Britain hymns Middle East democracy -- except the one it throws under the bus

Yisrael Medad

When noting that "the Mandate for Palestine...[]...required Britain as the Mandatory power to settle the Jews throughout these lands, a right which has never been abrogated in law", which is absolutely correct, it should also be pointed out that (a) that decision of the League of Nations was predicated on the historical connections the Jews have to that territory which included, at the least, what is Israel and Judea & Samaria and Gaza at present; (b) and that the decision was intended to "reconstitute" the Jewish national home, in other words, it already had existed (unlike the total non-existence of any Arab state ever in that region); and (c) the exact wording regarding a renewed Jewish presence there was "close settlement...[using] state and waste lands".

Reuven

Cameron: "It was also a chance for Britain to be seen to be doing something that might help to stabilise an otherwise dangerously volatile region that has the potential to destabilise the whole world because of its oil reserves."
This sentence takes the cake. The ARABS have the oil, not Israel, but somehow "something" has to be done to expunge the Arabs from responsibility in the potential to destabilize the whole world.

Graeme Thompson

"Anyone got a psychiatric term for this behaviour?"

Yeah, 'looney'.

Oflife

It really is all about oil. If Israel had oil, we would be in bed with them too. And as the Jews are notoriously terrible at PR, they cannot get the message across. It's not much different from those African tribes that were slaughtered a few years prior to 9/11 (800,000 if I recall). If they had the slick hate machine that the enemies of Israel have, the UN would have gone in and stopped the massacre. Well, until a major nation is able to come to the political rescue of Israel / The Jews, Israel is on it's own. Fortunately, it is blessed with top scientists and honorable thinkers who will ensure it survives whilst the rest of the area falls apart - if I may project a tone of optimism!

#likearock

Kate

The relevant article of the Mandate (Art.6) does not "require Britain to settle these Jews throughout these lands". It is rather more qualified and nuanced. The mandate also ended when the partition resolution was passed. You can't seriously be suggesting that it is somehow still in force? And while the missing "the" in 242 was certainly a deliberate omission designed to give space for negotiations on final borders it didn't affect the fact that 242 referred to the territories won in '67 as occupied. The IVth Geneva Convention is clear that facilitating the transfer of civilian populations onto occupied land is illegal. This is what the state of Israel has been doing. The settlement enterprise is dangerous and counterproductive. Those who really love Israel see that clearly. As many others have commented before it would be helpful if you set out your own vision for peace between the Palestinians and Israelis. The expansion of settlements across the West Bank make a viable two state solution impossible. They make even a unilateral withdrawal behind the separation barrier much harder to achieve. If you let them continue then the only outcomes will either be a genuine apartheid state or the forcible transfer of the Palestinian population out of the West Bank. Which do you advocate?

Simon

What exactly does Miss Philips think the borders of the state of Irael should be?

Victoria Williams

Your interpretation of the Mandate is not accurate. The pre-amble to the Mandate stated precisely that 'Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country''
Under any understanding of the current situation the rights of the Palestinians have not been respected, not least because their land has been taken, their houses demolished, their villages destroyed and populations displaced. The settlement building is the latest example of Israel building illegally on land they illegally occupy.
The British government has at long last stepped outside the shadow of the United States and joined over 130 countries in condemning Israel's actions. The only people who can conceivably not see the logic in this are blinkered supporters of the Israeli right - clearly Melanie numbers herself amongst them.

Kate

Since Yisrael Medad has so selectively quoted from Article 6 it is probably worth putting it down in full: "The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes."
Funny what bits the old "..." can elide over.

raymond jones

Come on now, you don't realy expect Expect Britain to be loyal to Israel when she is more
than capable of betraying Britain itself and indeed has done for 40yrs.Stop fretting over an imoral allie like Britain,we know what is going to happen dont we,Israel will stand at the gate of total defeat, and then the saviour will come and save the day,just watch the words of the prophets unfold before your face give it about three years,rough guess

Dr Michael Grave

Israel should withdraw intelligence support to the UK government until it follows a more balanced and principled foreign policy.

Irwin Ruff

You state "While America finally vetoed the UN motion slamming Israel’s ‘illegal’ settlements because it went too far even for Obama". I am afraid that this isn't true. Obama would have been overjoyed to vote for this motion, but he was constrained by overwhelming opposition from congress, as well as strong non-congressional opposition. He couldn't vote as he preferred in the face of so much domestic opposition. This was clearly shown by the post-vote statement of Susan Rice.

Stephen Rothbart

Victoria, please continue to read what Melanie said and don't just stop at the point where it suits you.

The Arabs never accepted the partition as defined by the UN.

They went to war. They lost. They refused to sign a peace treaty.

Therefore the borders were kept fluid, as is the way following the decisions of every victor in a war, since time began.

The Germans lost Danzig (what is now Gdansk) in Poland and much of Prussian Germany after their defeat in WW2 and they even signed a Peace treaty.

Alsace is still French even though once part of Germany, and the Sudetan lands around the Czech Republic are devoid of their original German inhabitants since WW2.

Russia occupies huge parts of what was once Japanese territory, which was formerly Chinese, and China occupies Tibet and some former Japanese islands.

India and Pakaistan both occupy parts of Kashmir.

Kurds would argue that Iran, Turkey and Iraq occupy their country, and Spain would argue that Britain occupies Gibralter, won through military means 350 years ago.

Austria is half the size it once was after the fall of the Hapsburg dynasty and the Austrian Hungarian Empire.

I am really at a loss as to why these Palestinians are considered more important than everyone else in the entire world.

What is so special about them?

Well perhaps it is not them that is so special.

After all Jordanians killed many more Palestinians than Israel has ever done.

Sunni regimes in Iraq and Egypt supressed their Shia fellow citizens and each and every Arab state is a serial violater of Human Rights against their own people, none more than Iran and Libya.

Yet the world and you, Victoria remained silent.

Nit picking about past treaties and their intentions, just because in the case of the Palestinian Arab, it a Jewish state that is the perceived villain of the piece, so all logic and all reason flies out of the window.

Can you imagine trying to enforce the Treaty of Versailles in 1918 today, after the events of WW2?

How stupid would people be to try that, yet that is what people like you want to do to Israel. And ONLY Israel.

Where is your indignation at Turkey occupying, still, parts of Cyprus?

Of course, not many Jews living in Turkey are there, eh?

As I have said many times before on this blog, in 1945, 35 million people in Europe were displaced. They are all settled and their descendants, with the excpetion of a few thousand Sudetan Germans, have gotten on with their lives.

Three years later a mere 600,000 Palestinian Arabs were dispossessed of their homes because many were advised to leave by their fellow Arabs pending an attack on Israel.

Some, it is true, were forced out by the rogue activities of a minority of Stern Gang and Irgun fighters, but most decided to leave.

Their gamble failed, their allies lost the war. Jews numbering about 800,000 were kicked out of their Arab homes, and settled elsewhere, some in Europe, some in the US and Canada and some in Israel.

They too got on with their lives.

Only the Palestinians think the world still owes them a living.

Oh sorry, make that the Palestinians and Dave and William, and apparently - you.

M. Bard

UN Resolution 242 called for negotiations between the parties to settle secure borders in exchange for peace - clearly accepting the ad hoc borders from various wars were not secure. The failures of the Mandate to fulfil its promises and the San Remo Conference would be relevant to any such negotiation if conducted fairly. A glance at the map - with the West Bank biting into the heartland of Israel and the history of previous conflicts, including the siege of Jerusalem in 1948 and the Jordanians taking the West Bank and East Jerusalem and cleansing them of Jews, would explain the need for such secure borders. The settlement policy can be seen in this light, since the important and substantial settlements ring Jerusalem and protect the narrow coastal plain from high ground over looking the coastal plain. It is a reasonable defensive strategy when dealing with a continued state of belligerence and the threat to annihilate the population of Israel, and as long as that continues, as it does, what ever the cost in international support and however inconvenient or counter productive in terms of achieving peace, it is a stance that any country would and should adopt to protect their citizens and vital, national interests, indeed their possible survival. There is of course a way out of it, which is to end incitement, renounce violence, end aggression and bellicose actions and mean it, but of course then they would have to stop believing in the 'liberation' of Palestine and start genuinely wanting a state and peace.

R Tonlin

Narcissist's

"The narcissist is described as being excessively preoccupied with issues of personal adequacy, power, prestige and vanity."
This sums up just about all of our preening self promoting politicians and what passes for diplomats nowadays.
Cosseted in a parisitical house of cards ....called the commons.

Time we had real Democracy here.

They despise our people and our
mores why should they care about Israel ??. Hustling Rubes with no honour or sense of loyalty in the real fight for our judeo christian civilisation.

Will S

Kate: "The expansion of settlements across the West Bank make a viable two state solution impossible."

I don't see why this necessarily has to be the case, Kate. Can a Palestinian state only be viable if it's an ethncially pure Arab state? If the Palestinians fully accepted Israel's right to exist and decisively abandoned terrorism (by which I mean not just refraining from carrying out terrorist acts, but putting an end to the glorification of terrorism and mass murder in their societies, as well as Jew-hatred), is it unthinkable that the settlements could be integrated into the Palestinian state?

To paraphrase your posting, those who really love the Palestinians see that clearly.

As for the "illegality" of the settlements, if they were built on land that had been confiscated from identifiable Arab owners, they would be so, but I am led to understand that most of them are built on un-owned land that nobody ever bothered to claim or occupy in the first place.

I regard myself as a moderate on the Israel-Palestine issue but I am most disappointed in the Cameron administration in this particular.

Paul

"Nor is it illegitimate. Israel is legally and morally entitled to be there. This was first enshrined in the terms of the Mandate for Palestine which required Britain as the Mandatory power to settle the Jews throughout these lands, a right which has never been abrogated in law."

No, completely wrong. The Mandate was specifically ended by the 1947 UN resolution which created Israel. It set the legal right of Israel to exist but also its legal boundaries. Israel occupation and settlement beyond these boudnaries is illegal. Settlement of occupied territory is specifically prohibited by international law.

"UN resolution 242 following the 1967 war, which in accordance with the precepts of international law do not require it to give up these areas unless the belligerents stop making war upon it. Which they have not"

The Arab league has unanimously offered, repeatedly, to make a comprehensive peace if Israel wihtdraws to the 1967 borders, which it has refused to do. So it cannot claim 242 gives it the right to hold onto the land. And even if it did, it still cannot settle such land - see above.

Saladin

Arabia is awake!

Who would try to be the ebb of this great flow? Nothing makes makes me happier than watching and reading Phillips hysteria as nations rise against fascist tyrants. The sheer amount of lies spouted by Phillips would keep the PCC busy for years

The era of Camp David is now a mere memory. Palestine is not alone anymore. This is wonderful. I have a feeling that I will be able to visit Al Quds in my life time! Awesome.

Alex Bensky

Simon, I'm not sure what Melanie thinks the final borders of Israel should be, but there's no reason to think they should necessarily be the pre-1967 lines.

From the 1949 Rhodes armistice agreement onward, the Arab states were clear and adamant that these were not and never would be borders; they were cease-fire lines only. The Arabs had agreed to stop fighting there for the moment but the lines would be crossed when the time was ripe to eliminate the Zionist entity.

Somehow, though, after several failures to erase the Zionist indignity the pre-1967 lines began to assume a certain permanence.

But I think the Arabs should be taken at their oft-expressed word. Whatever the borders may be, the Arabs themselves didn't think they were the pre-1967 lines

Okey

"Britons never, never, never will be slaves"????
Give me a break, clowns.

Okey

Kate, the 4th Geneva Convention applies only in cases where the territory of one state is brought under the control of another state. Judea and Samaria, prior to their liberation by Israel in 1967, were not part of any state, but had been under illegal Jordanian occupation since 1949, and Gaza had been under illegal Egyptian occupation since 1949.
Was your assertion an error, born of lack of comprehensive knowledge about this Convention, or was it disingenuousness?

charles soper

UK foreign policy is becoming increasingly perverse and myopic.
It reminds me of Christ's verdict on his own generation, like children piping in the marketplace.

Joshua

@Kate
Melanie is absolutely right. Israel is legally and morally right to be there for the reasons she gives. You would be right about the Partition Plan of 1947 becoming the new legal borders, but for the very crucial fact that whilst the Jews agreed it, the Arabs did not, and by May 1948 chose war to destroy the nascent Jewish State. That however did not change the legal status quo ante and since there has been no peace agreement, Balfour (1917), San Remo (1920), League of Nations and the Treaties of Sevres and Lausanne stand on all fours.

If there is to be a compromise in future between the Arabs and Jews, whatever is agreed then will become the new legal borders. Until then, no power has any right to dictate another's borders or undo a country. That's the legal position.

Of course we can all have our own views as to what and where the compromise should be, but illegal it weren't then and it ain't now.

Joshua

@Kate

You are quite correct on the point about not prejudicing the rights of non-Jews and indigenous peoples, but those are not rights regarding legal sovereignty. The continuing conflict and failure by Arabs to make the peace has at times made strict enforceability of those rights impossible, in favour of applying security measures to protect those who are entitled to legal sovereignty.

James

The real point about the settlements is that it's one of the few bargaining chips tiny Israel has. Why on earth should they be required to give them up outside of the sphere of a negotiated settlement? This isn't pieces on a chess board, this is, for a state surrounded by far larger nations who either officially (in most cases) or unofficially seek its destruction, life and death. It's not only about the Israelis and Palestinians, it's about Israel caught in a vast and hostile region. The settlements are on the table, if only the Palestinians would come to it.

VEBott

"We reject in the strongest terms the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity."

" Continued settlement activity violates Israel’s international commitments, devastates trust between the parties, and threatens the prospects for peace…"

Who said it?

US Ambassador Susan E. Rice, as she vetoed the motion.

Melanie may echo the absurd wriggling of the Israeli right, but the entire world knows that continued settlement is a way of rejecting a two state solution.

Now Melanie may agree with Sharon; Jordan is Palestine, and one day the tanks will roll and drive every Palestinian out of Eretz Israel and across the river. If so, she could at least tell us.

Adam B.

Victoria Williams, your own "interpretation" is hardly accurate. You jump from the wording of the preamble to the Mandate to your own personal views, recounting them as if there was no debate.

You declare that the Palestinians' rights have not been respected, because "their land has been taken, their houses demolished, their villages destroyed and their population displaced".

Did you forget to mention that there was a war in 1948 - a war initiated by the Arabs who had rejected the 1947 partition plan (they had rejected the partition plan of 1937 as well), a war whose goal was the eradication of the reborn Jewish state? Was the Mandate supposed to have foreseen Arab rejectionism, and was it written to apply in circumstances of full blown war? Is that what the authors had in mind? I don't think so.

Incidentally, as for "their land" - it was not - and never had been, either as an independent Arab entity, nor was most of it privately owned. Whilst it is true that some Palestinian Arabs did lose their homes which were indeed privately owned, so did Jews who were ethnically cleansed from Jerusalem by the Arab Legion, Jews in other parts of Judea and Samaria, and the small matter of 900,000 Jews ethnically cleansed from the Arab world. Houses are not indiscriminately demolished, as you imply. Perhaps, without the Arab rejection of a two state solution all those decades ago, such a war would never have been fought.

