashrash (modern-day Eilat). The Bedouins comprised 98 percent of the permanent population of the Negev and they had converted a great deal of the waste land to private property by cultivating it for the required number of years in accordance with the Ottoman land code. They also enjoyed grazing rights under the mandate era boundary agreements. The War Cabinet plans for the settlement of the Ottoman Empire and Palestine recognized the rights of the Bedouin inhabitants and their farm lands as a possible source of revenue:
    

    This raises the question of the future frontier between Palestine and Egypt. On the one hand, it seems desirable that all cultivated or cultivable land on the southern borders of Palestine, in the neighbourhood of Gaza, Rafa, and Beersheba, should go to Palestine. But, on the other hand, it would be preferable, for the reasons suggested above, that the Palestinian State should not have jurisdiction over Bedouin tribes. The tribes south of the Rafa-Beersheba line and west of the Wady Arabah go naturally with those of the Sinai Peninsula, and the pre-war frontier between Turkey and Egypt, which separated them, was a quite arbitrary line.

    It might be desirable, therefore, to attach this triangle of formerly Turkish territory to Egypt. But the consent of the inhabitants would have first to be manifested in some clear form, in order to preclude any possibility of misinterpretation. For, since Egypt is a British Protectorate, the attachment of these tribes to Egypt might otherwise be represented as an annexation of free Arabs to the British Empire.

    See pdf page 16 of 24:
    Former Reference: GT 6506
    Title: The Settlement of Turkey and the Arablan Peninsula.
    Author: Political Intelligence Department, Foreign Office
    Date 21 November 1918
    Catalogue reference CAB 24/72
    link to nationalarchives.gov.uk

    FYI, in 1947 the British mandatory administration took great exception to the majority UNSCOP committee's careless use of statistics regarding so-called "nomads". The UNSCOP members had deliberately chosen to exclude the impact of the entire Bedouin population and their assets on the plan of partition. The Beduins were responsible for the cultivation of over two million dunams of land devoted to cereal grain production. At the time, the entire Jewish community only owned about 4.9 million dunams themselves and were demanding their own state. The government had the RAF conduct an aerial photographic survey that is still useful today in establishing the pre-state existence of Beduoin communities. On 1 November 1947 the British representative turned over the results to the UNSCOP committees. The resident Bedouin population data was revised upwards to 127,000. The RAF counted 3,389 houses and 8,722 tents. The British report explained that Bedouins had been settled on the land for generations and that they were known as Beersheba Bedouins, no matter where they lived, due to the land rights they held in that district. The report said that 105, 000 Bedouins should be added to the number of Arabs who normally resided in the area of the proposed Jewish state. When that was done, the UNSCOP committees reported that

    "It will thus be seen that the proposed Jewish State will contain a total population of 1,008,800, consisting of 509,780 Arabs and 499,020 Jews. In other words, at the outset, the Arabs will have a majority in the proposed Jewish State."

    See paragraphs 62-64 on pdf file pages 40-42 of A/AC.14/32, 11 November 1947 @ link to un.org

  • Hostage February 13, 2012 at 12:33 am

    Since when does Israel claim to represent all Jews? I don’t recall ever hearing that.

    They do it every time they use the definite article and claim to be "The National Homeland of the Jewish People" and "The Jewish State."

    Repeat after Supreme Court President Shimon Agranat:

    “the wish of a handful of Jews to break away from the nation and create a new concept of an Israeli nation was not a legitimate aspiration. . . . There is no Israeli nation separate from the Jewish people. . . . The Jewish people is composed not only of those residing in Israel but also of Diaspora Jewries."-- HCJ 630/70 Tamarin v. State of Israel [1970] IsrSC 26(1) 197

    In the words of the Deputy President of the Supreme Court, Elon:
    

    The principle that the State of Israel is the state of the Jewish people is Israel's foundation and mission [yessoda vi-yeuda], and the principle of the equality of rights and obligations of all citizens of the State of Israel is of the State's essence and character [mahuta ve-ofya]. The latter principle comes only to add to the former, not to modify it; there is nothing in the principle of the equality of civil rights and obligations to modify the principle that the State of Israel is the state of the Jewish people, and only the Jewish people.(Ben-Shalom v. CEC 1988, 272)

    That sort of mind numbing crapfest is what led to the showdown and entente between Israeli PM David Ben-Gurion and AJC President Jacob Blaustein.

  • Hostage February 12, 2012 at 11:51 pm

    Murdered? Seriously dude? . . . The Haganah KILLED many of the Arab defenders who were fighting back and also killed many of the Israelis.

    Yes, once again, the Haganah district commander authorized an unprovoked and premeditated attack against a civilian population center. That written authorization of the plan was a war crime and crime against humanity under the existing terms of the Nuremberg code:

    Article 6 (c)CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war; or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.

    Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan.
    link to avalon.law.yale.edu

    So let's be clear, the Haganah commander and his forces were accomplices to a crime against humanity. Under the EU Framework Decision on Racism it can be considered an act of criminal incitement to publicly condon, deny or grossly trivialize crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes as defined in Article 6 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal or Articles 6, 7 and 8 of the the Statute of the International Criminal Court. That would definitely include the Holocaust or Nakba denial mentioned in Mondo's comments policy.
    link to europa.eu

    BTW, the Haganah and IDF became famous for launching unprovoked "preventative attacks" against civilian population centers and then ethnically cleansing them if the inhabitants exercised the customary and inherent right of self defense, e.g. here is an extract from Plan Dalet which authorized the use of that tactic:

    This plan is based on three previous plans:

    1. Plan B, September 1945.

    2. The May 1946 Plan. (This is Plan Gimmel or Plan C.)
    3. Yehoshua Plan, 1948. . . .
    (b) Consolidation of Defense Systems and Fortifications
    . . . 4. Mounting operations against enemy population centers located inside or near our defensive system in order to prevent them from being used as bases by an active armed force. These operations can be divided into the following categories:

    Destruction of villages (setting fire to, blowing up, and planting mines in the debris), especially those population centers which are difficult to control continuously.

    Mounting search and control operations according to the following guidelines: encirclement of the village and conducting a search inside it. In the event of resistance, the armed force must be destroyed and the population must be expelled outside the borders of the state.

    The villages which are emptied in the manner described above must be included in the fixed defensive system and must be fortified as necessary.

    In the absence of resistance, garrison troops will enter the village and take up positions in it or in locations which enable complete tactical control. The officer in command of the unit will confiscate all weapons, wireless devices, and motor vehicles in the village. In addition, he will detain all politically suspect individuals. After consultation with the [Jewish] political authorities, bodies will be appointed consisting of people from the village to administer the internal affairs of the village. In every region, a [Jewish] person will be appointed to be responsible for arranging the political and administrative affairs of all [Arab] villages and population centers which are occupied within that region.
    link to jewishvirtuallibrary.org

    General Jodl was tried, convicted, and hanged at Nuremberg for authorizing the destruction of the homes in a district of Norway and then removing the population to prevent them from being used to assist the enemy.

  • Hostage February 12, 2012 at 5:16 pm

    No, really… Are you making a weird joke or something?

    No Anti-Zionist Jews demanded the inclusion of that stipulation. See for example the War Cabinet Memorandum on the subject:
    Former Reference: GT 2263
    Title: Zionism.
    Author: E S Montagu
    Date 09 October 1917
    Catalogue reference CAB 24/28
    link to nationalarchives.gov.uk

    The 1950 “entente” between Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and AJC President Jacob Blaustein was very serious too. In an April 20, 1964 letter to Rabbi Elmer Berger of the American Council for Judaism from Assistant Secretary Phillips Talbot, the State Department confirmed that it “does not recognize a legal-political relationship based upon religious identification of American citizens. It does not in any way discriminate among American citizens upon the basis of religion or ethnicity. Accordingly, it should be clear that the Department of State does not regard the “Jewish people” concept as a concept of international law.” See Whiteman's Digest of International Law, Volume 8, U.S. Dept. of State, U.S. Govt. Print. Office, 1967, page 35

  • Hostage February 12, 2012 at 4:54 pm

    You’ll notice a distinct lack of Jewish citizens remaining in the Arab world

    There are actually thousands of them who don't want to live in Israel. There are also thousands in Israel who came forward in the 1970s and claimed they were Zionists during the mandate era and had made Aliya just like their European brethren. See the link to the book on the Egyptian diaspora I provided you earlier. I don't argue that there weren't Jewish refugees from the Arab states, but they ceased to be refugees when they voluntarily accepted Israeli citizenship. Israel contributed to the exodus in some cases, i.e. Mossad black flag operations like the Lavon Affair.

  • Hostage February 12, 2012 at 4:29 pm

    Shaktimaan you keep trivializing a serious crime against humanity, ethnic cleansing and the government of Israel's continuing role in the original joint criminal enterprise.

    Israel has used its domestic legislation to strip Palestinian citizenship rights, personal property rights, and prevent the repatriation of displaced persons in violation of international law. It legally discriminates against various classes of Palestinians regardless of where they live, and it has done that ever since the day it was established.

