I used to tell myself, being devil’s advocate, that longtime US envoy and Israel advocate Dennis Ross must be some genius and that behind the opaque curtains of the Obama administration he had a vision that could save the two-state solution. George Mitchell didn’t get it. Condi Rice didn’t get it. But Dennis Ross in a Nixon-goes-to-China way did.
Well now all the secrets are revealed– and he has no ideas!
Ross has a piece in the Washington Post saying that all we have to do is let the Palestinians get access to some quarries in occupied territory, and that’s the key. The way to break the impasse between Israelis and Palestinians, he argues, is for Israel to take steps that show the occupation is shrinking and that therefore validate the leadership of Palestinian Authority P.M. Fayyad, not wicked Hamas. Oh and Fayyad has “nonviolent” answers to the occupation.
There is no mention of the nonviolent anti-apartheid movement in the West Bank. There is not a word here about Israeli settlements. Amazing.
What follows is the heart of Ross’s argument: some loosening of restrictions in the occupation. Sort of like rearranging the deck chairs. My headline comes from the Post’s stupendously stupid caption accompanying the article, offered below. Ross:
Finally, in Area C, which is about 60 percent of the West Bank, Palestinians’ security and police forces have no access, their economic activity is extremely limited, and Israel retains civil and security responsibilities. There is no practical reason that the Palestinians cannot be permitted dramatically more economic access and activity in this area.
To give one example, there are Palestinian stone masonry factories in Area A [under P.A. control], but Palestinians have limited access to the rock quarries in the West Bank, which are in Area C. In a case brought against Israeli ownership of the rock quarries, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled late last month that no additional quarries should be Israeli-owned. That ruling creates an opening for private Palestinian ownership, should any new quarries be established — and there clearly is room for more.
Expanding the Palestinians’ economic opportunities in Area C would do wonders for job creation and the overall Palestinian economy.
These steps should be feasible from an Israeli standpoint.
What Ross does not say is that the quarrying activities undertaken by the Israeli occupying authorities are completlely illegal and contrary to Customary International Law, particularly the Hague regulations 1907 articles 55 and 43. My comments here have been posted before and they illustrate those aspects of International Law which Israel have broken and which the Israeli court took no notice.
Two reports from Zafrir Rinat and Aeyal Gross in Haaretz on 28 Dec 2011 give some details on how the Israeli high court arrived at its decision on Yesh Dins petition to it involving commander of the Israeli defence forces and others. See Commander of IDF v Yesh Din and others Known as the Quarries case (here http://www.yesh-din.org/sys/images/File/QuarriesPetitionEng%5B1%5D.pdf ).
Here are a few of my own notes on the decision I have not seen the decision in full yet. The decision was perverse in the extreme. Under customary international law, the 1907 Hague regulations and the 1949 Geneva conventions, the military commander of the occupying authority must act within the occupied Palestinian territories(OPT) according to the narrow parameters of these laws which are:
1 Military needs and/or
2 To benefit the local protected population
Under article 55 of Hague, the commander or civil administrator is allowed to sell crops and minerals (using local labour) for the two reasons above.
The minerals in this case, quarrying material, under the rules of war may be mined (in this in my opinion the court made an error) in the same way and in the same proportion as was done before the occupation began(continuity). The problem for the court is that the quarries were opened after the occupation began, so the continuity which the court claimed should continue did not in fact exist. See paragraph 71, p19 of Yesh Din petition linked above.
Second, acting as trustee and administrator, the commander does not have the power to grant concessions or to transfer property rights and interest other than to ensure public order and safety in the OPT in breach of customary international law. See Hague regulation 43(the mini constitution of occupation). Obviously the sale of this material, 94% of which goes to Israel proper defeats the trust at the expense of the true beneficiary, the protected local population. The leasing of these property rights and interests, usually for 49 years with a further option also directly contradicts this trust, since occupation is supposed to be temporary. The usufructuary principle inherent in article 55 of Hague is breached in several other ways, the judge said mining did not affect the capital of the property – clearly this is not the case, the quarries have a finite existence and are not replaceable, as is for instance, fruit from a tree. As a non renewable public natural resource they are clearly Palestinian owned resources. WHAT IF THEY HAD BEEN DIAMONDS?
(1) An earlier decision in the Israeli high court which ruled that the Hague regulations prohibit
the exploitation of resources of occupied territory for the economic needs of the occupying country. “The military commander may not weigh national, economic, or social interests of his country in so far as they have no ramifications on his security interest in the area, or on the interest of the local population. Even military needs are his (i.e. the military commander’s) needs and not national security needs in the broad sense. Territory held in belligerent occupation is not an open field for economic or other kinds of exploitation” [HCJ 393/92 Teachers Housing Cooperative V Commander of IDF forces. Honourable justice A Barak 1983].