Adam B.

Paul - who does the land belong to then? It was captured from Jordan, who had themselves seized it in 1948.

And what should happen to the Jews who live in the Old City of Jerusalem, (which includes the Jewish and Armenian quarters, neither of which are Arab, and also the holiest Jewish site on earth), as elsehwere in Judea and Samaria? Should the Jews be kicked out?

Rob-NY

"Anyone got a psychiatric term for this behaviour".
Not exactly but how about this. "He who bites the hand that feeds him will kiss the boot the kicks him".

Flora

Clearly the question being put, but never really answered by Ms Phillips, is one of borders. Like Benjamin Netanyahu, she is persistently coy and evasive about this.

But following her reasoning over time, it is hard not to conclude that she is finally an 'Eretz Israel" backer with 'Judea' and 'Samaria' as part of Israel.

Two questions follow.
Firstly, and in the short term, what is to be done with the ARABS who happen to have lived in this area for at least hundreds of years. As is widely acknowledged, they would, without 'transfer', soon constitute the majority of the Israeli population. So??

Second issue/question. Define Eretz Israel? According to some Old Testament definitions we are talking borders way beyond the West Bank - at least up to the Litani and maybe well towards the Euphrates.

As a supporter of Israel's survival,I just wish the Israelis would try to find some positive relationships in the area - like Turkey, anascendent power that doesn't like it's ambassador being deliberately and gloatingly humiliated on camera or it's citizens being shot dead on the high seas

Okey

Paul, you are absolutely mistaken in asserting that the 1947 UN General Assembly partition resolution superseded the League of Nations Mandate.
The 1947 resolution was a recommendation only, and unenforcable; the League of Nations Mandate was mandatory, and enforcable.
Face it: the leadership, and much of the populace of Araby just don't want a sovereign Jewish-majority state to exist.
The Jewish People therefore need to continue to reinforce 'the iron wall" of resistance to Arab belligerence and aggression.

john

Does Kate mean like occupied Cyprus and occupied Japan? Or does she only have eyes for the Palestinians? Why doesn't she stand up to thuggish Russia and thuggish Turkey. Or is she just a wee lass and doesn't like a bit of the rough?

Merlin

The LSE Students' Union said it was "totally unjustifiable and contradictory of LSE to operate on funds which contravene its guiding principles".

"We welcome the School's decision to take no further funding from the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation; however, we believe that this does not go far enough.

"The school should take action to ensure that the money that was stolen from the Libyan people for our benefit, is now used for the benefit of Libyan people."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12537155

CS

Whatever the psychiatric term for the behaviour, it has to be slightly less lunatic than still believing in Bronze Age superstitious crap in the 21st century.

Sounder

"psychiatric term for this behavior"

Leftist Schizophrenia Disorder (LSD), with a little accidental splash of conservatism, but not much.

Ganpat Ram

It's not a matter of anybody's law that Israel should leave the West Bank. It is just self-preserving common sense for Israel. In a couple decades the Arabs will be a MAJORITY in Israel plus the West Bank. How then can the Jewish state survive?

If Israel keeps the West Bank, it is effectively conceding victory to the Arabs who wish to destroy Israel.

If Phillips thinks otherwise she is very welcome to try the experiment.

Jerry

Re Victoria Williams: San Remo stands as the basis for Israeli claims to Judea and Samaria. Indeed, Jordan took those areas in 1948 in an Arab war of aggression and Israel merely took those areas back in another Arab war of aggression in 1967. Perhaps if the Arabs would be willing to sign an End of Conflict statement that is enforceable, Israel might cede some of the land back to them, but under any system of rational thought, they have no particular reason to do so otherwise.

Most important, with regard to Victoria Williams' understanding of the matter, the new Palestinian state will be free of Jews. Her solution is not one she would choose for herself. I am certain that she is a fan of multiculturalism. It would seem that the current mixing of Jews and Arabs in Judea and Samaria should suit her better.

charlotte

Hamas-Hezbollah derangement syndrome

Derek BLADES

The 1922 League of Nations Mandate for “Palestine” (what is now Israel, Gaza and the occupied West Bank) provided for the United Kingdom to arrange for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people". This cannot possibly be interpreted as requiring "...Britain as the Mandatory power to settle the Jews throughout these lands [of Palestine]..."

The British government is right to condemn Israel's land theft in the occupied territories. It is designed to eliminate the possibility of a two-state solution and guarantees continued strife in the Middle East and recruitment of Moslem youth to radical causes. Obama understands that too but like his predecessors his hands are tied by the Israeli Lobby in the United States. We can only hope that in his second term he will feel free to do what he and all sensible people on both sides of the Atlantic know is in the real interests of both Israel and the United States.

kate

Will S - in theory you are correct and, of course, during the Annapolis negotiations the chief Palestinian negotiator Abu Ala said that Israelis could continue to live in the settlements as Palestinian citizens if Israel paid compensation for the land. In reality very few settlers - not none, there is a movement in the Gush Etzion area that is talking about this because they prioritise their connection to the land above their connection to Israel - would be willing to accept that. Structurally a state founded with a population of two traditional antagonists in which the majority is also the poorer by a factor of around 15 is going to be pretty unstable. Interestingly your argument could equally apply to a one-state solution for all of Mandate Palestine which is something some sensible secular Palestinians and hard-left Israelis advocate.

The issue of building on state or private land is more complicated than that. The Spiegel report (an Israeli internal report) suggested that about one third of the settlements are built on privately-owned Palestinian land confiscated without compensation by Israel (through e.g. military orders). The majority of the rest is built on what was "state land" prior to '67. It's still illegal under international law because the state is facilitating the transfer of the population either through actual construction or through provision of utilities and infrastructure.

Okey - I'm sure you know that it is only Israel that claims that the West Bank is disputed rather than occupied territory (the situation is more complicated in Gaza). The International Court of Justice and International Committee of the Red Cross both assert the applicability of GCIV to the West Bank (and East Jerusalem). The Israeli Supreme court has also stated that it considers Israel to be in belligerent occupation of the West Bank (the test for applicability).

Joshua - I'm clearly not saying that borders of Israel and Palestine are set. They aren't. Not least because Palestine doesn't exist. It's one reason why no country in the world has an embassy in Jerusalem. I'm saying that the partition resolution ended the mandate. That's just a simple fact. As is that San Remo and Balfour had no legal status when they were written, never mind now.

Grumpy true Zionist

saw cameroon,s speech in egypt - he looked like a tacky, sweaty little salesman, desperate to make a pitch, even if he had to give away the store in the process (let alone trying to hang Israel out for the vultures)

it was a truly nauseating sight to behold, and was mainly done for economic benefit and oil supply

little brittain has gotten to the point, that even having their prime sniveller, sniffing up the jalabas, of their arab economic masters, newspapers out of Israel, largely ignored this little sop to the arab world, and instead carried pieces on Bibi acknowledging Obama's/Rice's stance in the SC

cameroon needs to get back home so that he can keep the students off the streets, get the garbage collected, make nice with the kids at school by telling them about his BIG SOCIETY for teeny britain

Gershon

@Paul

You tell us that the 1947 UN resolution that created Israel also set its legal boundaries and that settlement beyond these boundaries is illegal. you then tell us that Israel has no right to hold on to any land beyond the 1967 borders (better called the 1949 armistice agreement lines). Yet there are areas that are within the 1947 partition plan yet outside the 1949 armistice lines. Please let us know whether, in your opinion, Israel is allowed to settle there or not.

Okey

Kate: further to my previous post re the inapplicability of the 4th Geneva Convention to Israel's situation, there is an additional reason that it is inapplicable, viz., the Convention prohibits FORCED transfers of population, but the Jews who have made their homes in the ancestral homeland of Judea, Samaria (as well as previously in Gaza) did so VOLUNTARILY.
Those "world leaders" who invoke the Convention are either ignorant or disingenuous. I suspect the latter.
If you doubt me, please read the terms of the Convention, together with the annexes and other relevant documents.

Grumpy true Zionist

for those who would like to view another enlightened take on the west's view on the (so called) Israel/palistinian situation may i recommend another outstanding/insightful and logical take on the issue on The Sultan Knish blogsite by Daniel Greenfield

for those such as tilly, kate,victoria (all sooo very english) and of course our resident lead nutter....ahem dB, you will realise that our dear Mel, is not alone and like other un-blinkered individuals is way way ahead of the curve, in understanding the real and present danger
Bravo!

Grumpy true Zionist

'i just wish that Israel would try and find some positive relationships in the area'

yes and i so wish that the tooth fairy was still around, so that when i loose em for the second time around, he'll be there to comfort me

are they factory farming these nutters!

Israel's relationship with turkey started going down the toilet long before, any insults were traded (notice you don't mention the disrespect shown by erdogan to an elder statesman Shimon Peres) or before a harmless bunch of med holiday cruisers got it into their heads to bust past the Israeli navy, which is trying to prevent this from happening.
the relatioship changed when a suave suited bunch of islamists took control of turkey, and in so doing turned it eastwards towrds its new best friends...iran

thats when any wishful thinkers concluded....this is now the new realpolitik in this particular case

TZANCHAN

Melanie

Why the hell are you so surprised?

Stephen Rothbart

Saladin, acually, unless you are a criminal or a terrorist, you can go visit Jerusalem any time.

Only the Jordanians made it a no go area for other religions when they controlled it.

Yes, what a great thing to see the Arabs rise up against their oppressive leaders all over the Middle East. Even if they are running around shooting each other, looting their museums, sexually assaulting female journalists and scrawling the Star of David on anything they are opposed to, while chanting vile anti-Jewish vitriol as they run through the streets. Not all, I grant you, but enough to make most people with humanastic values disgusted by their behaviour.

So, please Saladin, go and visit multi-cultural ethnically diverse Jerusalem and enjoy what makes Israel the only country in the MIddle East, not entirely dependent on oil, a vibrant democratic country, with equality for women, gays and religious worship, and where Arabs are actually able to be in the Parliament.

Oh, Saladin, a Parliament is where politicians elected by their people go and make decisions about their country, and if they ose the vote, they do not send out their secret police and army to void the election.

Yes, that happens in the Middle East. It's a place called Israel.

Note how many people are storming the streets in Israel because they do not have democracy.

Your friends and allies are still in the dark ages when it comes to anything like that.

The Caliphate concept might be good for you, but enlightened modern society rejects its limited xenophobic values.

Except of course, Dave and William, it seems.

Roy

The forces of evil have spread their lies about Israel for 3/4 of a century. What they couldn't do by war they have nearly succeeded by the spread of untruths. Repeating to the gullible western media with their ignorant leaders, until it is taken as fact. Israel could be so much an asset to the area. Its neighbours though, see only blind hate, and would sooner have rock and desert than a productive hive of industry, that would bring work and stability to all.

Paul

Adam B. "who does the land belong to then? It was captured from Jordan, who had themselves seized it in 1948." Well its not Israel's. It was the land of the Psalestinian state set up by UN 1947 resolution. And more importantly it belongs to the poeple who actually live there. Its not Israel's, it is an occupying force.

Andy Gill

Saladin

" I have a feeling that I will be able to visit Al Quds in my life time!"

Actually its called Jersualem, and you are welcome to visit it any time you like.

You see unlike the Arab states which have ethnically cleansed their countries, and unlike Jordan which closed East Jerusalem to Jews, Israel is not a racist country, and the holy places of all religions are protected.

Go there. You might learn something.

NicoleS

The settlements are not an obstacle to peace. There are serious proposals on the table for land swaps that leave the bigger ones in place while establishing a viable Palestinian state. It is the Palestinian leadership that repeatedly finds pretexts to reject these proposals. The truth is that they dare not present any compromise to their own people, since they build on hatred of Israel as a base for their own power. There is your stumbling block.

Paul

Okey "the Convention prohibits FORCED transfers of population, but the Jews who have made their homes in the ancestral homeland of Judea, Samaria (as well as previously in Gaza) did so VOLUNTARILY."

Two comments:

1 - Yes but did the Palestinians who lived there give up their homes and land voluntarily?

2 - "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." So it doesn't matter if the settlers were voluntary or not. The Geneva convetion specifically forbids transferring civilian population into areas occupied.

Derek Pasquill

British foreign policy in the Middle East is one long litany of failure, disaster, fumblings and awkward interventions - the idea that the present Government could be a force for good in the region is risible.

Fernando Carreras

"The sheer amount of lies spouted by Phillips would keep the PCC busy for years"

Well, I find it ungallant on your part, Saladin, to accuse Melanie Phillips of lying without mentioning a single example of the alleged lies.

"The era of Camp David is now a mere memory"

With this, you are undoubtely refering to your hope that countries like say, Egypt, will put an end to their farcical "peace" with Israel, and resume a fully fledged belligerancy against the only country in the Middle East that is not a hell-hole of tiranny, corruption and bigotry.

I have two questions for you though:

IF Egypt abrogates its "peace" treaty with Israel, will Egypt give back to Israel the Sinai and the accumulated oil & gas riches Israel gave to Egypt in exchange for a piece of paper? Or what you propose is that Egypt behaves like an A-word pickpocketer?

IF the Egyptians resume belligerancy, and as it is traditional, the Egyptians get their sandy backsides kicked all over the Sinai all the way to Cairo - would you start whinning about "occupation" "zionist conspiracy" "crimes" "poor, poor Palestinians"? or would you have the decency of saving us yet another pityful letany?

TDH

It is not enough for the Zionists that they succeeded. They have their state. We must all accept their righteousness in acquiring it.

It is odd to rely on the carve-up dressed up as the League of Nations. It may have represented international law - but righteous?

It is odd to rely on the squalid politicking that produced the UN General Assembly vote.

It is odd to require the Palestinian Arabs to acquiesce. - Israel has defied the UN ever since.

The instructions from the Foreign Office to the British delgation at the UN (remember that Britian was still the Mandate power):

" The decision of November 29th instructed the UN Commission to take various steps in Palestine culminating in the establishment of Jewish and Arab states with economic union...Most of these stpes have not been taken and if a Jewish state is proclaimed it will be setting itself up by its own efforts and not through acts of the UN Commission."

Is it not enough that Israel's unilateral declaration was successful and was recognised?

If the detail of 1947/8 proves uncomfortable, fall back on the Mandate.

But the Mandate guaranteed the civil rights of the majority of the population who were not Jewish immigrants. And civil rights explicitly included political rights.

Why insist on righteous? Is success not enough?

What state can claim righteousness?

kuragin

Article 49 paragraph 6 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/380?OpenDocument

The commentary on the Fourth Geneva Convention provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross states

"This clause was adopted after some hesitation, by the XVIIth International Red Cross Conference (13). It is intended to prevent a practice adopted during the Second World War by certain Powers, which transferred portions of their own population to occupied territory for political and racial reasons or in order, as they claimed, to colonize those territories. Such transfers worsened the economic situation of the native population and endangered their separate existence as a race."
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/COM/380-600056?OpenDocument

This indicates that Article 49 is expressly intented to deal with the current situation whereby Israel has transferred about 5% of its population to the Occupied Palestinian Territories with intent to colonize it.