    The Haganah fdid NOT participate in the massacre at Deir Yassin. Your link supports this. What about any of that is the equivalent of denying the Nakba?

    The link I provided says that the district commander of the Haganah knowingly authorized an unprovoked attack on a civilian objective (a war crime) and that elements of the Haganah were ordered to assist the Revisionists in time of retreat and medical assistance. The article also explains in great detail that the Haganah assisted with fire power and inflicted heavy casualties on the Arab defenders who had dug in on the western ridge of the village and it describes the use of a murderous crossfire. So the Haganah authorized and participated in the joint criminal enterprise that caused "the murder of falachim and innocent citizens, faithful allies of the western sector, who kept faith despite pressure from the gangs, even during the conquest of Sharfa, {Mt Herzl}"
    link to middle-east.yu-hu.com

  • Hostage February 12, 2012 at 3:59 pm

    This casts serious doubt upon – I’m inclined to say disproves – the idea that the wall was part of Herod’s Temple, the last monument of Judaism in the area, since Josephus is so emphatic that this design, including the outer buildings, was completed on time and under budget ‘within 8 years’ by Herod. There’s more to the discussion than that, as you know, but the proposition that the Wall is not a Jewish monument is not at all absurd.

    Josephus wrote that only the western wall of the city was left standing, not the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. The Madaba Map doesn't even include the Wailing Wall, so the idea that it was finished by the Romans or Byzantines is not completely out of the question. link to 198.62.75.1

  • Hostage February 12, 2012 at 3:48 pm

    What nakba denial? Is discussing the historically factual instances of violence and ethnic cleansing directed toward the native Jewish population of Palestine somehow a denial of the nakba?

    You were falsely claiming that the Haganah did not take part in the attack on Deir Yassin. Publicly condoning, denying, or trivializing war crimes, crimes against humanity, acts of genocide is Nakba denial. The IDF publication that I cited explains that the Haganah commander authorized the unprovoked attack on the village, and that the Haganah murdered many of the Arab defenders by providing cross fire support.

  • Hostage February 12, 2012 at 3:40 pm

    Is it? Why is it different than asking why an Egyptian Jew needed to have a homeland in Israel?

    According to many of them, they didn't need a homeland in Palestine. link to publishing.cdlib.org

    Conversely there's no evidence that Egyptian Kibbutzniks were in less danger in Palestine during the various revolts and uprisings. In fact, there is quite a bit of evidence that Oriental Jews were disproportionately represented in the terrorist wings of the Jews underground. link to mondoweiss.net

  • Hostage February 12, 2012 at 3:22 pm

    it was the conclusion of every panel that studied the situation that the Jews and Arabs be split into two independent states.

    Of course that was NOT the conclusion of the Anglo-American Inquiry of 1946 or the recommendation of the two signatories of the Anglo-American Palestine Mandate Convention (1925) in their joint Grady-Morrison plan of 1946. It offered practical alternative.
    *http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/angtoc.asp

    If Israel hoped to fulfill its mission of being a state that could offer safe-haven to all Jews it needed to ensure that it maintained a majority Jewish population.

    Nonsense, the UNSCOP majority report rejected the notion that Palestine could be used to answer the problems of World Jewry and offered a practical alternative. The British mandatory administration also submitted revised population estimates concerning the Beersheba district Beduoin to the General assembly which revealed that there would be an Arab majority in the proposed Jewish state from the very outset. FYI, that was when it was only proposed that Israel be allocated 56% of the land. The Jewish Agency conquered an additional 22 percent making a Jewish majority with the existing inhabitants an impossibility.

    The UNSCOP report stated
    

    VII. Jewish immigration into Palestine . . .
    4. While the problem of Jewish immigration is thus closely related to the solution of the Palestine question, it cannot be contemplated that Palestine is to be considered in any sense as a means of solving the problem of world Jewry. In direct and effective opposition to any such suggestion are the twin factors of limited area and resources and vigorous and persistent opposition of the Arab people, who constitute the majority population of the country.

    *http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/07175DE9FA2DE563852568D3006E10F3

    The Ad Hoc Committee of the General Assembly reported that

    "It will thus be seen that the proposed Jewish State will contain a total population of 1,008,800, consisting of 509,780 Arabs and 499,020 Jews. In other words, at the outset, the Arabs will have a majority in the proposed Jewish State."

    *See paragraphs 62-64 on pdf file pages 40-42 of A/AC.14/32, 11 November 1947 @ link to un.org

  • Hostage February 12, 2012 at 2:54 pm

    If my posts are pointless then perhaps you can try answering the questions.

    I did. Under the terms of the Article 30 of the Treaty of Lausanne and the Palestinian Citizenship Order in Council (1925) Arafat was a citizen of Palestine by operation of law, not by his own declaration. The Egyptian case that I cited established that Palestinians were citizens of a separate foreign state, Palestine. They did not have an automatic right to take up permanent residence in Egypt. Ben Ami had to be naturalized in order to live in either Israel or Palestine, because he was Moroccan.

  • Hostage February 12, 2012 at 2:39 pm

    Palestine as a state has not yet ever existed, and the idea of a nationality of Palestinians is relatively new.

    We've been over this many times before. The citizens of the State of Palestine were required to begin paying-off their share of the Ottoman public debt to the foreign bondholders in March of 1920 under the terms of the treaty of Lausanne. That treaty required the signatories to recognize Palestinian nationality of Jews and Arabs alike. The Executive branch of the US government formally recognized the State of Palestine in its treaties of commerce in 1932. Israel was created by its own act of secession, not by the UN partition. The overwhelming majority of UN member states have recognized the occupied state of Palestine within the 67 borders.

    *http://mondoweiss.net/2011/06/are-palestinians-standing-up-for-an-inclusive-national-identity.html#comment-325396
    *http://mondoweiss.net/2011/06/portlands-new-seasons-markets-are-socially-conscious-to-a-point.html#comment-329934

  • Hostage February 12, 2012 at 2:27 pm

    But in light of the realities of global anti-semitism, Jewish self-determination has shown itself to be a necessity.

    Yeah Herzl was right. Jews are incapable of peacefully co-existing with Gentiles in America or any of the other civilized countries of the Western world (not).

  • Hostage February 12, 2012 at 12:51 pm

    Denying Jewish people self-determination in Palestine because their population in any single area was never dense enough is to use historic oppression to justify future discrimination.

    Not at all. There was never any time in the past when the Jews alone inhabited Palestine. Self-determination became a modern international law norm and treaty obligation under the terms of the UN Charter. Israel claims that it is anti-Semitic to deny the Jewish people the right of self-determination, but refuses to grant non-Jews living within its own frontiers equal human rights in violation of the UN Charter. I've noted elsewhere that a "people" cannot be defined in terms of ethnic identity alone, because if it were, participation in the political process would then be determined solely on the basis of ethnic characteristics. That's contrary to Article 1(3) of the UN Charter and customary minority rights to equality under international law. A new state or people in the modern era will always include all of the indigenous groups inhabiting a territory. See Thomas D. Musgrave, Self-determination and National Minorities, Oxford Monographs in International Law, 1997, page XV.

    Think about it. Nation-states are always spatial entities with a government, a permanent population, and well defined frontiers. They aren't extraterritorial entities. So, Jews scattered around the globe can't somehow assert a vicarious national right superior to the indigenous Palestinians to the right of self-determination in the territory of Palestine.

    States do not have an inherent right to exist. One of the things that the International Law Commission decided during its very first session was that there is an essential difference between recognition of the existence of a State, which is a question of fact, and the attribution to any State of “the right of existence” which is a legal matter. A conditional right to exist does not imply that a state is entitled to commit, or is justified in committing unjust acts towards others. So, a State’s right of existence might end because it was established on the territory of another group without the consent of that population (e.g. Union of South Africa, Namibia & the crime of apartheid).

    Starting with Serbia, Montenegro, Romania, and the Treaty of Berlin 1878, treaty-based protection of minority and religious groups became an integral part of public international law. Recognition of new states and grants of territory were conditioned upon acceptance of minority rights obligations.
    The Paris Peace Conference continued that practice when it created new states through a “The Committee on New States and for The Protection of Minorities”. All of the new states in Eastern Europe were required to accept minority treaties which placed the rights of Jews and other minorities under League of Nations guarantee. The report on “Minority Rights in Albania”, by the Albanian Helsinki Committee, September 1999 contains an small overview on the establishment of that system under the League of Nations. French Prime Minister Clemenceau noted in an aide-memoire attached to the Polish treaty that the minority protections were consistent with existing diplomatic precedent:

    This treaty does not constitute any fresh departure. It has for long been the established procedure of the public law of Europe that when a State is created, or when large accessions of territory are made to an established State, the joint and formal recognition of the Great Powers should be accompanied by the requirement that such States should, in the form of a binding International convention undertake to comply with certain principles of Government. In this regard I must recall for your consideration the fact that it is to the endeavors and sacrifices of the Powers in whose name I am addressing you that the Polish nation owes the recovery of its independence. It is by their decision that Polish sovereignty is being restored over the territories in question, and that the inhabitants of these territories are being incorporated into the Polish nation…. …There rests, therefore, upon these Powers an obligation, which they cannot evade, to secure in the most permanent and solemn form guarantees for certain essential rights which will afford to the inhabitants the necessary protection, whatever changes may take place in the internal constitution of the Polish State.