(2) The Israeli state attorney’s office relied on this principle in its response to the petition The Ma’ale Adumin Municipality filed to exempt it from paying for burying Palestinian waste in the Abu Dis waste-disposal site:
It is absolutely clear that the powers specified in Article 55 too are subject to the fundamental principal involving the powers of the military commander in territory that is subject to belligerent occupation, as appears from Article 43 (Hague 1907) whereby the area is not an open field for economic exploitation. Therefore the entire authority of the military commander in the region is exercised for security interests or for civilian needs of the population living in the territory, and this includes also the authority under Article 55.
(3) The issue of exploitation of natural resources of occupied territory arose following the occupation of Iraq by the forces of the USA and the UK, the two countries made a commitment to the UN security council that all the receipts from the Iraqi oil sector would be used for the Iraqi people, and would be kept in a separate fund from which only a recognised representative of the Iraqi people could draw (see UN resolution 1483 May 22nd 2003). The International court of justice at the Hague ruled that it was absolutely forbidden to utilise the natural resources of the occupied territory for the need of the occupying country and that by doing so breached article 43 (republic of Congo V Uganda. 19th December 2005).
The reasons advanced by the court in dismissing the petition are similar to the reasons the Israelis gave in drilling for oil in the Sinai peninsula, namely what was once desert was now a thriving industry (make the desert bloom) even the US government rejected that line of reasoning. Also in rejecting the petition judge Dorit Beinisch said the Isreal/Palestine interim agreement permits the quarries to operate in the present manner until a final status agreement is signed. This is also not correct, the PLO is legally prevented from entering into agreements with Israel that would undermine the interests of the Palestinian people under international law, even if such agreements were born out of mutual consent, because as a natural consequence of a state of belligerent occupation parties are not on an equal footing. This limits the ability of the authorities of the OPT to act freely without military pressure in the interests of the occupied population. The provisions set out in the Geneva convention prohibit the conclusion of agreements in which the imbalanced position of the two parties would coerce the authorities of the occupied territory to sign agreements hampering the rights of the occupied population.
Article 7(i) of the Geneva convention strictly prohibits the concluding of agreements that adversely affect the rights of protected persons and in all circumstances, customary international law trumps any administrative act by the occupier or any agreement entered into by representatives of the the occupied protected population. See http://www.alhaq.org/publications/publications-index/item/exploring-the-illegality-of-land-swap-agreements-under-occupation
Numerous UN resolutions, notably UN 465(1980) which the US did not veto, determined that Israel not change the physical character or demographic composition of the OPT are also instructive here, clearly Israel behaves above the law, and in a manner that thinks it owns the west bank, and all its resources. I can’t help thinking that judge Beinisch took some lessons from Tzipy Livni when the minister of justice said “I was minister of justice, I am a lawyer……but I am against law……international law in particular, law in general.”(the Palestinian papers). It is quite clear Palestinians seeking justice need not apply to the Israeli high court.
Dumb as a rock quarry. Quite so. Dennis Ross and I burst into whatever sort of print is available to us to give our “ideas for peace” which do not necessarily change much over time. His basic message, unstated, is “ignore human rights and international law and make hasbara points” and mine is “take heed of human rights and enforce international law” thereby removing most of the worst of the occupation (settlers, settlements, wall, siege).
But he is really “dumb as a post” in that he is unable to speak (“dumb”) on the most important points.
Did it take you until Obama’s administration to realize that Ross has only one idea, that Israel gets to take over pretty much whatever it can? As he managed to parlay into an esteemed diplomatic career his attendance at most of the bottlenecks, stalls and failures, wasn’t the fact that he was part of the Obama administration a bad sign?
Now you see what he was up to all along, and why Obama selected him: for cover.
Ross’s “idea” has been the same as Netanyahu’s: “do wonders for the overall Palestinian economy”, which means make some so comfortable that they don’t have much fight left, and make others so uncomfortable that they leave, or get injured or killed. While Israel surrounds them on all sides, they’re controlled by judicious application of pleasure and pain. That’s always been the plan.
screw ross, why does the WAPO continue to provide these neocons with platforms to distract people. ross has no desire to solve this so why’s he coming up with these little handouts designed to create an appearance of the good occupying power cronies being oh so helpful?
i’ll tell you why, because right now israel’s focus is on chopping off palestine from east jerusalem permanently and ethnically cleansing all of jerusalem, that’s why.
“Permitted?” If that doesn’t say it all about the mentality of the Occupiers and why a TSS is currently dead (stake through the heart by Israel’s own hand).
On the other hand, this decision provides clarity that that is the case, which may be a good thing in that it may foster some new problem-solving thinking in the US and Israel. Ross seems to have taken notice that this is in fact a problematic decision. What the means prospectively is anyone’s guess, but I think this decision shortens the time frame for a resolution to this conflict by some TBD amount, whatever the outcome.