In 2001, the "participating High Contracting Parties reaffirmed the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem"
http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/misc/5fldpj.htm#1

The UN Security Council affirmed in Resolution 446 that " Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949 1/ is applicable to the Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem,"
http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/ba123cded3ea84a5852560e50077c2dc?OpenDocument

It seems that every relevant political and legal body considers the Palestinian Territories to be occupied by Israel. Perhaps we need a psychiatric term for those who continue to dispute what is evidently true.

cyllan

"Anyone got a psychiatric term for this behaviour?"

yeah, is called bullying the weak

Ian

LSE suspends study program financed by Gaddafi’s son
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=209449
is it 3 or 4 former presidents of the LSE's Islamic Society that have been convicted of terrorism?

Okey

Kate, all these agencies and bodies which you cited, as well as governments, feel free to violate international law as it applies to the Arab_Israeli conflict because they know that they can get away with it.
Are the Jews going to declare war on "the world?"
That's how the world is run.
That's why the Jewish People need to continually reinforce "the iron wall" of resistance against Arab/Islamic belligerence and genocidal intent, and against "world "hypocrisy and injustice by availing itself of opportunities to forge links with nations that are untainted by antisemitism, such as China and India.
Czechoslovakia was not a Jewish state in 1938-39. It was a pillar of European civilisation.
"The enlightened world", however, using the basest rationalisations and sophistry, betrayed that democracy and handed it to Hitler on a platter. So obviously "the world" is / will be even more accommodating to today's genocidal maniacs who want to destroy Jewish independence. "The enlightened world" perpetrated the destruction of one-third of an entire nation, including 1.5 million children.
And today it stands by while other genocides are perpetrated.
The Jewish People will either overcome the Arab-Islamic-hypocritical Western coalition or it will perish.
I'm confident that we'll prevail.

Will J

While Israel has itself repeatedly offered to give the West Bank to be part of a Palestinian state, nevertheless the land can't reasonably be described as "occupied", whatever courts may say, since occupation requires there to be a state which has been occupied. But the only state who could reasonably claim to have been invaded and occupied in the West Bank is Israel, in 1948. Since then it has been a disputed territory - disputed not just between Israel and the PLO, but between the PLO and Jordan.

Just because there is a plan to make somewhere part of a future state that doesn't suddenly make the land "occupied", as though the proposed state already exists. Where else is such poor reasoning applied? There is simply no historical state whose land Israel can be said to be occupying. This is surely obvious.

On the other hand, I agree that buliding settlements is bad politics. And while the argument that the towns could become part of the Palestinian State are sound, it is also right to point out that there will be serious internal problems between a wealthy Jewish minority and a poor Arab majority.

Preposteroso

"Psychiatric term" - How about Cognitive Camerosity?

Mark

Dr Michael Grave:

"Israel should withdraw intelligence support to the UK government until it follows a more balanced and principled foreign policy."

The United States attempted to threaten us with this in order to hush up illegal rendition and torture - basically: 'we will let your get civilians get killed unless you do as we say'.

I very much hope you're not a British citizen.

As for the mendaciously selective hogwash concerning Israel's rights to build on occupied land, this has amply been exposed by Kate.

Stephen Rothbart

Nicole S, you are not quite right about the settlements. Some are illegal and were built by some pretty odious people who are almost as bigoted and vile as their xenophobic enemies.

Thankfully they are small in number and not popular among the main Israeli public.

If ever an Israeli government could find a meaningful partner to make peace with from the Palestinian side, they would have to be given up and probably would be. Not without an unpleasant fight though, and why should any Israeli government have that fight now when they have been offered nothing in return?

Paul, you are also half right. But Palestine is not and never was a State, so it is wrong to say that Israel occupies what was part of a Palestinian state.

Nevertheless, if the Arabs had accepted the original partition and not gone to war, they would still have all they were given.

The point is that the Arabs mainly left voluntarily from their homes, but that was based on their belief that their fellow Arabs were going to come back and kill all the Jews and destroy Israel, so that land was no longer an issue.

Some were indeed forced out by the same sort of people that now live in illegal settlements.

Again, a small number, but Israel also has dirty hands sometimes. Let's not pretend she is without any guilt.

No nation on Earth is without guilt.

It's just Israeli guilt is all the world and the UN and the EU seems to care about.

That is the whole point here.

Everyone can find an event or an action to blame any one or any leader if that is what you want, whether it is the Vatican in Rome, the RAF during WW2, the French, the Russians etc. no matter, every nation has dirty linen somewhere and no where more than amongst the very people Obama and Cameron are falling all over themselves to suck up to.

But why is the entire problem of the Middle East always laid at the door of Israel?

That I think, is the main point of all these blogs by Melanie and us Zionists.

By constantly harping on about the injustice to the Palestinians and the settlements (including Jerusalem now, thanks to Obama's blunder), Cameron and William Hague and the UN and the EU are giving these Arab states their "Get Out of Jail Free" cards.

It is bogus.

How long before some Arab leader says, "well if you want democracy in the Middle East, first you must impose the same sanctions on Israel for their treatment of the Palestinians?"

That is the danger that Cameron has opened up.

Soon it will be Israel, the only truly democratic nation in the Middle East, that will be held up as blocking demoracy in the Middle East!

Cameron and Hague are fools. They appear to know as much about the history of the Middle East as Cameron knew about the US involvement in WW2 - very little.

I am so disappointed in this man.

I think he means well, but is badly advised by the usual Arabists in the Foreign Office and thus ill informed.

garyL

The UN resolution in 1947 was only a recommendation. The UN's own Charter forbids the UN from creating or altering states. The UN didn't create Israel - the Jews living there did. This was followed by the UN's acceptance of the state of Israel as a member of the UN. Read the bl*** documents instead of pompous chucking around phrases about "international law". There is no international law about establishment of sovereign statehood.

Raymond D

Whilst I wish no ill on anyone, it is good, for once, to see Israel out of the worlds cross hairs. Our dear old BBC, has been forced to confront, the awful nature of these Arab countries governmental records. Even when faced with the unprovoked aggression of Israel's enemies, Israel has never acted in a way that Gaddafi et al is threatening. Would be nice, though, if the BBC could acknowledge the high standards of Israeli civil life just for once !

Sergey

So-called "Two-states solution" is DOA. It will never be implemented, since no Arab leader wants it. Let us not fool ourself anymore that this is possible. Repatriation of Arab population of WB to Jordan or another Arab country is the only realistic prospect.

MairT

@ Grumpy Zionist

Thanks for mentioning the Sultan Knish/Daniel Greenfield blog, good to see some decent journalism albeit that I am a follower of Melanie who does not mince her words.

I watched David Cameron talking with Arab students today and I had to switch the TV off due to it being so nauseating. He is a first class prat and totally out of touch with this country.

Paul

GaryL "The UN resolution in 1947 was only a recommendation." which is binding as it concerned a mandated territory and it was passed by 2/3rds majority, as required.

THe UN is/was perfectly free to create and recognise states that were Mandates and the ex colonial territories.

Read the documents.

Paul

Stephen Rothbart - if only all zionists (or the ones I seeon this blog anyway) were as reasonable as you. Yes Israel is not perfect but as you say so are lots of other countries. Israel does have lots of enemies and it should be defended as a democracy but can we not have a bit more reasonable policy from it regarding a peace settlement?

Derek BLADES

Stephen Rothbart tells us that some settlements are illegal. Could he tell us what makes a settlement by Israeli citizens in the occupied territory legal? And please don't be so silly as to refer to Israeli law in your answer.

kate

John writes: "Or is she just a wee lass and doesn't like a bit of the rough?"

Nothing like the sound of sad sexist desperation. If your brain is too small to deal with the arguments best not to draw attention to the much larger organ dangling from your forehead.

Matt Pryor

Ah but if the intention is to appear independent from the US, who's to say we wouldn't have used our veto if America hadn't?

Steve

Kate,

You seem more intelligent, balanced and well-informed than the majority of Israel bashers that clog up these sites; but I note that you refuse to address the issue of your obvious obsession with this tiny land dispute.

Could you give me chapter and verse on the ownership rights of Strasborg? What about the Basques claims for independence from Spain? Do you know everything there is to know about that as well? What about the border disputes between India & Pakistan? Do you know all the IN resolutions relating to that? Probably not.

Have you ever stopped for one second to wonder where this maniacal obsession comes from?

Is it because they is Jooish?

fred

Stephen Rothbart is right to point out a double standard applied to Israel. It is indeed a much more democratic and civilised country than its neighbours, and deserves respect as such.

But of course, the fact that Israel is democratic and civilised is a reason why such high standards of behaviour are expected from it in the first place. When the West stops being shocked by Israeli misdemeanors, however slight in comparison to other crimes in the region, it will be a sad sign of the decline of Israel's international standing.

Which is a longwinded way of saying that perhaps we regard Israel as being 'part of the club' in some way. One of us. And we expect it to behave accordingly. When Arab dictators carry out atrocities meanwhile we have, up till now, tended to shrug our shoulders – we expect no better.

There are two other perfectly valid reasons why Israel attracts such scrutiny. First - it is perceived as being in the strongest position to break the current deadlock in the peace process. For all the talk of threatening neighbours, Israel holds the whip hand. Second – Israel is heavily supported by the US, perhaps our closest ally. That makes its actions relevant to us in a way that the actions of many worse countries are not.

One last thing: Kate, thanks so much for your very clear and useful posts on the legal situation. Hard for a legal ignoramus like me to see my way to any answers in this argument, but you helped a lot. And your response to John, above, is hilarious....

O-Dog

If "Israel is legally and morally entitled" to be in Judea and Samaria, are you trying to argue the case that the Pal residents of that land should be entitled to participate in Israeli democracy?

TDH

If the West Bank is not Jordan's (which it wasn't and isn't), nor is it Israel's.

Israel is trying to repeat 1948's acquisition of land by miltary force (only now it has to do it in slow motion).

Then it claimed that by force of arms it could dictate what territory was Israel's. The Palestinians had rejected partition (all three-quarters of a million or just their self-appointed leaders?) - so got what they deserved, regardless of any international law.

Israel had the territory which, before it agreed to the partition plan, its leaders had indicated it needed. The Palestinians it wished did not live there were now absent. There is a question in retrospect whether it was wise to keep all it had taken and keep out the refugees it was bound by the UN to take back. The record of Lausanne and bilateral talks suggests peace was possible.

It was similar after 1967.

If 242 talked of small mutually agreed adjustments to borders, it also assumed that the pre-1967 borders were the basis for negotiation, and the territory, other than agreed by both sides, was not to be retained by Israel, certainly not settled by Israel. Israel's strategy has been to swallow up more and more and demand the other side accept. This is not 242.

The equivocation allowed by the English version of 242 (and by deliberate deception of the Arab delegates) is not to be found in the French. Should Israel rely so on one definite article?

In 1967, Israel's chief law officer told the government that settling the West Bank was illegal. Moshe Dayan said as much while advocating settlement nonetheless.

There is no part of the above article that bears scrutiny.

Pat Viliors

First of all, the "settlements" are not the issue blocking peace. The problem lies with the Palestinian authorities' refusal to officially acknowledge Israel as the "Jewish state". We're not talking about the West Bank or Gaza here - it's ANY of Israel - So how can you negotiate with people who want you wiped off the map?

Secondly, these so-called "settlements" that the BBC et al calls "illegal" - they are no such thing. There was never any legal partitioning of the West Bank - it's ALL Israel - it's just that mainly Arabs live there.

It's like that cleric who screamed at that MP who came to East London, "How dare you enter a Muslim area?" Simply having a majority somewhere doesn't make it yours. People can see this when it applies to the UK, but somehow when it comes to Israel, they don't .

The poor Palestinians are pawns in their leaders' and imams' power-plays. Go to Israel (I have many times) and speak to any Gazan - you'll find they'd LOVE to be back under Israeli rule.

Campbell

Steve: I am sure Kate will be well able to defend herself should she read your distinctly off-colour comment but in case she doesn't:

There are possibly readers of this blog who could give you chapter and verse on the topics you cited but Kate is by no means alone in being able to cite chapters and verses on the topic of Israel/Palestine/Judah and Samaria/The West Bank as even a cursory scroll down the comments would have shown you.

That these topics, Strasbourg, the Pays Basque, are not regularly brought up by Melanie and the Commentators probably accurately represents the potential apocalyptic consequences of the situation in Israel remaining unresolved.

To accuse Kate of a maniacal obsession because she is well informed about the history of Israel in this blog of all blogs is to directly insult its author. I rarely, if ever, agree with Melanie's conclusions but I have no doubt that she has the facts at her fingertips and is quite right so to do.

And tell me - I am really genuinely interested what was going through your mind when you wrote 'Jooish' rather than Jewish?

Steve

TDH

"...Israel is trying to repeat 1948's acquisition of land by miltary force ..."

What no mention of Arab aggression? Not relevant at all to you then? Or perhaps you just don't know history, is that it?

This took 5 seconds to obtain from the interweb...

"...After the Arab rejection of the 1947 UN General Assembly Resolution 181 that would have created an Arab state and a Jewish state side by side, five Arab states - Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria - attacked Israel, which had declared its independence on the eve of final British withdrawal..."

TDH? More like TDous!

Paul

Steve "Have you ever stopped for one second to wonder where this maniacal obsession comes from? Is it because they is Jooish?"

The frequent, and lazy, response to criticism of Israel is that it is some sport of uniquely obsessive anti-semitism.

South Africa had equally "obsessive" attention for how it treated blacks. Was the world anti-White Protestant then? The world has been equally "obsessive" about Burma's treatment of ASSK, US involvement in Vietnam, the Soviet Unions occupation of Afghanistan etc etc etc. These issues come and go.

Israel has been occupied thi territory for 34 years so that it why we are all still talking about it. It is actually one of the very few military occupations in the world and when a war erupts with neighbours it is also one of the few shooting wars between neighbouring countries in the world, so it is an unusual situation.

Israel is committing a terrible wrong in occupying the West Bank and turning Gaza into a prison. The Palestinians are treated as second class citizens in the place they were born, in their own homes. Its stealing their land and moving in its own settlers.

This is just wrong. The fact that Israel is a democracy doesn't make it ok - any more than Britain being a democracy made its empire ok.

Paul

Pat Viliors "So how can you negotiate with people who want you wiped off the map?"

Easily. Britain did it with the IRA who wanted Northern Ireland wiped off the map. The USA and USSR negotiated during the cold war. The end of the Bosnian war. The recent Sudanese civil war etc etc. The fact is that you negotiate with enemies who very often wish to wipe your country off the map. But as long as the recognise this is simply not going to happen then you can negotiate. Even Hamas for all its blood curdling rhetoric has offered peace based on 1967 borders and an extended truce.

"There was never any legal partitioning of the West Bank - it's ALL Israel - it's just that mainly Arabs live there"

Oh really? Can they vote in Israel's elections then?