    When Poland joined the EU it had to accept the acquis communautaire and the equal human rights of ethnic minority groups. Tony Judt noted that Israel is an anachronism and that the days of ethnic nation states are long gone.

  • Hostage February 12, 2012 at 11:55 am

    Of course the modern state of Israel was not an existing nation 100 years ago. Hence it is “The Jewish State.”

    Thankfully, the League of Nations Mandate contained a safeguarding clause which protected the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country from the mess they created in Palestine. So the use of the definite article in describing a Jewish state is inappropriate in this case - particularly in view of the 1950 "entente" between Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion and AJC president Jacob Blaustein. American Jews aren't members of some overarching nation of Israel.

  • Hostage February 12, 2012 at 11:39 am

    So why does Schlomo Ben Ami need a homeland in Palestiine? . . . Well, it’s a bit besides the point of my post . . . But using this same argument, we may just as easily ask why Arafat needed a homeland in Palestine.

    Your posts are almost pointless, there weren't 1.3 million Arab tourists visiting Palestine in 1948 when Israel declared its independence. They were lawful inhabitants living in their homeland.

    You brought-up Ben Ami, who was definitely an immigrant to Israel from Morocco. FYI, Arafat personally disputed the stories about his birth in Cairo. He claimed that he had been born in Jerusalem before the family's move to Egypt. In any event, both of his parents were well-known Palestinians and that alone determined his nationality according to the Egyptian laws of 1929. He wasn't naturalized when he returned to Palestine at age 7, because he was already a Palestinian. In 1926, the Mixed Courts of Egypt recognized Palestinian nationality and ruled that the former Ottoman territories placed under Mandate had the character of regular States, and that their inhabitants possessed the nationality of those States in accordance with Article 30 of the Treaty of Lausanne. See Case No. 34 Mandated States (Saikaly v. Saikaly) reported in John Fischer Williams and Hersh Lauterpacht (editors), “International Law Reports”, Volume 3, Cambridge University Press, under the heading States as International Persons
    *link to books.google.com
    *http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/890161.stm

  • Hostage February 12, 2012 at 11:09 am

    To ignore the riots and pogroms committed against the indigenous Jews on the basis that most of the Palestinians didn’t participate makes as much sense as discounting the effects of Deir Yassin because the Haganah did not participate in the massacre.

    Who do you think you are kidding? Israel has carried out a full-blown multi-pronged pogrom against the Palestinian people ever since the day the State was established.

    You can be banned here at MW for comments that deny the Nakba. According to the account published by the ‘Maarachot’ the Israel Defense Army Press Tel Aviv 1986, the Irgun and Lehi force that attacked Deir Yassin had significant assistance and written clearance to do so from the Haganah district commander David Shaltiel - this despite the fact the village had signed a non-aggression pact and honored the terms of the agreement.

    The Revisionist force was accompanied by Meir Pail, who was in Jerusalem at that time on an intelligence mission for the Palmach. The Haganah were directed to participate in the operation by giving aid in time of retreat and medical assistance. However, the Haganah forces decided to help their Revisionist brethren during the morning to aid with additional fire power. The aid consisted of two operations: A) Preventing the approach of Arab reinforcements from the direction of Malcha and Ein-Kerem; B) rear-attacks on the Arabs who had dug in on the west ridge of the village. These were carried out from the positions in Sharfa (Mt. Herzl). The reports claimed the Arabs were surprised by the fire and suffered significant casualties, as they were forced to expose themselves either to Haganah fire or that of the Revisionists attackers. link to middle-east.yu-hu.com

  • Hostage February 12, 2012 at 9:29 am with 82 replies

    Honestly, how can you really just proclaim someone like Schlomo Ben Ami either ignorant or stupid with any degree of seriousness?

    He's from Morocco and immigrated to Israel in 1955. Even Mitchell Bard, a notable hasbarist, admits at present Morocco has one of the most tolerant environments for Jews in the Arab world. Moroccan Jewish emigres, even those with Israeli citizenship, freely visit friends and relatives in Morocco. Moroccan Jews have held leading positions in the business community and government. The major Jewish organization representing the community is the Conseil des Communautes Israelites in Casablanca. Its functions include external relations, general communal affairs, communal heritage, finance, maintenance of holy places, youth activities, and cultural and religious life.

    So why does Schlomo Ben Ami need a homeland in Palestiine?

  • Hostage February 12, 2012 at 9:16 am

    Palestinian claims include narratives such as that Jews have no historical tie to the land whatsoever, that the Western Wall is unconnected to Judaism, that no massacres of indigenous Jews by Arabs took place in Palestine and other absurdities.

    So, what? There are still Jewish and Christian archeologists and scholars who dispute the connection of the so-called Western Wall to the sites of the ancient Jewish Temples, e.g. link to templemount.org

    I can assure you that if 700,000 Palestinians actually wanted to massacre the 80,000 Jewish inhabitants of early mandate era Palestine, the small British garrison there in 1918-21 couldn't possibly have prevented it from happening. Most of the Palestinians have just never been that into killing the Jews.

    The claim that Jews and their descendants can live in other countries for thousands of years and still return and assert a superior claim to Palestine, based upon religious superstitions and sentimental bullsh*t is the absurdity in this case.

  • Hostage February 10, 2012 at 3:03 pm with 1 replies

    Pro-Israel students are ignorant . . . Dershowitz said the answer is that the Jews didn't steal the land.

    Ignorance just means you don't know yet, stupidity means Dershowitz never will.

• A lull on this site
  • Hostage February 16, 2012 at 11:00 pm

    Again, I think Chao’s sense of urgency is spot on. I really can’t overstate my agreement all the way through.

    The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) was happy to get the endorsement of Jewish Voice for Peace, so it wouldn't comes across as an Arab separatist movement.

    So what do you guys think about renaming the Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine? It's at the top of the list of civil society organizations that called for BDS. Why have a so-called Palestine Center in Washington D.C. and all of the Palestinian civil society organizations with mailing addresses outside the Middle East? Are we supposed to be leery about these allies too? I think these groups took on those names to influence a target audience, not to preach to the already converted. They want to show that it is respectable for Palestinians, Islamists, and Jews to support non-violent approaches and that we aren't all a bunch of terrorists, racists, or warmongers. "Citizens against Apartheid" would dilute or eliminate that aspect of the message.

  • Hostage February 16, 2012 at 10:21 pm

    Jeff made an astute comment that going forward there will be no deep probing of the conflict (it’s roots).

    I can't say yet, time will tell. I've never avoided the subject and don't intend to ignore the use of the Holocaust straw man arguments in the future. The UNSCOP majority asserted that Palestine could not solve the problems of World Jewry and that any attempt to do so with such limited space and resources would violate the rights of the Arab majority. They were absolutely correct.
    *Millions of Jews have never moved to Palestine. It would create an environmental and public services nightmare if they had ever tried.
    *Israel has become a by word for an institutionalized regime of inhumane and systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over another.
    *The Jews in Israel have required hundreds of billions in military assistance and they are less secure today than they would have been if they had simply stayed in post-WWII Germany. In fact, the Jewish Agency for Israel pressured the German government to adopt restrictions on Jewish immigration.

  • Hostage February 15, 2012 at 11:29 pm

    That’s the word on the street(blankfort’s banning)

    No Blankfort acknowledged the story in comments he made here: link to friendfeed.com

  • Hostage February 12, 2012 at 8:42 am

    No. He said Israel has carried out more “overseas” assassinations. Big difference.

    Okay let's parse what he actually said:
    1) From the day of establishment, the Israeli secret services have used the weapon of assassinations, targeted killing, more extensively than any other country in the world.
    2) Even the cruel tyrants, like Stalin or Saddam Husein, were far more hesitant when it came to overseas assassinations.

    He does not claim that Statement #2 is an exception to the "extensive" scope described in Statement #1. He only claims that Israel has acted with less inhibition than some tyrants when it comes to overseas assassinations.

  • Hostage February 12, 2012 at 7:29 am

    It appears that Jeffrey Blankfort replied there as well to confirm that the moderators threw him off for bringing up facts that Hannah Arendt, Lenni Brenner, Tom Segev, and even Hostage linked to.

    I really couldn't say, because I haven't been warned privately or moderated. When someone deploys a hasbara straw man I've normally respond by directing attention to some of the standard published authorities that can shed light on the particular subject for those readers who might be interested in reading more about the topic. I've never thought the Jews were responsible for the rise of the Nazis and can't think of any enlightened sources, including Jeffrey Blankfort, who've stated that is the better view of the situation. I'm sorry that whatever happened ended in a ban.

    I generally disagree with attempts to justify attacks on non-belligerent civilians going about their daily business. That even includes rationalizations about attacks on Israeli citizens on their side of the Green line. See for example my comment on the controversial Derfner editorial. link to mondoweiss.net

    That rule applies to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust too. Codifications of the customary rules of warfare, like Article 16 and 23 of the Union Army Lieber Code of (1863) and the corresponding rules annexed to the Fourth Hague Convention of 1907 outlawed murder and cruelty that targets any civilian population - no matter how obnoxious the victim's culture might be to others (e.g. Zionists, Jabotinsky's Yid, or the Haredim).
    *http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebART/110-20016?OpenDocument
    *http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebART/110-20023?OpenDocument

    I don't think the Holocaust era Zionists and their slavish devotion to nation building is any more despicable than the conduct of our own modern-day officials. The latter are all too willing to sustain further military and civilian losses before they will consider a pullout from one of our disastrous wars, because of their concern over the possible loss of access to resources or national prestige. It's just silly to argue that those Zionist or US policies ever were, or are, essential to our survival - much less that they helped provide Jews or Americans with safe havens. There is international consensus that those sort of actions may give rise to criminal responsibility for the individuals involved, but that they are not a justification for the death penalty, much less wholesale genocide of the Zionists or Americans.

    The article on the new comment policy and Adam's replies both indicated that sort of discussion wasn't the real target of the new additions to the MW comment policy, but that beating off-topic dead horses about the Nazi era doesn't add to the value of the comment section - which should be aimed at providing information about the conflict today. link to mondoweiss.net

    I've never had a single comment rejected by the moderators here, although I've seen several of the regulars complain that they have been moderated from time to time. Anyone who has posted regularly on Israeli news sites can imagine the toxic brew the moderators here must see during discussions like the ones on Prof Slater's just war article. It was impossible for some of us readers to sort through the 400+ comments that made it through moderation without getting completely exasperated. So, I have no trouble accepting the claim that the moderators were burned-out afterward and that a rule change to avoid a repetition for the site operator's sakes was in order - and I indicated as much at the time. link to mondoweiss.net

  • Hostage February 8, 2012 at 9:20 pm

    I find I am not able to input a Vacation Response on my Yahoo account (what's with Yahoo?).

    I have a screen under Options > Mail Options with a "Vacation Response" dialog selector box:

    Automatically respond to emails

    X Enable auto-response during these dates (inclusive)

    From:[selector boxes]
    Until:[selector boxes]
    Message:[text box]
    X - Send Sample Copy To Me

    X-Different response to emails from a specific domain

    First domain:[text box]
    Second domain:[text box]
    Message:[text box]
    X -Send Sample Copy To Me

• Leading Zionist historian was first to say 'Israel Firster'-- in 1960
  • Hostage February 11, 2012 at 7:06 pm

    If you dislike people who have connections to other countries, that is your personal reference but not a moral judgment. The only part that seems immoral to me is dishonesty.)

    LOL! I guess you've never seen a Gingrich or Romney campaign advertisement or watched one of the televised debates, but politically incorrect campaign contributions and the exercise of Presidential war powers are subjects that invariably come-up for discussion. None of this dual citizenship crap you brought up in connection with Said and Fleischer alters the right of the general public to discuss the public statements from Adelson, Saban, Sembler et al regarding their Israel-first agendas. After all, they are funding candidates for public office who are begging us to vote for those agendas. It would be dishonest to say that I'm more worried about the number of times a candidate has been divorced than I am about whether he has an obligation to his backers to launch a war against Iran that would get a lot of of innocent people killed.

    The US government allows its citizens to take citizenship in other countries. If you wish to change that law, write your congressman to change that policy.

    That would actually be rather pointless. In the past, the US government routinely denied citizens the right to voluntarily obtain citizenship in another country. In Perez v. Brownell, 356 U.S. 44 the Supreme Court ruled that Congress had the authority to forcibly take away citizenship regardless of a person's intention not to give up their citizenship.
    link to caselaw.lp.findlaw.com

    However in a case involving a naturalized US citizen who had moved to Israel and voted in the national elections, Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253 (1967), the Court overruled the earlier decision and held that citizenship was a constitutionally protected right under the 14th Amendment and that Congress has no power to divest a person of his United States citizenship absent his voluntary renunciation.
    link to caselaw.lp.findlaw.com

    In Vance V. Terrazas, 444 U.S. 252 (1980) the Supreme Court ruled that Congress could strip an individual of his citizenship if the preponderance of the evidence indicated that the person intended to renounce his or her citizenship.
    link to caselaw.lp.findlaw.com

    The current State Department policy goes well beyond that standard of evidence. It assumes that everyone wishes to retain their citizenship and requires that the department ask the individual concerned and certify their response in most cases.
    link to travel.state.gov

  • Hostage February 11, 2012 at 3:45 am

    Taunt all you like, and I see that you like, so taunt away. But don’t pretend that it is dialogue or a war of ideas.

    ROTFLMAO! Let's keep in mind that we are talking about Ari Fleischer, the propaganda apparatchik who thinks a true copy of an infant's birth certificate should have the baby's signature on it somewhere:
    

    @AriFleischer The more I think about it, the more I wonder if the Obama birth certificate is real. It doesn't look like he signed it anywhere

    link to twitter.com

    Edward Said's "A Monument To Hypocrisy" was published days before the invasion of Iraq and it proved to be absolutely prophetic - right down to the fact that Colin Powell's bogus speech at the UN about Saddam's WMD program was pure political theater and a moral low point. link to wussu.com

    "Israeli citizen" is way too kind. Around my house we usually call Ari Fleischer and his neocon bosses "no good", "liars", and "sons-a-bitches". That's how the Bush White House team deserves to be remembered in the history books. FYI, Sourcewatch and a host of other sources still indicate the widespread belief that Fleischer is a dual US-Israel citizen. link to sourcewatch.org

    To return to the actual topic of discussion, there isn't any doubt that individuals like Adelson and Saban can accurately be described as Israel-firsters. They've both bragged, very publicly, about the fact that Israel is their top political priority. Those two alone are contributing tens of millions to the current US Presidential campaigns and there is nothing wrong with pointing out their agenda.

• Bruising Judt, Fukuyama says Arabs aren't ready for liberalism
  • Hostage February 9, 2012 at 3:29 am

    So, when we crunch the numbers it becomes quite reasonable to plan for a ‘holocaust’ of right wing or left wing idiots in America. Don’t you think? The ends would justify the means, no?

    In that case there would be no need to "justify" the genocide. You see, when the US government ratified the Genocide Convention it made a Kafkaesque reservation. In the Case Concerning Legality Of Use Of Force (Yugoslavia v. United States of America) Judge Kreca pointed out that the first and the second of the "understandings" lodged by the United States to Article II are actually reservations incompatible with the object and purpose of the Genocide Convention, i.e. the United States essentially reserved the right to commit genocide and it does not accept the jurisdiction of the ICJ (or anyone else) to make determinations regarding its responsibility for that crime. link to icj-cij.org

• Jewish substitution and the white gaze
  • Hostage February 11, 2012 at 5:14 pm

    Obama chose not to address neocon war crimes during the Bush Jr regime

    In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld the Supreme Court struck down Bush's Executive orders for the treatment and trial of the detainees. The Congress responded by amending the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA) of 2005 with the Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006. link to loc.gov

    The Supreme Court subsequently ruled in Boumediene v. Bush that section 7 of the MCA was unconstitutional because it purported to abolish the writ of habeas corpus — despite the fact that the Constitution permits suspension of the writ only “in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion.” link to scotusblog.com

    Unfortunately, the Court did not address Sections 4-6 of the MCA which preempted or amended US treaty obligations regarding protection of civilians, UCMJ procedures for tribunals, definition of torture, grounds for personal claims, & etc. Senator Obama had voted against the MCA, and those provisions were largely repealed after he took office as the President. However those statutes, taken together with the American Service-Members' Protection Act, still create problems of temporal jurisdiction which make it nearly impossible for the Justice Department to prosecute those responsible or extradite them to other jurisdictions without mounting a legal challenge to the original provisions of the MCA, e.g. the Article 1 prohibition against adopting a law with ex post facto effects.

    The Nuremberg trials made three important contributions to international law.

    Yes, but one of the subsequent developments is the current international consensus against the imposition of death penalties by UN and international tribunals. Nonetheless, the trial and conviction of General Jodl for his role in issuing orders to evacuate the people of a district in Norway and to destroy their houses, plus his role in authorizing extrajudicial killings of civilians for alleged offenses against German troops have direct parallels in similar Israeli practices today. The London Charter defined those actions as war crimes and they are still grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, i.e. murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity".
    link to en.wikisource.org

  • Hostage February 9, 2012 at 2:31 pm

    How to criticize someone that can constantly shift the historical frame of reference, firmly rooted in the divine covenant on one hand and a collective entitlement for benefits over centuries: like if Jewish Brits were expelled in England in 1290 and never indemnified, how can Palestinians today demand something like that?

    In Nahum Sokolow's History of Zionism, 1600-1918, Volume 1, Chapter III, the author records the role of Mannasseh Ben Israel (1606-1657) in promoting "The Re-Admission of the Jews Into England". So it's only natural for modern-day Palestinians to follow the example of such a great "light unto the Gentiles" and demand their right of return too.