Israelis need to accept that if they hold on to the West Bank and maintain their claim to that territory then they are going to end up in majority Muslim country, becoming even more like the embattled South African apartheid regime. Is that really waht they want? The alternatives are to a) expel the Palestinians b) make peace

Steve

Campbell,

In case you hadn't noticed the notion of speaking up for Kate is quite likely to be dismissed as 'sexist' so you should probably let her speak up for herself.

It may be that 'Kate' is from Palestine or Jordan or perhaps even Israel. This would more than adequately explain her 'obsession'.

As you well know, Melanie Phillips is Jewish and has a vested interested in the 'facts' as do, I imagine, many other posters here (the use of names such as 'GrumpyZionist & Joshua sort of give the game away there). These people cannot be criticized in the same way that comfortable Westerners with their wonky moral compasses and petty, borderly antisemetic fetishism of so-called Jewish atrocities.

As a non-Israeli-non-Jew-non-Arab, this subject fascinates me because of the sheer quantity of gross bullying that the inhabitants of this tiny piece of land suffer in spite of more than 60 years of their existential fight for survival. (Go on, just count the UN resolutions and compare them with, for instance, China's, a country that has stirred up wars in Korea, Burmah, Vietnam and God knows where else whilst also finding plenty of time to abuse and murder millions of its’ own citizen) I don't know all the ins & outs but it is absolutely obvious that, whilst there are villains on both sides of this dispute, only one side gets held up to absurd standards and has bizarely been painted as the bully in spite of the fact that you would be hard pushed to find a smaller country with more enemies. Even having friends is cause to berate Israel. How dare she look to fellow democratic countries for support, it just isn’t fair!

Obviously you failed to notice the clumsy attempt at a ‘humorous’ reference to the illiterate creation of the Jewish comedian Sasha Barren Cohen or you wouldn’t have asked such a ‘stoopid’ question about the use of the word Jooish. Maybe it just wasn’t funny. Or maybe you have no sense of humour along with your absence of historical knowledge or perspective.

Steve

Paul,

So Israel is the same as South Africa is it?

Tell me, please do, where can I find the gross racial segregation and discrimination entrenched in law in Israel? You are so confident about it, it must be there. Tell me where to find it. Please do.

If you can't direct me to the law perhaps you could send links to all the photographic evidence of buses and restaurants with signs outside saying 'No Arabs'. They must be there. You say they are.

Tell me where to find all the UN resolutions against all the countries you mention. They must be there as well. Israel doesn't get singled out does it?

Causes taken up for 5 minutes by students with nothing else to do do not remotely compare to the anti-Israel obsession throughout this World.

If it ain't anti-semetism then what is it? I really would like to know.

James Murphy

Stephen Rothbart - Bravo! Three cracking posts with acidic logic demolishing the pro-palestinian sentimentalists. Particularly liked the Versailles treaty analogy. What frustrates one so about all such debates, though, is that the Kates of this world (ignore the twit Saladin) will read your incisive, insightful stuff, and then just say (a la Vicky Pollard) "yeah but, no but, yeah but..." Indeed, is it ever possible to convert prejudice? I wonder. I really do.

Paul

Will J and others. It doesn't matter whether or not the West Bank was part of state or not. Article 4 of the Geneva Convention defines who is protected as follows "Persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals." Nothing to do with whether there was a country or state beforehand or whether it was their state.

Will J

Paul - I don't see why that's relevant. Even if Article 4 protects Palestinians, it doesn't make the West Bank occupied territory or the settlements illegal, which is the point at issue.

My original question stands: how can the West Bank be occupied territory, when there is no state whose territory is being occupied?

VEBott

Trouble is, given the demographic time bomb, the no two state solution line only makes sense for the Jewish state if it cilminates in another forced expulsion of a great mass ofPalestinian civilians.

Are its advocates here really advocating that? Ethnic cleansing on a much smaller scale earned Serbia a NATO bombing campaign.

I'm glad to see that Melanie didn't really open herself up to charges of having double-standards back then; I'd just like to know if Sergey and the others who knowingly or not embrace his logic have really thought about what such an action would mean for the lives of Israelis, never mind the poor bloody Arabs.

Brian Williams

Nihilistic psychopathy?

TDH

Steve
February 23rd, 2011 5:59pm
Perhaps you should devote more than five seconds to the question.

Perhaps you should rely on something more authoritative than the "interweb".

If you did, you would find find that, by the time the Arab states intervened, Israel was well on the way to completing its planned cleansing of the territory notionally allocated to the Palestinians.

As British officials said at the time, the Arab states could claim to have been defending the Palestinians. Such a claim would be as credible, if not more, than Israeli claims that it was aggression.

The only Arab forces to encroach on Israeli territory were the Egyptians, briefly.

If you look at actions rather than words, you will find that the Arab defence of the Palestinians was half-hearted.

The Arab states concentrated on what was in it for themselves.

The only one to come away with much was Jordan. This is a measure of the incompetence of the others. Also, Jordan had an understanding with the Israelis and the British on how the Palestinians' territory would be divvied up.

Your sarcasm appears not to be supported by much knowledge or understanding.

kuragin

Will J, for example, writes:

"My original question stands: how can the West Bank be occupied territory, when there is no state whose territory is being occupied?"

It doesn't matter what Will J thinks about the status of the Palestinian Territories because every comptent political and legal authority considers them to be occupied by Israel. Here, for yet another example, is the legal opinion released by The International Court of Justice:

"In view of the foregoing, the Court considers that the Fourth Geneva Convention is applicable in any occupied territory in the event of an armed conflict arising between two or more High Contracting Parties. Israel and Jordan were parties to that Convention when the 1967 armed conflict broke out. The Court accordingly finds that that Convention is applicable in the Palestinian territories which before the conflict lay to the east of the Green Line and which, during that conflict, were occupied by Israel, there being no need for any enquiry into the precise prior status of those territories"
http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/131/1671.pdf

There is no legal or political doubt that the Palestinian Territories including East Jerusalem are occupied by Israel. Those who deny this reality expose nothing but the extent of their self-deception - a self-deception that is a betrayal of an enlightened belief in reality.

wonderer

@Paul
February 23rd, 2011 6:16pm

"Easily. Britain did it with the IRA who wanted Northern Ireland wiped off the map. The USA and USSR negotiated during the cold war."

No. The IRA wanted to seize Northern Ireland and probably drive out any inhabitants who resisted. They did not want to conquer the rest of the UK, so the analogy is fundamentally wrong. The USA and USSR did not want to wipe each other off the map.

"Even Hamas for all its blood curdling rhetoric has offered peace based on 1967 borders and an extended truce."

That "peace" is just clever PR. It does not imply recognition of Israel but simply a Palestinian state, initially based on the pre-1967 ceasefire lines, while Hamas builds up its weaponry until it is confident of mounting an attack to conquer the whole of the former mandate area.

Derek BLADES

Steve finds it bizarre that Israel has "been painted as the bully in spite of the fact that you would be hard pushed to find a smaller country with more enemies."

In Standard English, bullies are those who use their greater strength to terrorise or brutalise those who are weaker. Consider Israel's recent behaviour in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank. Arab deaths counted in thousands; Israeli deaths in tens. Nothing bizarre about it, old chap. An apt description.

George Steiner

Mr. Cmeron's problem is not solvable. And it is the problem of Britain as well. Briefly it is the fact that Britain is a broken nation.

Firstly, it is financially impoverished to a level from which it will not recover.

Secondly, it has no longer the means to recover becuse to do so would require it to earn at a high rate. It can't earn at a high rate because it doesn't make much of anything anymore.

Thirdly, British society as a people are in dissaray. Its national character eliminated by leftwing political correctness.

Israel is a small nation threatened from all sides, this concentrates the mind.

Britain is a nation that has no purpose at all.

devilfish13

The British Mandate for Palestine states in part....'Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country'

However, although non-Jews have representation, and civil-rights, and although their human rights are not necessarily violated, it does mean, that since it is the essence of a Jewish state to be Jewish, run by and for Jews, things are are always arranged so that sovereignty remains in Jewish hands. So it is for Jews alone to decide whether human rights are honoured........or in short who lives in freedom and who doesn't, I suggest Israel isn't a real democracy.

Israel is a Jewish state run by and for Jews. Therefore in such a state, Jews are sovereign. The state is run in their interests and their interests only.

But it wasn't always that way. The Jews who came to Palestine as individuals, and as small groups, had various motives. But the ultimate goal of the Zionist movement, was to bring all these groups together and found a sovereign Jewish state. Jews would always have the final say in everything. And to that extent Zionism has succeeded. Affairs are run entirely in the interests of the Jewish people. The final decision on how much force is used to advance those interests is in the hands of the Jewish occupants. It is for these reasons I'm suggesting that Israel isn't a democracy.

Melanie talks about moral rights etc etc.

Well consider this: On the right of the Jewish people to self-determination, each individual person has a right to to live somewhere, but an ethnic group has no right to live somewhere together in one place. And it certainly is neither ethical, moral nor right to expel others to make room for a 'homeland', or expand that homeland to fulfill the Zionist dream of reversing their Diaspora.

And that it why David Cameron was right to say what he did in Qatar earlier today.

Steve

Derek Blades,

Notwithstanding your imecillically simplistic 'standard english' definitions, you are of course aware that Israel has around 7.5 million people and is surrounded by murderous, jew-hating, oil-rich nations which number around 250 million yet you still maintain that she is the bully. Just how many US weapons do you think it takes for odds of 33 to 1 against to be turned into an advantage?

Are you always this stupid, or is it just when those nasty little Israelis mess with your brain?

Adam B.

Paul writes:

Adam B. "who does the land belong to then? It was captured from Jordan, who had themselves seized it in 1948." Well its not Israel's. It was the land of the Psalestinian state set up by UN 1947 resolution. And more importantly it belongs to the poeple who actually live there. Its not Israel's, it is an occupying force."

You mean the Un Partition plan which the Jews accepted, and the Palestinians and Arab countries rejected?
Do they accept this or not? And do they only accept it after their attempt to strangle Israel at rebirth failed?

Knowing you are on shaky ground with this one, you then claim - well, it belongs to those who live there. Before the 1948 war, there were Jews living there too - every single one of them was ethnically cleansed by the Jordanian Arab Legion (with British officers), and by the Palestinian Arabs. Indeed, the Palestinian Arabs had started the ethnic cleansing before then, with anti-Semitic pogroms in Hebron and elsewhere. In addition, you will find that almost all this land is state land (including where the settlements are located - and are not, nor ever were, in private ownsership).

So no Paul - you've got it wrong.

Adam B.

Paul - you also avoid the question about what fate should lie in store for the Jews who live in Jerusalem and elsewhere.

Any answers?

c de mar

confusius said, to know what is the right thing to do and yet not do it, is the worst form of cowardice. and that is in my opinion the correct term for this behaviour, cowardice.

DavidSI

Kuragin: “It doesn't matter what Will J thinks about the status of the Palestinian Territories because every comptent political and legal authority considers them to be occupied by Israel. Here, for yet another example, is the legal opinion released by The International Court of Justice”.
A number of issues with the above:
1. If “international law” determines the legitimacy of one country’s occupation of another’s territory then the same legal ‘yardstick’ should be applied equally, consistently and objectively to all situations (Turkey/Cyprus etc.) if it is to meet the basic test of being a law. (What is the legitimacy of a “law” that seeks to punish you when you do something that your neighbors also practice without attracting any sanction at all?).
2. The “international law” that you cite is based on land captured during a war. Does that law include the capture of territory or an entire country (e.g. The Lebanon) through the use of terrorism?
3. The fourth Geneva Convention is well known. But citing it ad infinitum progresses the impasse not one jot. It is illegal to carry an offensive weapon in the UK but pragmatic if your neighbors constantly threaten to kill you and repeatedly attempt to do so. It is illegal to break and enter into someone else’ property but reasonable if your children are trapped inside. On the basis of the fourth Geneva convention, it is “illegal” for Israel to occupy land captured during a war (instigated by its neighbors) but pragmatic to do so when Fatah and Hamas do not accept Israel’s right to exist and are sworn to its destruction. (It is also pragmatic given the outcome of the last decision to cede land (Gaza) for peace). The “law” isn’t and end in itself (as Javert found out in Les Miserables).
4. You dismiss Will J by saying that it doesn’t matter what he thinks (about the status of the Palestinian Territories etc….) but similarly, the reality is that it doesn’t matter what those lawyers think about the legal claims of the Palestinians. If a peaceful outcome is eventually secured, it will have been achieved by an old-fashioned exchange of interests (e.g. land for peace) and not by any set of international “laws” that are selectively focused on Israel by your “competent” lawyers. You clearly have a very high regard for international lawyers (competent lawyers, I should add) but your faith in their ability to resolve the Palestinian crisis is misplaced I’m sorry to say.

Grumpy true Zionist

two little bits of info for the whackhead who says:

'consider Israel's recent behaviour in gaza, lebenon and westbank (aka Judea/Samaria -my description), arab deaths in thosands, Israeli deaths in tens'

yep this is what happens when rockets/mortars and any other form of propelled munition is lobbed over for three years and some 8000 individual pieces of projectile

are these people stoopid (arabs in areas mentioned) do they have a death wish (you betcha - plus family of shahids get a nice payout from hamas/hizbolla)

so what do'ya thunk the response to this type of assinine behaviour is gonna be...take your time now ya'hear.

oh and about the numbers;
think it was hamas themselves or their buds at the HRC who later stated that, yeh, many of those killed in gaza were in fact military operatives aka terrs

Col R Kemp, i think one of your boys, has come out and stated that very few military forces in the world would come close to Israel's in its attempt to prevent collateral damage

for the rest its about a little military ratio known as kill rate ie how to kill more of them and less of you

oh and one other little rule of battle...go in with overwhelming force (unless of course you're british, and this would offend your warped sense of fair play in these type of matters)

as for lebenon, thats a whole different ballpark
Israeli forces took needless casualties (at Bint J'beil) and other areas trying to seperate hizbolla from the leb population (ya know the old human shield problem), but this has now been sorted - all lebenon is now hizbolla
we are all hoping that the bearded one, presently hiding in a spider hole in damascus will be at the forefront of any future battle instead of making the kind of threats these fanatics do when well hidden

gareth

It is THE acid test of character these days, almost infallible : are you willing to stand by the people and values of Israel? almost indistinguishable from our own.

The answer from Cameron is a trendy no. Guardian reading and BBC watching Britain applauds.

revolution

Yes it is called Tony the phony Blair syndrome where you hug and kiss dictators if you think there is money in it.

Okey

devilfish13: Israel is the Jewish nation-state and its Arab citizens constitute an ethnic/national minority within that state.
Britain is the nation-state of the British nation, and Pakistanis and members of other nationalities constitute minorities in Britain.
Israel is run for Arabs and Jews in the same way that Britain is run for Britons and Pakistanis et al.
Got it? Or do you think that the Jews don't deserve a nation-state on land that is legally, historically, morally theirs, including Judea and Samaria?