  • Hostage February 9, 2012 at 2:14 am

    Completely off-topic, but I was watching a video by Dr. Nurit Peled-Elhanan. She’s talking about Israeli textbooks

    It's not off-topic at all. Phil predicted that one day soon the New York Times would discover the Nakba and that Alan Dershowitz's talk before the conference at the Jewish Federations was based upon Nakba denial. Ethan Bronner already introduced Times readers to the Nakba several years ago when he was working as the Education Correspondent, e.g. link to nytimes.com

    He reviewed Avi Shlaim, "The Iron Wall" and Benny Morris, "Righteous Victims". Bronner noted the newly declassified information had been incorporated into the non-mythical narrative of the 20th century history books that Israeli 9th graders began using in 1999.

    Prof. Dershowitz was suitably outraged and went out of his way to explain that after Bronner's 1999 article had first appeared, Arafat had walked away from generous Clinton-Barak peace offers at Camp David and Taba. He claimed that Benny Morris had finally seen the light and written more critically of the Palestinians. See The Case for Israel, Wiley, 2003, page 246.

    The Times and Ethan Bronner published a retraction when they reviewed Lozowick, "Right To Exist" and Dershowitz, "The Case for Israel". Bronner explained that the New Historians had an pro-Palestinian agenda; that there had been a stark shift in Israel's attitude; and that the 1999 9th grade textbooks had been withdrawn. Despite the fact that Dersh was simply recycling Joan Peter's discredited crap, Bronner praised Dershowitz for his “intelligent polemic” and ability “to construct an argument”.
    *http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/books/the-new-new-historians.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
    *Norman G. Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, University of California, 2008, page 17 link to books.google.com

    So the World + dog is still waiting for the Times and Bronner to acknowledge the Nakba (again).

• Abunimah highlights 'turning point' boycott conference
  • Hostage February 8, 2012 at 8:56 pm

    Prof. Lawrence Davidson has an article, "Should Israel/Palestine Merge?" which contrasts the views of Chomsky and Abunimah on the possibility of the two state or one state solution and the need for international pressure on both Israel and the United States for either solution to ever occur.
    link to middle-east-online.com

  • Hostage February 7, 2012 at 1:29 am

    I agree with 98 percent of the things Ali Abunimah said, but his response to the last question is simply a non-starter. He doesn't have a mandate to speak for victims of serious crimes or have the necessary standing to waive their rights to a remedy in the form of criminal sanctions imposed on Israeli officials. The fact that the UN has failed to act, is absolutely no excuse for deliberate inaction on the part of the Palestinian leadership. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan was right when he criticized President Obama for not doing a thing about the IDF murder of a US citizen taking part in the Gaza aid flotilla.

    The State of Palestine has the necessary standing, as a result of the UNESCO vote, and it has the legal right to pursue remedies for its citizens through the ICC, e.g. link to english.pnn.ps

    Did anyone at the BDS conference address the issue of pursuing criminal sanctions? That would truly give everyone the opportunity to discuss an issue they would seemingly like to avoid.

• Both sides are wrong in the ‘Israel Firsters’ debate
  • Hostage February 9, 2012 at 6:35 pm

    It’s also a direct call to support Wikileaks. It seems we have not gone far from the Middle Ages in terms of lack of transparent government.

    Well I'm not certain the GAO would have the administration's "authorization" to read Wikileaks either;-)
    

    In a classic case of shutting the barn door after the horse has left, the Obama administration and the Department of Defense have ordered the hundreds of thousands of federal employees and contractors not to view the secret cables and other classified documents published by Wikileaks and news organizations around the world unless the workers have the required security clearance or authorization.

    -- Don’t Look, Don’t Read: Government Warns Its Workers Away From WikiLeaks Documents link to nytimes.com

    I'm not gonna ask if that applies to us retirees.

  • Hostage February 8, 2012 at 5:15 pm

    How did the SA leadership get formal UN sanctions?

    They and the OAU member states introduced draft resolutions containing the various sanctions and convinced other countries to adopt them. They also spearheaded efforts to reject the credentials of the representatives of the Union of South Africa, so they could not participate in UN business. See for example a pro-Israel position on that subject presented by Malvina Halberstam in, Excluding Israel from the General Assembly by a Rejection of its Credentials, The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 78, No. 1 (Jan., 1984), pp. 179-192 link to jstor.org

    In 1974, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was granted observer status by resolution 3237 (XXIX). That same year General Assembly resolution 3280 (XXIX) invited national liberation movements, recognized by the Organization of African Unity, to participate in the relevant work of the main committees of the General Assembly and its subsidiary organs, as well as in conferences, seminars and other meetings held under the auspices of the U.N. which relate to their countries. So the ANC and PAC (South Africa), as well as SWAPO (Namibia) were invited. In 1976 the General Assembly adopted resolution 31/152 granting observer status to SWAPO, using the same language as the earlier PLO resolution.

    Has your argument been communicated to Ali Abunimah?

    Of course, the Op-Ed President Abbas wrote for the New York Times, The Long Overdue Palestinian State, explained the bid is part of long term legal strategy that began in 1988. Prof Francis Boyle's article at Counterpunch and the position paper on the subject that was published by the Permanent Observer Mission to the UN at the links above covered some of the same ground. Authors, including Mouin Rabbani and Camille Mansour, have mentioned the options a successful bid in the Security Council or General Assembly would provide with respect to the ICJ or ICC in articles published by the Institute for Palestine Studies, e.g. see Palestinian Options at the United Nations and Prisoner Exchange Levels Hamas, Fatah Playing Field.

    Ironically Ilan Pappé and Noam Chomsky helped co-author a book, Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel's War Against the Palestinians, Haymarket Books, 2010 in which Pappé devoted two chapters to the task of tracing the undesirable results of US involvement in the Question of Palestine. Chomsky devoted two chapters which provide his own analysis; citations to analysis of Court decisions by Norman Finkelstein, Gershom Gorenberg, and others; plus links to several articles on the failure to apply the Responsibility to Protect law norm to Palestinians (despite the fact they are a protected population under the Geneva Conventions) and criticism of the impunity the Western powers have granted themselves and their clients (so far) in the operations of the ICC.

    I'm generally not swayed by the criticism that Chomsky would live in Israel or that he is a liberal Zionist. You could just as easily argue that the founders of B'Tselem or Yesh Din live in Israel and are liberal Zionists too or that Ilan Pappé would live in Israel if he could. The fact that Chomsky doesn't recognize the legitimacy of Israel as a sovereign state of the Jewish people means that he isn't a Zionist in the normal sense in which the term is commonly employed.

    Critics like Ghali Hassan have utilized a straw man argument and incorrectly state that Chomsky denies the existence of the Israel Lobby. In fact Chomsky has written about the American Jewish Lobby and the Israel Lobby. I provided some links above which illustrate that fact. Chomsky proposed that the US-UK invasion of Iraq was simply a natural extension of the anti-nationalist agenda the two governments have pursued since the days of the mandate era "Red Line" Agreement on the exploitation of the oil in the region. Chomsky has commented on "the astonishing failure to achieve what was pretty clearly the original war aim." link to chomsky.info

    So Jeffrey Blankfort's critique about the spoils actually going to China and other countries is somewhat moot. Cheney's old company, Haliburton, was in the oil and services businesses and it profited from the war. link to halliburtonwatch.org

    The fact that other countries eventually obtained franchises to exploit Iraq's natural resources wasn't the result of any publicly announced policy pursued by Dick Cheney or US Viceroy Paul Bremmer.

    Years ago Prof J. C. Hurewitz advised students of history that, although the policies of a government may seem patently obvious, the motives behind the policy and its authors can nonetheless remain obscure until the official records are declassified and studied. See William Roger Louis, Robert W. Stookey (editors), The End of the Palestine mandate, University of Texas Press, 1986, page 137.

    In this particular case, "the jury is still out" on the basis of the documentary record. President Bush invoked executive privilege in refusing to disclose to the Government Accounting Office the details of Vice President Cheney's meetings with energy company executives. It was another branch of the government that filed an unsuccessful lawsuit attempting to obtain those records, e.g. link to fl1.findlaw.com

  • Hostage February 8, 2012 at 12:34 am

    Cliff the Palestinian BDS Movement has not followed the pattern of the South African anti-apartheid campaign. The latter pursued both formal sanctions through international organizations and informal grassroots action. The African leadership obtained formal UN sanctions, a UN arms embargo, a UN suppression treaty which criminalized apartheid, and put the issues of the occupation of Namibia and the policy of apartheid before the International Court of Justice in four related cases. So, it's not condescending to compare the current symbolic grassroots informal actions of the Palestinian BDS movement to the grassroots anti-war movement of the 60s and 70s.

    Here is an example of Ali Abunimah complaining about other people giving away rights and remedies. He claimed "Fayyad just gave away your right of return," solely on the basis of his rather strained interpretation of an interview published in Haaretz link to maannews.net

    That claim was a fabrication. The Fayyad plan was published in 2009 and has always called for "a just and agreed solution for Palestinian refugees in accordance with relevant international resolutions, and UN General Assembly Resolution 194 in particular." Fayyad was being interviewed about the details of the PA plan with regard to the establishment of the State of Palestine, not about the responsibilities of the State of Israel. He had been asked if his plan - Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State: Program of the Thirteenth Government - takes into consideration the need to absorb refugees? Fayyad replied that "Of course, Palestinians would have the right to reside within the State of Palestine.": See Palestinian PM to Haaretz: We will have a state next year (Fayyad hopes Israel will celebrate Palestinians' sovereignty, accuses Netanyahu of succumbing to settlers)

    Omar Barghouti wrote a similarly misleading article here at Mondoweiss which incorrectly stated that the Palestinian application for membership in the UN didn't mention the role of the PLO and that UN membership would somehow undermine UN General Assembly resolution 194. link to mondoweiss.net

    Simone Daud and I both pointed out that the actual text of the application did contain statements affirming the role of the PLO and the rights of the refugees:

    Palestine’s application for membership is made consistent with the rights of the Palestine refugees in accordance with international law and the relevant United Nations resolutions, including General Assembly resolution 194 (III) (1948), and with the status of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

    See A/66/371–S/2011/592 page 4 of 5 link to un.org

    Recognition of the State of Palestine inside interim borders and the option of UN membership have always been Phase II Quartet obligations under the Road map. The just settlement for the refugees is a Phase III obligation. Prof Francis Boyle refuted the claims that Palestinian Statehood or UN membership would somehow be harmful to the rights of the Palestinians. link to counterpunch.org

    The Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations also published a Response to Arguments that the “September Initiative” regarding Statehood will harm the Status of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the rights of the Palestine Refugees.

    So the leaders of the BSD movement have not been at this stuff so long that they've become infallible and have no need for honest criticism and advice. If they're going to run around shreying about others forfeiting rights and remedies, then it's perfectly fair to hold them to account when they undermine the rights and remedies that flow from the UN bid.

    Barghouti complained when the PA delayed the initial vote on the Goldstone report. link to counterpunch.org

    He said that Israel will finally face a long overdue process of legal accountability and that its victims will have a measure of justice. Pot meet kettle. Barghuoti and Abunimah have undermined the credibility of the UN statehood bid. International recognition of the State of Palestine in the UN or its specialized agencies is essential before the ICC will agree to act on the Palestinian criminal complaint regarding Operation Cast Lead.

  • Hostage February 7, 2012 at 11:36 am

    Other than getting into the actual details comparing what Wikipedia nails as the listed repatriation laws singled out by state, with, specifically, Israel’s

    Most of that is hasbara that get's added to articles by contributors who are trying to provide cover for Israel's Law of Return. For example:
    

    Because this influx could no longer be managed, especially because of the vast expense of unification, restrictions on the right of ethnic Germans to return to Germany became effective in January 1991. Under the new restrictions, once in Germany ethnic Germans are assigned to certain areas. If they leave these areas, they lose many of their benefits and are treated as if they were foreigners. The government has also established programs to encourage the estimated several million ethnic Germans who still live in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe to remain there. Although ethnic Germans are entitled to German citizenship by virtue of their bloodlines, to many Germans they do not seem German, and their social integration has frequently been difficult.

    -- link to countrystudies.us

  • Hostage February 7, 2012 at 11:00 am

    Hostage, . . . Chomsky is not ‘offering advice.’

    Please view the video at the link above once again, because that is exactly what Chomsky is doing - offering advice to the students.

    For one, Ali Abunimah and other BDS activists don't need Chomsky's advice as they've been doing this for years now.

    If this is a war of ideas, no one needs the consent of Ali Abunimah or other BDS activists before they can express a point of view, i.e. they have been wasting opportunities and being less effective in some cases.

    Chomsky's comments should be taken in context with his other characterizations of the BDS movement. . . . These are patronizing/condescending things to say

    No, the notion that any political movement is immune from criticism or from receiving sound advice is patronizing and condescending.

    Chomsky wasn't condemning outright - he was just being cranky and passive-aggressive. And all of that is besides the point because BDS does highlight the US role.

    Looks more like he was asked a question by some students and some thin skinned people got offended by the answer. The 2005 Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS doesn't mention the role or involvement of the US government at all: link to bdsmovement.net

    On criticism, you miss my point again.

    No you miss my point. Ali Abunimah & Co. are not above criticism. They have dismissed the UN statehood bid as a waste of time, while the governing political factions have endorsed it, e.g. Hamas Leader, Meshaal, Praises Abbas’ UN Bid for Statehood link to richardsilverstein.com

    Ali Abunimah and the BDS movement discuss Israel's violations of international law and the failure of UN resolutions to end the situation. At the same time, they waive aside or surrender the rights of the victims of serious crimes to pursue readily available legal remedies through the State government that actually represents them.

    Last September, the US and Israel were frantically trying to find ways to avoid a legal tsunami and the BDS movement stepped-in and gave them aid and comfort.
    *The legal tsunami is on its way link to haaretz.com
    * Recognising Palestine? link to aljazeera.com

    These unelected activists have rendered a valuable service to the Zionists in opposing the UN bid, downplaying the legal significance of the vote on UNESCO membership, and etc. As a result, the Palestinian people are divided and poised to once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. You need to explain why it's patronizing or condescending to offer honest criticism of Ali Abunimah and the BDS movement on that and many other accounts. I could care less how many years they've been involved.

    The PennBDS conference discussed legal rights and legal remedies for those instances where a right had been violated. Please see the declaration on Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law link to www2.ohchr.org

    Those Children Deserve To Have Someone Ask Why They Died! Congressman Baird
    link to youtu.be

  • Hostage February 6, 2012 at 6:58 pm

    I read the portion of the article written by Noura Khouri, but he didn't actually say those things in the accompanying video. He suggested that we demand the enforcement of existing international law. I've noted here on several occasions that the Geneva Convention is not silent about the subjects of repatriation or population transfer. Noura said Finkelstein leaves the discussion of right of return to Zionists, but he actually said he didn't have the moral authority to address the subject and left it to Mr Rabbani. He also claims that he told his publisher there wouldn't be a book unless Rabbani served as the co-author.

  • Hostage February 6, 2012 at 6:40 pm

    Hostage, . . . That’s a fairly effective defense of Noam Chomsky and of some of his supporters/disciples in this context. Acknowledged.

    I think the comments here are over-generalizing and reading things into the positions taken by Chomsky and Finkelstein in a some instances that they haven't actually proposed.

    I tend to agree with Jeffrey Blankfort on a lot of the issues that he's discussed in the past with Prof. Slater and Max Ajl. I personally don't care if neocons are pro-war because: they're Zionists; they are grasping for political power; enrichment of their corporate sponsors; or all of the above.

  • Hostage February 6, 2012 at 6:04 pm

    The Gaza flotillas were not going to solve the problem of the humanitarian crisis. . . . Is that also a ‘feel good’ tactic?

    You are talking as if Chomsky was condemning feel good actions. He was really only saying they represent a lost opportunity to highlight the active support that the US government provides Israel. In the case of the aid flotilla, they US did nothing to implement the Security Council resolutions regarding the free and unrestricted flow of humanitarian supplies to Gaza or to assure that its citizens wouldn't be arbitrarily killed or harmed by the IDF. In fact, it pressured the governments of Egypt and Turkey to maintain the Egypt-Gaza border closure; to stop assisting the aid flotillas; and drop legal actions against Israel. At the same time, the US played an active role in hampering the trickle of supplies thru the tunnels when the US Army Corps of Engineers helped design a 100ft underground steel wall. link to csmonitor.com

    My problem with him is that he believes everything has to proceed neatly and nicely.

    Please provide a citation. So far you are complaining because he offered a critique of the BDS movement and suggested ways it could be made more effective. In the video above, he actually commended the students platform as an example of a "do good" action. BTW, Ali Abunimah dishes out criticism of others on nearly a daily basis.

    But when you bring up BDS, he is all of a sudden saying there are worse offenders. Worse offenders in what context?

    No, Chomsky and Finkelstein criticize Israel all the time. Chomsky warned against engaging in abstract discussions opposing the existence of the State of Israel. That would open up an opportunity for a charge of hypocrisy, because there are a lot of other bad actors in the region too. There's nothing wrong with condemning them all for their human rights record or criticizing the US for propping-up the other authoritarian regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, & etc.

  • Hostage February 6, 2012 at 3:08 pm

    What were the motives of the hijackers who actually killed themselves and thousands of others? . . . The 9/11 Commission Report notes

    Under the heading "Who Is the Enemy?", the Commission report said that:
    

    "Bin Ladin also stresses grievances against the United States widely shared in the Muslim world. He inveighed against the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, which is the home of Islam's holiest sites, and against other U.S. policies in the Middle East."

    link to 9-11commission.gov

    The US military tends to set-up shop permanently and resist efforts to make it leave another country's territory.

  • Hostage February 6, 2012 at 2:45 pm

    I have no idea what they are really up to

    Chomsky has written several books and has told everyone in great detail exactly what he is "up to". Cliff cited a video above in which he explained that he does not accept Israel as the State of the Jewish people. He has written elsewhere that he does accept the idea that it is an ethnic homeland of some of the Jews. Even the PLO accepts that proposition.