Will J

If the "occupation" originates from 1967, as is being claimed, then it is Jordan which is occupied? But that's obviously ridiculous - the West Bank was outside Jordan's border in 1948, when it took it by force.

People, including international courts, need to stop falsely claiming that Israel is in some way occupying some non-existent Palestinian state, in order to find ways of beating it round the head. By all means argue that a Palestinian state ought to exist in the West Bank, but don't go concocting false legal claims based on states that don't yet exist.

The West Bank is not occupied but disputed. It makes no historical sense to describe it in any other way.

Derek Pasquill

Any resemblance between Baldrick's cunning plan and the FCO Camel Corps' Middle East Road Map is purely coincidental.

Pardon the pun.

RPK

Jerusalem Post Headline 2021:
Israeli Foreign Ministry criticizes British Government for allowing illegal indigenous Christian settlements on the West Bank of the River Aire in Bradford England

"Or do you think that the Jews don't deserve a nation-state on land that is legally, historically, morally theirs, including Judea and Samaria?"

Do the Arabs of J&S get to vote? Would they, even if peace broke out and J&S was handed to Israel on a plate?

Modicum of honesty please.

Paul

wonderer "The IRA wanted to seize Northern Ireland and probably drive out any inhabitants who resisted.. so the analogy is fundamentally wrong." The Unionists sat down and negotiated with Sinn Fein/IRA even though they wanted to wipe them off the map.

"The USA and USSR did not want to wipe each other off the map." Err yes they did. The USSR was dedicated to expanding communism across the globe and the USA to destroying communism. they had 20,000 nukes pointed at each other to make this happen, and yet they talked to each other.

"It does not imply recognition of Israel but simply a Palestinian state, initially based on the pre-1967 ceasefire lines, while Hamas builds up its weaponry until it is confident of mounting an attack to conquer the whole of the former mandate area." And eaxactly how likely is that to happen. Gvien that all the Arab armies couldn't do it in 1948 or stop Israel in 1967 or defeat it in a surprise attack in 1973. So whatever dreams Hamas harbors, exactly how is it going to do this when Israel has twice the defence budget of all its neighbours combined, has far more effecient armed forces and has nuclear weapons?

Sophie Vine

Exactly RPK. Pat Viliors says it all with, 'It's like that cleric who screamed at that MP who came to East London, "How dare you enter a Muslim area?" Simply having a majority somewhere doesn't make it yours. People can see this when it applies to the UK, but somehow when it comes to Israel, they don't.'

Jez

Via Sky News Channels Package Yesterday / early this morning;

1. Libya- civil war

2. Yemen- on the brink

3. Tunisia- influx of Libyan refugees, general instability.

4. Saudi Arabia- one step away from mass-disorder

5. Gaza- Hamas strafe an Israeli foot patrol, sparking retaliation (although Press TV say the Hamas were Palestinians 'collecting gravel' (?)

6. Egypt / Syria- Iranian warships pass through the Suez and dock in Latakia in a move to provocative Israel (This would not have been possible 2 months ago- unless they travelled around the Cape of Good Hope).

7. Greece- streets violently exploded at the hands of the Far-Left.

8. Delhi- brought to a standstill in the biggest Communist mass rally and strikes to be held there ever.

9. Syria- A North Korean designed Uranium facility has been located near Marj-as-Sultan.

10. Brent Crude up to $117.00 per barrel.

11. Italy braces itself for an influx of tens of thousands of immigrants fleeing Libya.

Revolution, Instability and Chaos.

This is not great- even with the Obama / MSM ‘gloss over’; that we should celebrate the Mediterranean basin / Middle East on the brink. Israel seems to have been abandoned by the west and their enemies know it.

The US and our EU Centralist 'political elite' seem to be as focused on the above, than Hague is regards the prospective disaster that hangs over the still trapped British workers cut of in remote parts of Libya's desert!

A scandal.

Stephen Rothbart

Derek Blades. You are starting to convince me I was wrong. About you. I credited you with intelligence, but now I am beginning to wonder if I have not been blinded by the fact that you are knowledgeable, but only wish to acknowledge those facts that suit your prejudice.

Now, your last remark about bullying shows that you have been "hoisted your own petard" as my late father used to say.

This is what you say about the definition of a bully:

"In Standard English, bullies are those who use their greater strength to terrorise or brutalise those who are weaker."

Exactly, so when the Hamas and armed terrorists in Gaza organize the firing of 6,000 rockets onto the civilian (unarmed) populations of Sederot and other civilian targets following Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, I think we can both agree that meets your own definition of bullying?

Good. Thanks for clarifying the issue, Derek.

You then go on to say that:

"Consider Israel's recent behaviour in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank. Arab deaths counted in thousands; Israeli deaths in tens."

Actually you are wrong about the tens, it was over 1,000 deaths if you include all the wars you were talking about.

But I assume your logic is based upon the fact that in order to play fair, when attacked, the IDF should send their soldiers into battle with minimum regard to personal safety and try to have a decent number of their own soldiers killed to make it more fair. Is that it, Derek? Is that your case?

So when the RAF flew over th cities of Hamburg and Dresden and killed hundreeds of thousands of civilians, they should have flown with their lights on and painted their bombers white to make it easier for the German gunners to hit more of them. Is that your brilliant thesis here?

Or when the 180 odd members of the British Army at Rourke's Drift in 1879 armed only with rifles and bayonets, faced 4,000 Zulus armed with only spears, and held them off at the loss of 15 over their own men to 600 Zulus, the right thing to do would have been to not fight quite so well and perhaps take more casualties?

So if not those examples what is your point, Derek?

I support what the RAF guys did. Their pilots were enormously brave. And like, Israel, it was Britain that was attacked, and you do what you have to do to survive.

Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and for that matter the PLO in the West Bank, their allies in Syria, Iran and probaby elsewhere in the Middle East are all sworn to remove every Jew from the Arabian peninsular. Many actually have the grace to declare it, some say it under their breath, but their actions speak louder than words.

Israel has likewise sworn to remove every Arab from Lebanon and Syria and Egypt and elsewhere?

I don't think so.

Every action Israel has ever taken has been defensive, including the building of settlements.

Which brings me to answer your second point.

You asked me which settlements I consider legal and which are not.

Unfortunately you loaded the dice by ruling out the Israeli
Supreme Court as a point of reference, so it is hard to have a discussion with you if you refuse to acknowledge that there exists in Israel, an authority which has many times sided with Arab grievances against Jewish ones, and whih is independent of the ruling government. Its judgements by and large are fair as much as any Court in any sovereign land is fair, including ours.

However, on a more generic basis, I consider that if a country goes to war and loses to its foes territory lost in battle, then if Israe builds a settlement there pending a peace treaty to be negotiated - and by that I do not mean a Cease Fire, but a meaningful Treaty backed by the UN and enforceable (don't snigger at the back Jones!)then that is a fully legal right that every country in the world that has gone to war is free to exercise.

If the land is in a legal dispute and/or purchased by certain religious bigots as an expansion into their perverted version of a "Greater Israel" that once existed in biblical times, then I consider that illegal.

That is my definition. Others would disagree, and others, like you, would also include in that Jerusalem which was won in a battle, and is therefore, for the moment, and until replaced by a lasting treaty, a legal act. Just as Gdansk is no longer Danzig, as I have said earlier.

Hope that clears it up for you as how I consider a legal and illegal settlement.

And thanks again for making it clear what bullies the Palestinians ruled by Hamas are for everyone.
Incidentally, now that I have answered you, Derek, you still owe me an answer from a few blogs back which you never gave me.

See, I have manners. I know I will never convince you or change your mind, because your mind is too closed to your own prejudice.

But as I recall, asked you to show me where you have lobbied so aggressively for the rights of the massacred Africans, Kurds, Tibetans, Chinese political prisoners etc. as you have for the Palestinians.

Stil waiting for your proof that your fixation on Israel is entirely pure and without "racial profiling."

TDH

DavidSI
February 24th, 2011 6:27am
What do you think can be called international law without the scare quotes? Or do the scare quotes mean you think there is no such thing?

Okey

devilfish13: the Arabs of Judea and Samaria do not "get to vote" in Israeli elections because Israel has not annexed these regions and so these Arabs are not citizens of Israel.
Although theoretically Israel has the right to annex them, successive Israeli governments and the majority of Israelis, it seems, have not / do not wish to annex them in their entirety. Successive Israeli governments have offered to exchange the "large settlement blocs" for territory of equal size that is currently part of the pre-1967 armistice lines.
The Arab "Palestinian" side, has repeatedly rejected this.

Forest Fan

Stephen Rothbart (11:36am)-Brilliant!

And you are right...people like Derek will never get it.

In 1947/48, if Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria (and the rest) would have recognised Israel and not pressed for war and tried to live in peace...we wouldn't be arguing now.

It’s really that simple.

Augustus

There are some really ignorant comments here by people like Saladin et al. Take Jerusalem, which lies on the border of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), where Jews have lived for perhaps 3000 years, and historically proven for at least 2000. In 636 AD the Islamic Arabs brought Palestine
under the yoke of its bloody sword and proceeded to reduce the Jews to dhimmi status for 1300 years, terrorizing them,
humiliating them, and murdering them at every opportunity. If there's one party who should be labelled 'bloodthirsty colonialists' it's the Arabs in Palestine. After 1880, when Jews
began to bring a programme of welfare and advancement to a desolated land, the Islamic hatred of Jews surfaced, and in the 1920s this hatred, precipitated by the Mufti al-
Hoesseini, not only terrorized the Jewish inhabitants with murder and mayhem, but also actually murdered their own people which they called traitors for not hating the Jews. And in 1940, using a mixture of traditional Muslim anti-Semitism and Nazi anti-Semitism the Mufti acted in unison with the Nazi high command to wipe out the Jews, even to the extent of becoming involved in the setting up of gas chambers. Until 1948 the Jews tried everything to come to
peaceful terms with the Arabs.
It is the Islamic mafia associated with the Mufti who is
totally responsible for conflict
of hatred between Israel and the Palestinians. There has been Nazislam ever since the 1940s, and Arafat, Abbas, and Hamas have just continued on that hate-driven path, a path which is now 90 years old.

Three times Israel has been attacked with genocidal intentions: 1948, 1967, 1973. After such an attempt at genocide, Israel you would think
would be allowed to occupy practically all of the ME, and certainly after three attempts.
But it hasn't. They have been satisfied with certain bits of Samaria and Judea which are militarily and strategically important against the next Arab
genocidal onslaught.

For decades Israel has attempted to make peace and offered concessions, Arafat and his descendants have always sabotaged the negotiations, while at the same time ratcheting up the terror. This mafia doesn't want a peace settlement because their very existence is based on Jew hatred, terror, corruption, and holding the West to ransom. And that's why there have been ever more Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, because peace
proved impossible and the Jews
considered it best to expand and prosper there. And in fact,
rather than leave, many Arabs there would like the Jews to stay because they bring them jobs and properity. Something in fact which they have been doing since the 1880s. And considering all the failed and sabotaged peace processes from
Oslo in 1993 to Camp David in 2000, Israel has every moral right to have dug in deeper in Judea and Samaria. Because, why should Israel give full citizen rights to Arabs within its own
territory, and then expect Samaria and Judea to be delivered up to the Arabs to become Judenrein?

Adam B.

Paul - any thoughts?

Stephen Rothbart - excellent.

Derek BLADES

Steve

Thank you for your courteous response to my comments. I am sorry that you found them "imecillically (sic) simplistic".

I was referring to Israel's bullying of Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank. In your irrelevant reply you told me that Israel "is surrounded by murderous, jew-hating, oil-rich nations which number around 250 million". Israel is surrounded by Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan none of which are particularly oil-rich and two of which have peace treaties with Israel.

Before replying, be a good chap and:
a) take a cold shower,
b) activate the spell-check on your lap-top,
c) and put the vodka bottle back in the drinks cabinet.

Steve

Derek Blades,

Oh my god, the spelling mistake attack, followed by an accusation of intoxication!

You really are a moron of the highest order.

Apparently in your tiny mind being surrounded means being bordered by. This means that you are neatly able to omit the 73m Iranians, 32m Iraqi's, 25m Saudi's, 21m Syrians etc. from the equation of threat to Israel. I wasn't even counting the 75m Turks, 23m Yemenese, 4.5m UAE's, 29m Afghans, 170m Pakistanis etc. that are wholly hostile to Israel and Jews generally and could have been added to the equation but you still manage to twist the facts to suit your narrow World view.

Carry on Derek. You have brilliantly found a way of making yourself feel better without actually contributing a single piece of useful information. Being an idiot, it seems, is a source of comfort.

Victoria

Oh goodness you pro-Israelis will never have a bad word said against Israel.

No matter what you say it's the whole world and you. And Melanie, on why basis do you claim that Israel has a right to reside in the Occupied Territories? They don't. Or is this a case of Eretz Israel making up it's own rules? Again.

Stephen Rothbart

Derek Blades, you were right to question Steve.

Israel actually has a population of around 4,500,000 Jews, around 1,500,000 Arabs and around 440,000 that are neither Jewish nor Arab.

He clearly overstated the odds at 7 million. Glad you clear that up.

But you are taking the argument about the numbers of Israel's enemies to the point of nit-picking again, I am afraid.

For example, Israel has a border with Syria too which you forgot to mention and while Syria is small, it is the proxy ally of Iran which has a population of about 75,000,000.

And we know that Iran's leaders, while not in any territorial dispute with Israel, who has never threatened her with war, has vowed to do whatever it takes to destroy Israel even with nuclear bombs they don't have!

In addition while Hamas is also at the border with Israel and is also a proxy of Iran, and the PLA on the West Bank is also at the border with Israel, it a bit disingenuous of you to pick only Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon and leave out Syria.

The Palestinians not only have never signed a Peace Treaty with Israel that they have honoured, neither are willing to actually recognize Israel's right to exist. I would take that as a declaration of hostility, wouldn't you, Derek?

Also Lebanon has been taken over by Hezbollah and Syrian/Iranian interests.

So in a sense there are two war-like nations without peace treaties on Israel's borders and two terrorist states that are refusing to accept Israel as a Jewish state, and the jury is out to see whether Egypt will honour its peace treaty with Israel now that Mubarak has gone.

Already they have opened the Rafah crossing into Gaza and allowed Iran to send two warships through the Suez Canal.

That is a major sea-change in attitudes.

Finally, Steve used the word "surrounded" not "bordered" by oil rich Arab states.

If Israel fought its way through Syria and Jordan and Lebanon, they would find the Oil rich states in front of them. No allies, just more Arabs.

And while these Arabs states are not actually fighting now with their own armies against Israel, they are certainly financing their purchase of weapons and allowing their fellow armies to fight on their behalf.

Finally Derek, when are you going to answer my request for information about all your other campaigns for justice for the oppressed?

You manage to find the time to answer all these other points, but you asked me to withdraw my remarks that you were anti-Semitic, and I said I would if you could show me how the treatment of Palestinians is not your only claim to champion the cause of the "oppressed" in othr parts of the world, like Iran, Turkey, Russia, China, Tibet, North Korea, and now it seems, Libya and Egypt!