    Chomsky has written about the existence of the Israel Lobby, he simply denies it's omnipotence. He provides several examples, like the invasion of Lebanon, where US interests diverged from Israel's interests. I'd describe the campaigns to pardon Jonathan Pollard and the current US push-back on Israel's desire to bomb Iran as yet another example that the Lobby doesn't actually have the ability to dictate the terms of US policy. link to chomsky.info

    I think the position of Chomsky and Finkelstein is that the American Jewish lobby runs around cynically shreying about Israel, but that much of the money it raises goes elsewhere to support causes that don't benefit Israel in any way, e.g. link to books.google.com

    Chomsky includes the Israeli Lobby neocons in his writings about the international terrorism practiced by the Regan administration and noted that the same neocons had been brought back into government by Bush II. Neither man claims that the only way to end the occupation or obtain a just settlement is to overthrow the Capitalist system as we know it. FYI, in film maker Yoav Shamir's Defamation, Finkelstein said "It's the best thing that will ever happen to Israel if they get rid of these American Jews who are warmongers from Martha's Vinyard; and the warmongers from the Hamptons; and the warmongers from Beverly Hills; and the warmongers from Miami. It's been a disaster for Israel. It's the best thing if it can ever get rid of this [warmongering] American Jewry. It's a curse."
    *http://www.democracynow.org/2004/6/7/noam_chomsky_on_reagans_legacy_bush
    *http://books.google.com/books?id=HcUzlK2M1igC&lpg=PA152&ots=RoGTWfS6Qm&pg=PA152#v=onepage&q&f=false

  • Hostage February 6, 2012 at 1:05 pm

    In both interviews, he characterizes BDS, such as it is in its main expression, as a ‘feel good’ movement. . . . This is what Ali Abunimah took issue with, among other things.

    First of all, Ali Abunimah and his supporters admit that things like the boycott of a few Israeli products by food coops is a symbolic action. It makes a few headlines here or in Israel and is really only effective in making people talk about an issue that they wouldn't otherwise be discussing. link to refrainplayingisrael.posterous.com

    Chomsky is absolutely correct in saying that the BDS movement should never miss an opportunity to do good (as opposed to simply feeling good) by highlighting official US government support for Israel. He is also correct that nothing happened in the case of South Africa until US administrations were forced to stop openly defending apartheid.

    The other examples that he cited in the video of failures along similar lines, including the Goldstone report, are spot on. The General Assembly convened an Emergency Special Session because Condi Rice kept the Security Council from taking any action to put an end to the IDF attack on Gaza. Ditto the 2006 attack on Lebanon. The General Assembly has gone into emergency special session over the special relationship between Israel and the US on more occasions than any other issue that threatens international peace and security. The Fact Finding Mission's mandate allowed it to report on the overwhelming evidence of collusion between the Israeli officials and war planners and their US counterparts once the attack on Gaza began. Goldstone certainly reported on the Dahiya Doctrine. If the fact finding report had also reported on deliberate US interference in the Security Council, and recommended the General Assembly follow-up on the investigations through their Emergency Special Session, then the US wouldn't have been able to use its "Bully Pulpit" or block the adoption of UN sanctions against Israel.

  • Hostage February 5, 2012 at 8:43 pm with 2 replies

    Norman had the audacity to tell Palestinian refugees to give up their dreams of returning as part of an overall goal of solving the conflict.

    No he did not. Finkelstein recommended that Palestinians adopt the pre-existing international consensus for a two state solution because politics is not about changing public opinion, it's about meeting it where it is today. He specifically writes:
    

    A broad international consensus has also crystallized upholding the Palestinian “right of return.” We have already seen that the annual United Nations resolution, supported overwhelmingly by member States, calls for a settlement of the refugee question on the basis of resolution 194, which “resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for property of those choosing not to return.”

    *Resolving the Israel-Palestine Conflict: What we can learn from Gandhi
    link to normanfinkelstein.com

    During his talk at Boston University he specifically cited international consensus to the effect that both the original refugees and the subsequent generations of Palestinians who have maintained genuine links to the land should have the right of return. He stresses that "The prize on which our eyes should be riveted is human rights, human dignity, human equality." He didn't ever suggest that Palestinian refugees from the territory of Israel grant Jews a superior legal right of return. See the article above and:
    *Norman Finkelstein and Mouin Rabbani at Boston University - Solving the Israel-Palestine Conflict link to youtu.be

    He employed the analogy of giving a homeless person a coat versus a room in his apartment to illustrate that existing international consensus or public opinion provides strong political support for a two state solution rather than a one state solution. His point was that demanding a single state solution might be over reaching, even if it is morally justified. He was not discussing the right of return or the just settlement for the refugees. In fact, he stated that he had no moral authority to speak on that topic, and asked Mouin Rabbani to address that issue.

• The Iraq war coverup: What did AIPAC do and when did it do it?
  • Hostage February 2, 2012 at 8:21 pm

    we are not even out of iraq yet and they’ve started up on iran. enough already!

    No AIPAC has been trying to destroy the Iranian economy; stop foreign investment in its oil industry, and make it an oil importing country ever since the adoption of The Iran-Libya Sanctions Act of 1996, see Iran Foreign Oil Sanctions Act (H.R. 3107)
    Questions and Answers link to web.archive.org

    AIPAC has worked vigorously to ensure this nuclear nightmare does not reach its potential. AIPAC has worked with the administration and Congress to institute economic sanctions against Iran, with the purpose of draining the Iranian government of the funds necessary to become a nuclear state.

    The Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, originally passed in 1996, equips the president with a range of sanctions to apply against foreign entities that invest in Iran’s oil and gas sector. This threat of sanctions has been effective in deterring investment in Iran. Since the law was enacted, only eight out of 55 proposed petroleum development projects have been completed. link to web.archive.org

• Anti-Defamation League reprises debunked quote in attempt to discredit Helena Cobban and Penn BDS conference
  • Hostage February 2, 2012 at 12:56 pm

    The ADL is apparently exploiting this weakness to disseminate false information through Jewish community media.

    In many cases, the ADL could accurately be described as the Defamation and Intimidation League. I stopped taking the organization's word for its claims at face value after several plaintiffs had obtained judgments or settlements against the ADL for defamation and spying. Only gullible people believe that the way things appear in ADL publications is the way they really are:

    link to jweekly.com

    link to scribd.com

• Racism Report: Africans in Israel
  • Hostage February 2, 2012 at 6:07 am

    The reason that Israel has never adopted any enabling legislation for the refugee convention is pretty obvious - it would be obligated to allow these people and the Palestinian refugees to enter the country.

    Israel lobbied to exclude persons who are receiving assistance from UNRWA from the definition of the term refugee in Article 1 of the 1951 Convention. In the years afterward, Israel conducted a vigorous propaganda campaign to shutdown UNRWA and make the UN stop treating the Palestinians as refugees. But the Convention stipulates that when the UNRWA:
    

    protection or assistance has ceased for any reason, without the position of such persons being definitively settled in accordance with the relevant resolutions adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations, these persons shall ipso facto be entitled to the benefits of this Convention.

    Contrary to the claims contained in hasbara talking points, the responsible UN officials have explained that All refugee communities, whether those under the care of UNRWA or UNHCR, have their refugee status passed through the generations while their plight remains unresolved. -- See Chris Gunness, Don’t blame UNRWA, link to ynetnews.com

    The use of snipers or landmines to kill refugees is obviously a crime against humanity that is a violation of Israel's international obligations.

• Why we should be furious the Haditha massacre Marines got no jail time
  • Hostage February 1, 2012 at 11:22 am

    US refuses to be part of the ICC because it may be called upon to help with humanitarian missions and so on. What’s that all about?

    It's nonsense. Every state already has the right to grant their courts universal jurisdiction over US war crimes, crimes against humanity, and so on. So, merely joining a Court established by those same state players would not subject the US to any additional liability.

    There can be no guarantee that some of the US forces might commit war crimes during a "just war", humanitarian intervention (ala Libya), or peacekeeping mission. Prior to the revelations of torture and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, the US had routinely demanded, and received, UN mandates and guarantees of immunity. It has subsequently used weasel wording to refer some, but not all, of the crimes committed in a given situation to the ICC.

    For example the Security Council resolution 1970 on Libya carefully carved-out an exception for the US, NATO, and mercenaries recruited by the Israeli firm, Global CST. The Security Council even refused to pick-up the bill for any expenses related to the investigations and prosecutions it had just requested:
    

    Recalling article 16 of the Rome Statute under which no investigation or prosecution may be commenced or proceeded with by the International Criminal Court for a period of 12 months after a Security Council request to that effect, . . .