Yet you remain unwilling to show me this proof of your care for Human rights for all, not just Palestinians.

Can it be.....? No surely not.

Go on Derek. Show me I am wrong, and I will withdraw the remark.

C. Gee

“Which is a longwinded way of saying that perhaps we regard Israel as being 'part of the club' in some way. One of us. And we expect it to behave accordingly.”

Insufferable hypocrisy. What “club” is this? A club about to blackball Israel for being not quite the thing? What is it to be quite the thing? Twentieth century Europe was responsible for the greatest atrocities and mass death ever known. Britain has used the Jews shamefully. Israel is not one of you, and should never lower its standards to become one of you.

As for expecting “no better” of the Arabs, when, in its confrontations with these or other worthy oriental gentlemen, did the “club” demonstrate its higher standards? When did Britain forbear to use the “whip hand”? (Other than when it stood by and watched while those Arabs-who-know-no-better massacred Jews?) And when it cut and ran from empire, shrugged off the white man’s burden, how did it expect the rabbles to behave? “Accordingly”?

What has the “club” done to earn such complacent superiority?

daniel maris

Two wrongs don't make a right. The Arabs were wrong to attempt to strangle Israel at birth, but Israel is wrong to attempt to build their way onto the West Banks.

TDH

Augustus
February 24th, 2011 1:51pm
"...considering all the failed and sabotaged peace processes from Oslo in 1993 to Camp David in 2000, Israel has every moral right to have dug in deeper in Judea and Samaria..."

I'm sure, although of course I may be wrong, that you were told that this is not borne out by the record publicly and readily available in Israel. Have you checked this out?

VEBott

Spot on CGee.

You could also have mentioned other Western colonial/counter-insurgency actions, such as the French scorched earth policy in Algeria, the British operations in Malaysia and Kenya, Belgium's glorious record in the Congo, German enlightened policy towards the Herero, the US's kindly use of carpet-bombing in Vietnam and Cambodia and more recently NATO's successes in avoiding collateral damage in Serbia and occupied Iraq.

On the other hand, I still can't get an answer from Okey and Co, the armchair annexationists.
If lsrael was handed Judea and Samaria on a plate as part of a peace settlement recognized by Fatah, Hamas, Syria, Hezbollah, Uncle Tom Cobley and all, would the Arab people who live there be allowed to vote? Or would the fact that accepting them as citizens would prime a demographic time-bomb mean that any settlement would also have to involve their displacement? I ask because I can't work out if Bibi and Avi are using the settlements just as a creeping land-grab, or as a constant provocation aimed at preventing any Palestinian political leadership from being able to accept a peace-settlement or even as the basis for future mass-expulsion(s) to be justified by the defence of the settlers against local Arab aggression.

Fred

@CGee and VEBot

I don't think I meant to completely endorse the view I described. Just to propose an answer to the repeatedly asked question: why do we pay so much attention to alleged Israeli wrongdoings while turning a blind eye to much worse elsewhere.

That said, and history notwithstanding, we're probably right to expect more of Western-style democracies than of autocracies. To expect more of friends than of enemies. If a friend acted rudely, say, you might give him a gentle talking to. But bad manners from a local thug would be regrettable but unremarkable.

Is it right for us to see Middle Eastern autocrats as thugs but Israel as a friend? I think it probably is - so long as we avoid either regarding ourselves as whiter than white or unduly writing off whole arab populations.

Slightly thinking out loud here - but it doesn't feel wildly wrong to me...

f

C.Gee

"Under any understanding of the current situation the rights of the Palestinians have not been respected, not least because their land has been taken, their houses demolished, their villages destroyed and populations displaced."

No. Not under "any" understanding, under your understanding. Even if you posit Palestinian national rights (making nonsense of the Mandate), you may conclude only they have been extinguished in war, not that they have been "violated", any more that the Jewish national rights were "violated" by the Arab armies. If you interpret the Mandate as a balancing act between two sets of equally valid national rights, then you should be expressing dismay that the Arabs did not accept partition. If you feel that the Arabs have superior claims - and that the Jewish National Home Mandate was in error - then there is no present court (assuming one with proper jurisdiction) able to adjudicate them, nor could it do so more decisively than the war which erupted between Arabs and Jews which the Jews won. War abrogates law. If you want a favored subset of Palestinian Arabs to get "their" state back you should be advocating the overthrow of Israel in war, not trying to promote them as particularly deserving "homeless" to whom Israel should surrender its state. No state was ever given or taken according to the principle "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."

The post-war, anti-war jurisprudence, which attempts to criminalize war (for Israel, mostly, but also America and the west), assumes that the threat to a state of being stigmatized as a law-breaker will be a greater deterrent to commit violence than the threat of war, or actual war, against it. If the new law makes illegitimate war in self-defense by the more powerful state, that state must still defend itself, outlaw or not. The less powerful entity, although legitimately "resisting", must still prevail militarily, if it is to vindicate national claims which displace the enemy’s state.

May I suggest that you give up finger-wagging at Israel, and weeping over the Palestinians, and do something towards balancing the power over there? How about sending in a Glubb Pasha to fight for Abu Mazen? How about sending Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon back into the fray? At what point would the power differential change underdog to overdog? Would Israel regain compassion and legitimacy? Or would it tell you to stuff ‘em?

Adam B.

Victoria, you anti-Israelis will never have a good word said about Israel, will you?

Now how about a substantive response to the points put to you?

Adam B.

Don't worry Steve - Blades to trying out his best Days of Empire sneering condescension.

Usually happens when he has nothing to say.

C.Gee

VEBott:

Were Israel to assert sovereignty over J and S - whether as part of a peace agreement or, better and more realistically, unilaterally - the Arab populations could be accorded the equivalent of resident alien status in America: enjoy full civil rights and protection under the law, but not be entitled to vote. Various processes for acquiring full citizenship may be instituted: probationary periods, qualifications etc. The hope would be that, as for full Arab-Israeli citizens now, prosperity makes for (relatively) good neighbors. Deportation would stand as a resort for criminality - including insurgency. The question is, would it be easier or more difficult to control a potentially hostile population over which one has sovereignty than one led by genocides across a border? Of course, any non-citizen, or citizen, for that matter, would be free to leave at any time.

By what law may Bibi and Avi prevent “settlers” - Israeli citizens - from expanding their houses and building on land they have legally acquired? Eminent domain? Edict? (Like the orders to remove Jews from Gaza). There is a whole lot of self-defeating idiocy in Israeli politics: starting with the fools who recognized the PLO as the sole legitimate representatives of a mythical state and initiated “land for peace”. They re-created Israel as some kind of mandatory trustee for the Palestinian Arabs’ state - the only evidence for which was the very gang of terrorists they installed as its government-in-waiting, and in whom was invested the power to decide the shape and content of that state. A parody, now wearing thin.

If every settlement were to be uprooted - as they were in Gaza - Abu Mazen would still not accept a peace agreement. The peace process is a three-card monte run by the Palestinians: land, right of return, settlers - choose one, watch carefully, sorry wrong one. Its time Israel walked away. There will not be a negotiated two-state solution.

Hanna Nyman

VEBott.
Your charmingly honest bewilderment over the settlements highlights the idiotic, but nevertheless vicious, hypocrisy towards the whole Israel situation. Bibi and Avi are not using the settlements for anything. How can they possibly do so when they are dealing with an enemy
who is so unpredictable and untrustworthy? The Jews are building because that's what they do. Perhaps in one or two generations time the Arabs will be ready for peace. In the meantime, the Jews prefer to be creating rather than killing.
Call it 'treading water'.
Hanna

Okey

TDH, "international law" does exist- in textbooks, in convenient special pleading, in justifying aggression and similar circumstances.
In THE REAL WORLD, however, the states who possess power, i.e., military, financial,material, demographic make up the rules as they go, according to their interests.
Cases in point: tell China to end its occupation and brutalisation and extinguishment of Tibetan identity: you will be laughed at.
Tell Turkey to end its illegal occupation of northern Cyprus: you will be ridiculed and, if you're unlucky, you might be "interviewed" by an operative of the ruling Turkish Islamist party.
Tell Russia to end its occupation and terrorisation of Chechnya- ha, ha. Tell Spain to end its tyrannisation of the Basques-you must be joking.
Tell the USA and Iraq and Turkey to give liberty to the Kurdish nation- are you serious???
Enter the real world, TDH.

Kate

There appear to be two different arguments going on here. One is about the illegality of the occupation and settlements. No-one has offered convincing arguments against either. Stephen Rothbart actually makes a rather good point about the inapplicability of the Versailles Treaty which finds its equivalence in Melanie Phillips's frankly odd assertion that the Mandate is somehow still in force. That argument, therefore, is won.

There is a second argument about whether there is a disproportionate obsession with Israel-Palestine. I live and work here. This is an article about Israel-Palestine. That's why I'm posting. Not because I'm obssessed with "Joos" or am like "Vicky Pollard" (pretty poor standard of argumentation again). As it so happens, I don't believe that the Palestinian Nakba stands alone as one of the great tragedies of the 20th Century - and I tell Palestinians that. Those Chinese, Africans, Jews and Eastern Europeans had it much rougher. Nor do I think it right that the UN Human Rights Council spends far far more of its time on Israel Palestine than on e.g. what happened over ten years in DRC where millions died.

But none of that makes the settlements legal. None of that makes the occupation right or lessens the fact that it is oppressive and unjust. None of that makes the current Israeli government policy any more likely to secure the long term peace and stability of Israel - a country which (again horror of horrors to those who assume I hate "the Joos") I think is significantly better in many of the most important respects than any other country in the region. Yesterday, by the way, I was in Gaza. I really hate Hamas. So there is some more common ground for y'all. And another reason why I think undermining and destroying Abbas and the moderate Palestinian seculars is crazy.

Mia Nony

How many more armchair commentators will we have to listen to, passing judgements from afar, before ALL the Western democracies-in-decline are in Israel's shoes, thanks to the West's victim-de-jour affectations and its escalating politically correct suicidal tendencies.

C.Gee

Kate:

“One is about the illegality of the occupation and settlements. No-one has offered convincing arguments against either. Stephen Rothbart actually makes a rather good point about the inapplicability of the Versailles Treaty which finds its equivalence in Melanie Phillips's frankly odd assertion that the Mandate is somehow still in force. That argument, therefore, is won.”

Not so fast. Do not uncork the champagne. That argument is not won. It is not won because no arguments against the illegality of the occupation and settlements have been put forward here. It is not won because you are unconvinced by any that have been. This is hardly the forum for legal expertise, and it is quite possible that you may never be convinced by counter-arguments - no matter their soundness.

There is nothing odd about the assertion that the Mandate is somehow still in force: the rights it conferred on the Jewish people to Palestine did not expire with it. That rights conferred by a treaty of international agreement do not expire with the treaty is a well-established, long standing principle of international law, now codified in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Furthermore, the partition resolution (Resolution 181) did not abrogate the Mandate, which was still in force on its passing. Resolution 181, however, no longer had force or effect when the Arab armies invaded Israel.

Okey

Kate, the only ""Palestinian moderate secular" I've ever come across is the journalist, Khaled Abu Toameh.
He works for the Zionist "Jerusalem Post." He knows the Israelis well, and he knows his own people well.
Read what he has written about both. You will be surprised.
Abbas is a terrorist in a suit, and a Holocaust denier.
It was Israel's shooting itself in the foot that has given him and his predecessor, yasser arafat, a figleaf of "respectability and legitimacy," a figleaf which was seized upon and clutched by a West zealous to appease Araby and desperate for the flimsiest pretext to engage with and accommodate criminals just as their grandfathers had done with Hitler's Germany.

Steve

Kate,

Thank you for clarifying your interest and knowledge of this issue. Obviously I withdraw any suggestion that you are bashing the Jews / Joos to make you feel good like so many, usually left wing, lunatics here. If you were in London right now you might notice that Jew-baiting is the last accceptable form of racism and, for some, it seems to provide a warm assurance that they are being noble in de-crying every aspect of Israeli life. In the meantime real anti-semetic attacks (as opposed to those by poseurs casually claiming to understand the 'vile' motives of ALL Israeli settler, politicians, soldiers etc.) rise every year but all we ever hear about is the non-existent phenomonon of 'Islamophobia'.

If I might relate a short tale which illustrates the level of craziness that inhabits the likes of DB when Israel is mentioned:

A year or so ago I was at a middle-classed dinner party given by a friend of mine who is a clinical psychologist. All of the people there were graduates in good high paid jobs with comfortable lives. One, an accountant at a local authority, raised the subject of the ‘poor Palestinians’ and the ‘oppression’ that they endure. As usual I challenged him on this and asked why he felt so much sympathy for people that approved of the planting of bombs on buses and elected a terrorist organisation into government. He was having none of it so I tried a different tack. Recently Israel had made an ‘exchange’ with Palestinians. A convicted terrorist who had served a very long sentence in an Israeli jail for the brutal murder of an entire family, an attack which included smashing the skull of a young girl with a rifle butt, was exchanged for the remains of some dead soldiers. The convicted terrorist and child murderer was greeted as a hero by the Palistinians who apparently feel that no crime is too nasty when it is committed against Jews. Doesn’t this, I said to the dinner party guest, tell you anything at all about the civilizational differences between these two peoples? A convicted terrorist and child murderer serves time in jail and then goes home to his family, I can think of no more clear illustration of a decent society. His response “Yeah but those animals tortured the sh*t out of him”. That’s it. He knows the terrorist was tortured and to him this is a far, far worse crime than the brutal murder of innocent children. If I were Jewish I think I would go insane.

In the UK this is a mental illness. Like Melanie Phillips I would like to know what it is called, my clinical psychologist friend was unable to help.

On another point, does the fact that, to my knowledge, Israel is the ONLY country to be on a war footing for any length of time without implementing emergency measures, curfews, suspension of democracy etc. mean nothing at all to the dunderheads out there who can only see bad in Israel? Is the psychological effect of living for 60 years under the threat of extermination not allowed to play a part in this discourse in the same way that certain cretins ‘understand’ why poor Pali’s are driven to suicide bombing. All I want is some balance and sense in this debate.

R

C.Gee
February 24th, 2011 10:51pm
You make much of "national rights". It had little to do with rights, national or otherwise, but with who got the ear of the Great Powers. The Zionists, a small and unrepresentative group, claimed a right to Palestine for world Jewry. The Great Powers for some reason decided to facilitate a National Home for them. The Great Powers promised the inhabitants, not "national rights", but a say in how they were governed, and the UN said self-determination was their right, but the Great Powers for some reason decided to renege on their promise. That appears to be all there is to it.

You say there is not present court able to adjudicate. The UN is the League of Nations' successor. The ICJ is able to adjudicate.

"War abrogates law". Very grand, very ex cathedra, but not obviously true.

"Post-war jurisprudence" does not outlaw the use of force in self-defence.

Why do you put "resisting" in quaotation marks?

You conclude that power prevails (and imply makes the rules and calls them law). Is that really all there is to Israel's claims?

R

Okey
February 25th, 2011 2:20am
"Case in point": Israel?