    ICC referral
    4. Decides to refer the situation in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya since 15 February 2011 to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court;
    5. Decides that the Libyan authorities shall cooperate fully with and provide any necessary assistance to the Court and the Prosecutor pursuant to this resolution and, while recognizing that States not party to the Rome Statute have no obligation under the Statute, urges all States and concerned regional and other international organizations to cooperate fully with the Court and the Prosecutor;
    6. Decides that nationals, current or former officials or personnel from a State outside the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya which is not a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of that State for all alleged acts or omissions arising out of or related to operations in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya established or authorized by the Council, unless such exclusive jurisdiction has been expressly waived by the State;
    7. Invites the Prosecutor to address the Security Council within two months of the adoption of this resolution and every six months thereafter on actions taken pursuant to this resolution;
    8. Recognizes that none of the expenses incurred in connection with the referral, including expenses related to investigations or prosecutions in connection with that referral, shall be borne by the United Nations and that such costs shall be borne by the parties to the Rome Statute and those States that wish to contribute voluntarily;

    link to un.org

    The ICC Assembly of State Parties recently adopted a definition for the crime of aggression together with procedures that will allow members to opt-in to protection by 2017 and permit the Prosecutor to act in cases where the Security Council is deadlocked for any reason. The US attended the diplomatic conference as an observer and lobbied heavily against adoption of any definition for the crime of aggression. Due to the mood of the international community regarding the on-going US wars, that alone almost guaranteed the measure's passage.

  • Hostage February 1, 2012 at 9:27 am with 2 replies

    The Blackwater massacre at the Nissour Square in Baghdad was also dismissed and relatively light sentences given to those 6 US soldiers that were involved in the gang rape of 14-year old Abir Qassim and her consequent murder and that of her family at Mahmoudieh.

    Yes the investigations and trials of service members always becomes politicized. Hopefully, the government of Iraq will join the ICC and file an Article 12(3) declaration accepting the Court's jurisdiction for crimes committed after July of 2002 on its territory.

    The US Military Justice System (US Code Title 10, Chapter 47, the UCMJ and the related Executive Order, the Manual for Courts Martial or MCM) comprises the most lenient and easily politicized system in the world. There are much better safeguards for military defendants than those provided under the civilian judicial system and overt interference by the political branches of government is pretty commonplace. The notorious leniency of the system is the main reason that Bush wrote a different Executive Order which established "Star Chamber"-like procedures, when he opted to use the pre-existing Title 10 UCMJ authorization for military tribunals to prosecute enemy combatants. That violated Article 3 of the Geneva Convention because they weren't actually "regularly constituted courts" after the normal MCM rules of evidence and procedures were abandoned.

    Oliver North first gained national attention as a young 2nd Lieutenant when he testified as a character witness in the Son Thang massacre case. The Marine squad in question had participated in the premeditated murder of 16 women and children. The majority were acquitted, and the heaviest punishment imposed upon those found guilty was a life sentence - which was reduced on review by the convening authority to only one year. See Did Military Justice Fail or Prevail? link to law.duke.edu

    Maybe if the US allowed other countries to prosecute US military criminals or if it joined the ICC, its soldiers would start behaving differently.

    The ICC can prosecute US soldiers for crimes committed in other territories without our government's consent. That's why the US scrambled around coercing other countries to enter into so-called Article 98 agreements and the Congress authorized the use of "any force necessary" to free US citizens or allies held for trial by the ICC. link to state.gov

• One State, Two States: Who is the subject of Palestinian liberation?
  • Hostage February 1, 2012 at 7:44 am

    this was part of the response to goldstone: tone it down, because we’re trying to pull off the 2ss

    That's the standard scripted response. The US has only paid lip service to a 2 state solution since 1947. It has torpedoed the idea at every opportunity. In November of 1976, the General Assembly invited the PLO to take part "on an equal footing" with other parties in any Mideast peace conference. Years before Danny Ayalon snubbed the Turkish Ambassador by offering inferior seating arrangements, Patrick Moynihan created a furor in the Security Council by issuing a challenge over the legality of even permitting the Palestine Liberation Organization to sit in during its sessions. Both the Jewish Agency and Arab Higher Committee had been invited to participate in the Security Councils discussions in the past, but the US claimed that was suddenly a right reserved for a member state. He also advanced the absurd idea that including the Palestinians in talks would harm the peace negotiations: "my government is not prepared to go along with an act that will undermine the negotiations for peace." link to archive.jta.org

    Compare the reaction of the United States when Israel annexed the territory of other UN member states to its behavior when Iraq annexed Kuwait. The General Assembly was ready to abandon the ludicrous resolution 242 and 338 "negotiations" and act to isolate and sanction Israel. The US has adopted crippling sanctions against other UN member states for much less, but never against Israel:

    8. KIRKPATRICK (United States of America): The draft resolution before this emergency special session of the General Assembly is profoundly objectionable to the United States. We oppose it because it does not contribute to peace in the Middle East: it will make peace harder to achieve.
9. We oppose the end it seeks-which is revenge and retribution, not conciliation and compromise.
10. We oppose the means it recommends, which are unreasonably punitive and ill-suited to accomplishing any constructive purpose.
11. We oppose the use of the United Nations involved here, because this body was and is meant to be devoted to building peace and security, and this draft resolution seeks neither. Instead it uses this body as an instrument to deepen divisions and exacerbate conflicts.
12. We oppose this draft resolution because, like any other cynical use of power, it will leave this body weaker than it already is, less fit to achieve its noble purposes.
13. By damaging the prospects for peace, this draft resolution undermines the integrity-indeed, the very raison d’etre-of the United Nations.
14. Last month in the Security Council the United States voted against a draft resolution on Israel’s Golan Heights legislation because, as we stated at the time, the draft resolution constituted "a perversion of the very purpose which the Security Council, is called upon by Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations to perform". That purpose is to prevent "an aggravation of the situation". The draft resolution before us today, like the previous draft resolution, does not prevent an aggravation of the situation; it is itself a source of aggravation. It is also procedurally flawed in that it seeks to assign to the General Assembly responsibilities that Chapter VII of the Charter properly and solely invests in the Security Council.
15. The United Nations has discussed the Golan Heights legislation now for nearly two months. As my delegation made clear at the outset, we opposed this legislation because it purported or appeared to alter unilaterally the international status of the Golan Heights. Therefore, on 17 December, the United States joined other members of the Security Council in adopting resolution 497 (1981), thereby making clear our disapproval of the Israeli Government’s action in extending its civil law over the Golan Heights. We communicated the same message in our bilateral relations.
16. As we have stated often, the future of the Golan Heights, like that of all the occupied territories, can be resolved only through negotiations pursuant to Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973). Accordingly, we called upon Israel to rescind its legislation and-most importantly-to reaffirm its commitment to a negotiated solution. In its letter of 29 December 1981 to the Secretary-General,” Israel did, in fact, reaffirm its readiness to enter into unconditional negotiations with the Syrians over the international legal status of the Golan.
17. At that point, the only constructive role for the United Nations was to facilitate such negotiations, in accordance with resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973). But the draft resolution before the Security Council did not even mention those resolutions and, needless to say, the current draft resolution does not either.
18. We must go back to basics. Israel is accused of threatening peace. Yet peace is not the situation that prevailed between Israel and the Syrian Arab Republic before Israel’s Golan Heights legislation was adopted. Security Council resolution 338 (1973), which was the basis for the 1973 cease-fire, called upon the parties to “start immediately” to negotiate the implementation of resolution 242 (1967) so that Israeli withdrawal could be effected in exchange for recognition of Israel’s existence within “secure and recognized” borders. But no such negotiations took place.
19. There is no one in this hall who does not know which party has refused to negotiate peace or even to accept resolution 242 (1967). Yet the draft resolution before us today and the speeches we have heard take no account of this reality.
20. The United States greatly desires to have cordial, co-operative, good relations with all the States in the region. My country has devoted enormous effort, in this Administration and under previous Administrations, to finding a basis for peace and reconciliation. We also want very much a strong United Nations acting in fidelity to the principles of its Charter. For these very reasons we are appalled by this draft resolution, which distorts reality, denies history and inflames passions.
21. The draft resolution before us calls the Israeli legislation an act of aggression. But no shots were fired, no soldiers were brought into place. And the future of the Golan Heights is no less negotiable than before.
22. It describes the Israeli legislation as an annexation. It is not. The United States has not recognized it as such. The Security Council in resolution 497 (1981) did not recognize it as such. To call it annexation now only creates an artificial obstacle to negotiations.
23. This draft resolution calls for comprehensive sanctions against Israel and for Israel’s total isolation from the rest of the world. But can anyone truly believe that such proposals, advanced in a spirit of vindictiveness, will make a constructive contribution to peace?
24. The United States objects to this draft resolution because it makes the search for peace more difficult and because it weakens this body. We also object to it for less disinterested reasons: we object to the barely veiled attack on the United States present here in the paragraph that “strongly deplores the negative vote by a permanent member . . .“.
. . . & etc. ad nauseam
link to un.org

• 'Former thug who found Judaism hopes to be first African-American in the Knesset'
  • Hostage January 30, 2012 at 8:46 pm

    Have your heard of the Book of Ruth-”

    Yes it documents an intermarriage with a Moabite, not a Jewess, e.g. And also, Ruth the Moabitess, Mahlon's wife, have I acquired for myself for a wife, to preserve the name of the deceased on his heritage, so that the name of the deceased not be obliterated from his brethren and from the gate of his place, you are witnesses today."Ruth 4:10

    There really is no evidence to support the practice of "conversion" in the Tanakh.

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