NicoleS

For those who want to know more about why the Israeli settlements are not an obstacle to peace, there is a clear and informative article here: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/11/10/the_settlement_fixation

Derek BLADES

Steve wants me to take a broader view of Israel's position in the world. Let's do that.

The United States is one of Israel's strongest supporters - population 300 million and a rather significant military power. Just as important is Israel's support throughout the industrialised world. I am sure Steve noticed that Israel was recently admitted to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. As I am sure he also knows, the OECD includes all the more developed countries of Western and Central Europe, North and South America and North Asia. Total population about 1.2 billion.

Israel is certainly not short of powerful friends although it is in danger of losing them by its continued theft of Arab land, its inhumane blockade of Gaza, and its brutal occupation of the West Bank.

Incidentally, I see from your latest comment that "the murderous, jew-hating, oil-rich nations" that 'surround' Israel have now been joined by Pakistan and Afghanistan? What evidence do you have that Afghans, Pakistanis or, indeed, the inhabitants of any other country you mention hate Jews. Some of their leaders may be hostile towards Israel, but I really doubt where most of the population gives a damn about Jews. Like people anywhere they just want to get on with their lives - earning a living, bringing up kids, paying off the mortgage and other things that really concern most ordinary people.

If you care to reply, I suggest you avoid using terms like "idiot", "tiny mind" and your own speciality “imecillic". School-boy taunts do not add strength to your case. Rather the opposite in fact.

R

C.Gee
February 25th, 2011 1:22am
You suggest here a one-state solution. Are you serious?

"Led by genocides across the border" - you mean Israel's policy should be determined by words and not by its assessment of its enemies' ability to act? Hamas and Fatah have offered to negotiate on the 1967 borders. Hizballah has agreed (no doubt grudgingly) to abide by whatever the Palestinians agree to. None of them is able to mount anything remotely like genocide.

"Eminent domain" - you clearly have great legal expertise, so can tell us whether it is possible to acquire land legally if the land is illegally acquired. Or are those who acquire the land to observe their national law but disregard international law?

Israel's purpose at Oslo, as described by Rabin, was to break up the Palestinians into little enclaves and have them police themselves, saving Israel the cost in men and treasure it was finding an increasing burden. The Oslo strategy is close to success.

At Oslo, the Israeli negotiators were astonished at the way the Palestinians made concession after concession, apparently unaware of the implications. At Taba, according to the Israeli negotiators, the Palestinians were serious and constructive, and both sides made great progress. The Palestine Papers show the Palestinians conceding just about everthing. The idea that Israel has no "partner for peace" is difficult to sustain.

C.Gee
February 25th, 2011 8:43am
What with "eminent domain" and all, you really ought to give us your thoughts on what are the arguments for the legality of the settlements. Simply to say loftily that this is not the place is not consistent with "eminent domain" nor with " rights conferred by a treaty of international agreement do not expire with the treaty is a well-established, long standing principle of international law, now codified in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties".

The Mandate did not confer on the Jews a right to Palestine, but a right to settle in Palestine.

Again, your legal expertise would help advance the argument: As I understand it, reading the history books and looking at the maps, the Arab states did not invade Israel in the first instance, but came to the defence of the Palestinians in territories not allocated to Israel in the partition. Why do you say the war of 1948 left Resolution 181 with neither force nor effect? The UN whose reolution it was does not appear to agree. And given that Israel did not observe the procedures laid down by the UN for partition but made a unilateral declaration, why should its claim on territories (from Galilee eastward) be recognised (I'm not denying its claim has been recognised in part, but asking why you think it should - you appear to be arguing about legal priciples)?

Augustus

"Not because I'm obsessed with
"Joos""

Fair enough! But the fact remains that Israel is a country
unique in the world with a mark of interrogation posed over its dimensions, configuration and human composition.

kate

Okey - I expect we won't agree. I spend a lot of time in the West Bank and Gaza (and, of course, know Abu Toameh's writing). I think that if you did too you would probably have a much more nuanced view of Palestinians. Melanie Phillips has long advanced the argument that there was no difference between Abbas and Hamas. When the Palestine papers were leaked her first reaction was that they must be fake. They weren't. They reflected a sensible conversation about a compromise two-state solution. Currently in the West Bank there are fewer IDF deployed than at any point since before the first intifada. There have been fewer instances of violence against Israelis than for 25 years. This is in large part due to the greatly improved performance of the Palestinian security forces who operate under Abbas and Fayyad. The great sadness for Israel will be if this is taken for granted and, through complacency, lost. Settlement building is one of the main factors undermining the Palestinian secular moderates.

Steve - I suspect that if you and I were at a dinner party we would disagree on many things. But while I think that the Israeli government's policy towards the occupation is fundamentally wrong and misguided, I am very aware that many who argue on behalf of the Palestinians do so from a position of ignorance of the Jewish/Israeli narrative and indeed of the situation on the ground. In particular I think that the second intifada has faded from international minds a lot faster than it has from that of Israelis (for obvious reasons).

The problem with the settlement enterprise from an Israeli point of view is that Israeli policy has been hijacked by a relative minority of ideologues. The fulfilment of their goals does nothing to enhance security while it contributes to a loss of sympathy and understanding by an international community which sees a civilised state (one of us) essentially carrying out invasion and annexation by stealth. Yes, we all did it much worse and much more brutally in the previous two centuries but the world has moved on. That's a (non-anti-semitic) reality with which Israel must live.

The problem from a Palestinian perspective is that the settlement enterprise makes daily life extremely difficult and makes it harder for the moderates to convince their people that they have a partner for peace who is not just taking them for an empty and elongated ride.

Derek BLADES

Kate

You say that "The problem with the settlement enterprise from an Israeli point of view is that Israeli policy has been hijacked by a relative minority of ideologues." I respect your judgement enormously but this is difficult to swallow.

Settlement building in East Jerusalem seems to be a policy agreed to and implemented by all Israeli political parties. Continued settlement building in the West Bank looks very much like part of a deliberate plan to torpedo the Peace talks at a time when Obama is thought to be politically weak. Is that really the work of a relative minority of ideologues? It looks more like a hard headed decision that grabbing more land is worth more than talking peace.

Adam B.

Derek Bladeds asks:

"What evidence do you have that Afghans, Pakistanis or, indeed, the inhabitants of any other country you mention hate Jews. Some of their leaders may be hostile towards Israel, but I really doubt where most of the population gives a damn about Jews. "

Not true Blades. According to polls taken by the Pew Research Center, 78% of Pakistanis hold either "unfavourable" or "very unfavourable" attitudes towards Jewish people. In Egypt, the figure is 95% (it's hard to get 97% of people to agree on almost anything - except hating Jews it seems). In Jordan, the figure is a staggering 97%, and in the Palestinian territories, the figure is also 97%. Even in Indonesia, the figure is 74%. The poll was specifically about Jews in general, not just Israelis. These figures are shocking.

This clearly demonstrates that anti-Semitic attitudes are widespread across the Arab and wider Islamic worlds. Indeed, if you research it further, you will see how books like the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and Mein Kampf, are bestsellers. Look at what is taught in the schools, or what appears in the media. if one is aware, it isn't difficult to see why such racist attitudes are so widespread across all sections of these societies.

It is disingenuous to pretend that anti-Semitism is not a driving force behind the animosity and hostility directed at Israel.

Steve

Kate,

I'm not sure why you think there are many things we would disagree on. Perhaps you have no love of art, architecture and Leeds United?

Once again I am grateful for your balanced and thoughtful remarks. Somewhat rare on these forums.

You still trouble me however. You rightly criticize the settlers as being unhelpful and perhaps provocative. This would be fair comment only if you also recognize the 'unhelpfulness' and 'provocation' of the lobbing of rockets, suicide bombings, anti-semetic teachings etc. that are indulged in by the other side and which make “daily life extremely difficult” for ALL Israelis, not just the few that are within stone throwing range . (In fact I do wonder how this daily difficulty works as settlements are just houses, often in the middle of nowhere and they won’t make life difficult for the average Palistinean any more than my local ‘traveller’ camp makes my daily life 'difficult').

It seems that the pro-Palistineans want to have their buns and eat them. On the one hand they pick out the activities of Israeli extremists and use them to heap criticism on the whole of Israel. On the other hand they remain silent about the far worse extremism (which is actually state sponsored mainstream behaviour), on the Palestinian side. Always the excuse for this is so-called Israeli oppression. Can somebody, anybody, explain to me why the oppression of the pan-Arabic refusal to accept and open hostility towards the state of Israel is irrelevant whilst Israeli defensive security actions and house building are everything.

Steve

Adam B

Thanks, I just hadn't the energy to state the bloody obvious.

Expect a hilarious and devastating riposte for mis-spelling Blades

raymond.

Adam B. Terrific post. But your fine words are probably wasted on Blades. He is an out and out Arabist. Nothing can penetrate the armour he chooses to cloak himself with.

Adam B.

raymond and steve, I know it will have no effect. He probably won't even acknowledge it. But lies and distortions need to be countered.

There is widespread ignorance about these truths - most of the media ignore facts like these, as they don't fit with the received wisdom, or the narrative they like to present.

OK, CGee,
so you then have a disenfranchised section of the Arab citizens of Israel, about a million and a half strong, to add to those who already have the vote. I'm sure you have compared age pyramids for the Arab and Jewish populations. The Russian reservoir is pretty dry, although perhaps peace would increase net migration from Galut to Yishuv. When something like half Israel's population are Arabs, it'll be a bold experiment. Maybe we'll see a bi-national secular state after all, but somehow, I have doubts. Mainly I doubt that either the Haredi or the Ikhwan can live with that outcome.

Kate and interlocs,
The legal history is interesting but you know as well as I do that international rights on paper don't amount to a hill of beans unless they are drawn from human sympathy. As some creep didn't say, “Who remembers the Sudetenland Germans? ”.

What matters is changing how we conceptualise the groups involved. If nearly all the families in the Middle East are poured into one big undifferentiated pot called “the Arabs” and assigned the role of aggressor in the 48/67/73/ wars, then it's easy to argue that they are intransigent enemies whose claims to property or liberty can be ignored. But the Arab families who had been farming around Jaffa for centuries, the Arab families who ran away as the Haganah approached, the Arab families of Ramallah, Jericho, Nablus and Bethlehem mostly never shot anybody, and were not citizens of any belligerent state.

Treating these peasants as accountable for the actions of Glubb Pasha and Amin al-Husayni is what's wrong, not the violation of unenforceable statutes. Rights come from our recognition of others as our fellows.

I've watched the growth of Hamas ever since the 1970's when the Shin Bet first saw it as a potential counterweight to the secular nationalists in Fatah and the other fractions of the PLO, and now I despair. I can find no reason to hope that any Palestinian institution within this generation can deliver a good life for the victims of the Nakba. because I can see less and less basis for joint Palestinian-Israeli action. The nutters have won.

Hannah,
are you saying that Jews build settlements like squirrels bury nuts? That's just what Jews do? Don't the settlers get any subsidies? Hasn't that been the case for years? Isn't there, in fact, a direct land purchase subsidy and aren't the settlements designated as “areas of first national priority”. Doesn't all that imply that the Government has a policy of giving incentives to settlers that it is pushing through, despite promises to the contrary given to the US?

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/new-state-budget-gives-settlements-nis-2-billion-and-more-1.334390
http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/06/09TELAVIV1184.html

Steve

Anonymous person,

"...Treating these peasants as accountable for the actions of Glubb Pasha and Amin al-Husayni is what's wrong, not the violation of unenforceable statutes... etc."

Absolutely true. But where is your recogntion of all the Jews expelled from Arab countries? These people had all their land and property stolen too but re-settled and got on with their lives. Why must you only see victims on one side?

C.Gee

R:
I have not said I am for the one-state solution, merely that it is an option for Israel. I have also said that Israel’s unilateral declaration of its own borders is a policy option which at worst continues the status quo, and at best forces the PA’s hand.
The three-state solution was also an interesting idea, but is hard to play out theoretically given the state of unrest in Egypt, and to a lesser extent Jordan.
Hamas and Hizbollah say different things to different audiences. What they are doing is building military capability. They have never departed from their long term goals of removing the Zionist Entity. And behind them looms Iran. Whether Iran is capable of mass destruction in Israel is very much an issue in Israel’s foreign policy. But leaving capability aside, even if Hamas accepts the PA decision for a state - it accepts it as a stage on the path to ousting the Z entity, which it will never recognize as legitimate. So, wherever the borders are located, there will always be low-grade war, flaring up from time to time. But perhaps you are unaware of the current tensions between Hamas and the PA? It is a low-grade civil war. There are accusations of brutality, torture, kidnapping, assassinations...
It does not require a great deal of legal expertise to know that “eminent domain” is the power of the state to take private property (for compensation). I assume most property owners know of this potential forced sale. Be that as it may, your question “whether it is possible to acquire land legally if the land is illegally acquired,” has several routes to a “yes”, none of which would be germane to this discussion. Although not very clear, I can guess that what you mean to ask is: How can the settlers acquire land legally if Israel is illegally occupying the region where they are buying land? My answer: Israel is not illegally occupying it. It may be occupying it, but not illegally. The rights to purchase and sell land are determined by the property laws of the region. Where the sovereignty of the region is disputed, or subject to negotiation, unless there is an agreed upon cessation of property acquisition by treaty, the normal development of land continues. There is no basis to regard the disputed territories as a no-man’s land, to be free of all settlement (by populations of either side), deposited, as it were, in escrow, untouched, pending resolution of borders. Israel has only ever agreed to temporary moratoria on land development (“settlement”), though it has removed squatters from land to which they have no proper title. The forcible removal of Jews from Gaza was an act of the state not pursuant to treaty, but a unilateral act of raw police power, with only a tenuous link to the civil law principle of eminent domain. When, or if, the PA takes sovereignty within negotiated borders, it takes the population there as it finds it: Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Bedouin, other Arab clans and tribes. Thereafter it may confer special legal status on sections of the population. It may also move populations. The west has very seldom interfered with Arab governments’ decisions - massacre, deprivation of civil rights - concerning their populations.
As for your question, “are those who acquire the land to observe their national law but disregard international law”?, the answer is: people must obey the laws of the land. Where the state has ratified a treaty it becomes part of the law of the land. Where a state must implement a ratified treaty by internal actions, those actions must be authorized by law. Certainly there is no independent duty for citizens to obey “international law”, analogously to the duty of Americans to obey federal law and state law. International law is not supreme law. It is simply law governing state relationships. And there is no “international law” - no treaty with the PA - that demands Israel prevent settlement - why not all economic activity? - in the territory it controls beyond the armistice lines. The advisory opinions by international courts concerning the illegality of settlements have no force or effect upon the parties to the dispute, not least because the “international law” (Resolution 242), requires the parties to negotiate the legal status of the territories. But either side may abrogate 242 by unilateral declaration. I would prefer Israel unilaterally to declare its borders before the PA does.
The discussions about who is negotiating in good faith, who is a partner for peace, who offered what, who accepted what, what the negotiators felt about each other ..... all of that is gossip. Can be fun. For some reason people want to believe their side has made good faith compromises acceptable by the other side. They are forced to conclude that the other side is acting in bad faith. I believe that good faith or not, nice guys or not, the realities of the politics - which include what people believe to be the legal status of the territories - make a negotiated peace-with-statehood an impossibility. I hope that the Israelis know this, and are going through the motions only because they mistakenly believe that it is good PR, not because they think that the magic, mutually satisfactory balance of land and population may be found. Meanwhile, as settlements - or, “economic activity” as I see it - are being enlarged or created on the West Bank, the infrastructure for a Palestinian polity is being put in place. Perhaps, as the Palestinians are able to trust the institutions of their own autonomy to be fair and to promote their pursuit of happiness, they will be reconciled to leading normal lives on the land they have, alongside Jewish neighbors, whether over the border or in their midst.
“The Mandate did not confer on the Jews a right to Palestine, but a right to settle in Palestine.” One does not have to be legal eagle to know that that is a legal conclusion, and may be countered by another legal conclusion: “The Mandate conferred the right of Jews closely to settle throughout the territory of the Mandate with eventual self-rule as a state.” Of course our sources, arguments, interpretations of laws etc. would differ in arriving at those conclusions. I am not sure that a a detailed technical discussion would “help to advance the argument”, as you suggest. I have long given up trying to persuade some commenters in these pages to agree with legal conclusions which establish the legality of Israel in Palestine, the settlements, the conduct of the war. All I can do is not let them think that the issue is settled, so in one form or another, I jog the accepted wisdom, sometimes with sufficient reference to relevant law to ground my statements, but very often in as general as way as the wisdom itself was expressed. Wherever I have detailed a legal analysis, it is invariably countered with “that is a minority view”, as if that invalidates the argument. If you were interested in reading full-blown arguments for the legitimacy of the state of Israel, they are out there. Help yourself. It is pointless my regurgitating them here. Or even citing legal experts for you to read. Legal scholarship is almost invariably advocacy. This is not “loftiness”. This is an assumption that you have read enough to base your opinions on, and will read more as you wish to re-think those opinions. If you would like a readable, well argued “non-mainstream” but persuasive argument on the legal foundations of Israel, I can recommend one.
The effect of war on international treaties is a well travelled area of legal scholarship.
The UN is not a court, it is a political institution run on debating rules, with law-making power - and enforcement - in the hands of five nuclear powers.
The ICJ is the judicial wing of the UN - not an independent judiciary. Its opinions on political questions are advisory, and states may not submit to its jurisdiction.
There is an interpretation of the law of war that is misapplying the idea of “proportionality” in such a way that it does infringe upon the right to national self-defense.
“Resistance” was put in quotes because it too is a concept that is being glossed alongside “self-defense”. Where Israel’s defense is subject to special laws of war, Palestinian resistance is exempted from them, although there is no right of resistance in international law at all. If you find one, let me know. (I do not count the Khalidi essay, which custom-fits a right only for the Palestinians.)
“You conclude that power prevails (and imply makes the rules and calls them law). Is that really all there is to Israel's claims?” If international law is seen as political power arrangements, it is not only true of Israel’s claims, but the claims of all states and peoples. Whatever the basis for Israel’s claims - international law, morals, actions, principles - they are stronger than those of the favored subset of Palestinian Arabs.
Last, the issue of the representativeness of the Zionists of world Jewry is quite irrelevant. There were sufficient Jews, voting with their feet in favor of living in Palestine, physically to establish the infrastructure of statehood, and to defend its establishment.

VEBott

Sorry Steve, I'm the (accidental) anon, and as you'll see from an earlier post, I do acknowledge the fact that there has effectively been a population exchange.

For what it's worth, the explosion of Arab racism abroad was a response to Israeli independence and Arab humiliation; in any case it doesn't justify absurdities like the status of the 'present absentees'.

The Palestinian refugees were forced into dependence upon states that saw them as a threat, while the Sephardim were given some sort of welcome, albeit not quite as enthusiastic a welcome as their Ashkenazi coreligionists. You don't have to renounce Zionism to acknowledge that the Nakba was a tragedy for the Palestinians, a tragedy whose aftermath Israel could (once) have handled better.

Stephen Rothbart

As many have said to my comments in the past, I overestimated Derek Blades.

His avoidnce of my challenge to show he has other less fortunate citizens of the world on his agenda other than those he feels victim to the only Jewish state in the world, and his adjectives used to describe any action by Israel always being nasty ones, reassures me that he is, after all, what I said originally, an anti-Semite, pure and simple.

So I will no longer engage with him. He is not worth the space other than to point out to his limited grasp of the world that, while yes, the US is a big country, and has recenty shown support to Israel almost unconditionally, except under poor muddled Jimmy Carter, and now under the buffoon, Obama, it is itself up against China and Russia, who are much larger than even the US, and who voted for Lebanon's UN vote for censure of Israel for settlement building this week, as did all those other OECD "allies" that Blades thinks are in the Zionist pocket.

Even the US veto was grudgingly given, so things are still looking good for those hoping for a Judenfrei Middle East!

Pointless to read him either, as he has nothing useful to say, just the same old record stuck in an obnoxious groove.

Kate, however is the challenge. Still judging, I think, Israel as the reason for its own world image to the bewilderment of any one who has studied world history.

To explain the situation fully one has to consider context.

One of the great things about English law was the fact that in addition to the basic Common Law, Judges had the option to consider "Equitable Law."

In other words they could look not just at the black and white of an issue, but also the intentions and the results of a particular judgement.

This gave judges the chance to use their discretion in making a judgement, and to consider if the pure application of Common Law was fair on a particular party given the circumstances of the situation being tried.

When it comes to Israel, "Common Law" is applied, and all nuance and all history is cast aside.

Let's look at the facts in very simple terms.

The Zionist movement grew up as a result of over 1,000 years of abject perescution of Jews in the Christian run diaspora.

Pograms and massacres of minority Jewish populations throughout the Iberian peninsular, and on to Central and Eastern Europe and England.

In the 1890's this brought about the push for a Jewish homeland and the Balfour Declaration and then the Partition of Palestine into an Arab and Jewish state agreed by the British Protectorate.

As stated many times by many people and much better than me, the Arabs in Palestine and their Arab neighbours having not accepted the Resolution finally passed by the UN, attacked and tried to destroy the fledgling State of Israel and the local Jews and Holocaust survivors living there, while the world stood silent and did not raise a finger to help.

Having lost that war, and having refused to sign any Peace Treaty with Israel, the Arabs found themselves with even less land than they had started with.

So they tried again and again and lost more and more land, and as the years went by they became more violent, more brutal and more extreme.

This has resulted in a small nation of 4-5,000,000 having to send their young teenage kids, of both sexes, into the IDF on a regular basis.

Many have been killed this way.

They have had to give up their jobs to go to war or to just do reserve duty in order to maintain a viable army.

In the meantime, their neighbours creep into their country and blow up cafes and shopping centers and shoot the school buses up and their citizens make these killers into heroes and name streets and ships after these mindless slaughters on civilian targets.

So bubelah! Vot's not to like about these people?

Well, I am sorry. Yes, the Israeli Palestinian problem has two sides. Every situation has two sides. But when you put it into a context, when you put it into "Equitable" Law, can their be any doubt why Israel would be crazy to put their trust in.... well who exactly? Abbas, Hamas, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria?

Who do they make peace with?

Who is in charge?

That, Kate is the context, and without context there can be no understanding.

Only the blind Jew hatred of the Derek Blades of this world, who even betrays himself by the use of the word "Naqba" when describing the UN resolution, can judge the situation as just a dispute between two tribes arguing over the same piece of land one the vitim of theft, the other illegal nouveaux arrivistes.

All over the Middle East and the Islamic world, Muslims are fighting and killing each other for being Shia, for being Sunni for being.... well just not them. Whoever "them" is.

And these are just Muslims fighting against their fellow c-religionists.

These same people have been stoking their hatred of Jews and Israelis for 60 years.

If they can't even love each other, how can they ever possibly make a meaningful peace with another religion?

That Kate, is why Israelis hang tough They have given up with their neighbours. They simply have lost faith, and they have to live their lives for themselves now, not what looks fair to a biased and spiteful world.

Israel has only to make one mistake and they lose everythig.

When there is a true partner for Peace, Kate, I am sure Israel will leap at it, so that their children don't have to don the olive green uniform and go off to guard their fragile borders - ever again.

"looks" fair

devilfish13

Stephen Rothbart: I've read with interest your long piece citing your opinions on contributions made by Kate and Derek Blades.

What I'm not clear about is where you stand on the following:

Can I assume you agree that there is a basic right of self-defence that on occasions may permit a violent response?

Secondly,an assumption that one group can't acquire the power of life and death over another without their consent?

Finally, can I assume you agree that the rightness or wrongness of an action is to a large extent a matter of consequences rather than of the intentions that motivate it?

Derek BLADES

Stephen Rothbart writes, "Derek Blades ... betrays himself by the use of the word 'Naqba'." I don't believe I have ever used that word and do not know what it means. Chapter and verse please.

I have in fact replied to his charge that criticising Israeli foreign policy amounts to anti-Semitism, a common slander on this blog and best described as the last refuge of the scoundrel. Ms Phillips' handlers chose not to publish it.

Your rehash of Israel's ancient and modern history does not address what I see as the central issue. Many Palestinians have suffered a grave injustice through the seizure of their homes in what is now Israel - an injustice compounded by the Israeli occupation and land-theft in the West Bank and by lethal attacks on refugees and their descendants in Lebanon and Gaza.

I come in for a good deal of spittle-flecked criticism on this blog but, as Stephen Rothbart may not have noticed, what I write in favour of peace and against continued settlements mirrors the Middle East policies of the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and the United Nations. Does he also condemn them of "blind Jew hatred"? (Well, let’s be realistic. The poor fellow probably does.)

Adam B.

VEBott, Arab anti-Semitism predates the refounding of Israel. The dhimmi apartheid system, under which Jews and others were forced to live in Arab countries, as well as pogroms and other persecutions attest to this.

VEBott

@Adam B

Yes Adam, of course there was anti-semitism in Arab countries. However, there was no equivalent of the Shoah, nothing like the attacks by Ukrainian nationalist forces in the early 20th century, or the Cossack attacks in the 17th century. Arab Jews were periodically murdered in their hundreds and thousands, not in their tens and hundreds OF thousands, as in the West. If antisemitism is a criterion for who should have suffered expulsion to allow the ingathering, Israel should have been built in Bavaria.

I was, in any case, referring to what triggered the specific mass persecutions that led to the Sephardi exodus from Arab lands.

Stephen Rothbart

Devilfish has I believe, tried to set me a trap!

I accept the challenge.

He asks "What I'm not clear about is where you stand on the following:

Q. Can I assume you agree that there is a basic right of self-defence that on occasions may permit a violent response?"

A. Yes the right to self-defence is a universal right. It justifies force of arms if necessary to defend the citizens of a sovereign state from another's attack. Such violence is not justified if one side has not attacked the other. I suspect that your aim is to try to suggest that the Palestinians are jutified in attacking Israel, because it is in self-defence. To that I would argue that Israel has no reason to attack Palestinians. Operation Cast Lead for example was only instigated against Gazan Hamas after almost 3 years of relentless rocket attack on civilian targets after Israel had left Gaza and signed a cease fire with them.

However, some Israelis have no problem if the Palestinians confined their "war of liberation" to attacking Israelis in uniform while they themselves wore uniform. That is legitimate warfare.

"Soldiers" not in uniform were routinely executed as spies if they were captured during wars.

One of the reasons for so many "civilian" casulaties among the Palestiians, is that few have recogonizable characteristics of being soldiers or civilians.

"Q. Secondly, an assumption that one group can't acquire the power of life and death over another without their consent?"

A. I agree wholly with that. It is Islam not Judaism that has apostacy as a main tenet of its religion, which means you have to accept Allah and all that his Prophet Mohammed has said
as the absolute truth and on pain of death if you do not.

Hamas is backed by the Iranian theocracy, as is Hezbollah in Lebanon and in Syria. Israeli Jews have no interest in imposing Judaism or Israel on anyone. In fact no religion goes more out of its way to discourage conversion than Judaism. That is the entire case in point about this vendetta against Israel. It is not about the Paletinians, it is about the ascendancy of Islam and only Islam in the entire Middle East. And in some parts of Birmingham!

Israel has neither the numbers of people, nor the size of an army to occupy another's country.

So if the intention is to say that this is Israel's intention I reject it. Is it the intention to remove Judaism and Christianity from the Middle East by major players involved in the Israeli/Palestinian problem? Abolutely.

"Q. Finally, can I assume you agree that the rightness or wrongness of an action is to a large extent a matter of consequences rather than of the intentions that motivate it?"

A. I am not sure where this question is heading. There is for example the time when the British Army was sent into Northern Ireland to protect the Catholic populations from violent oppression by the Loyalist gangs there.

By rejecting the sending in of the British Army, the IRA was able to turn this attempt to protect the Catholic constituency into a symbol of British "Occupation" and the "Troubles" re-ignited the entire region and even brought sympathy for the IRA from the British Left and the USA.

Britain's motive was pure, but it was turned by evil people into something else, which in itself turned into such events as a massacre of unarmed Irish protesters by the Paras, for example, and years of bombing and revenge.

In the case of Israel, they were attacked and their Army prevailed. They ended up with land that had previously not been awarded to them in the Partition. In the absence of finding a party to sign a Peace Treaty with, they held on to the land and fortified some of these for further self-protection, or as in the case of Gaza,for example, to swop for Peace, as they hoped they had achieved. Sadly the Gazan Palestinians elected Hamas who immediately broke the Cease Fire and the peace accord was bogus.

But in the absence of any party for peace, the unintended consequence of these victories is that Israel was left in charge of land where some people who were deprived of responsible leadership, and who, jobless, rootless, and easily influenced by their fellow Arabs became willing and uwilling cannon fodder for the nastier elements in Fatah and Hamas. They had nothing better to do than spend their time harrassing Israeli soldiers and posing for CNN and BBC news crews.

Let me go further. Kate for example moves across the various borders and into Gaza and the West Bank, and has therefore developed a tremendous affinity with many of the Palestinian
people there.

I have never been to either, but I sympathisize with their misery as would anyone who has a heart. But the problem is that these people are led by organizations that are nothing more than gangsters.

The descendants of Arafat's inglorious regime have been lining their pockets for years, as did he, and running drugs and arms trades at the expense of their people.

Hamas came to power because the people in Gaza hated Fatah for their corruption.

But Hamas are no better, just another bunch of thugs who kill their own people, and enforce a more fundemental strain of militant Islam on their fellow Gazans, while making money out of smuggling drugs and luxuries as well as arms through the tunnels and raking off the donations from the naive UN and the EU and other humanistic bodies.

This is the unintended consequence of Israel winning their wars. They have won territory in which there is a vacuum of the rule of law, and left with no other choice but to maintain their own rule of law while waiting for a viable partner with whom to make peace so that their soldiers can get out of there and go back to work.

This is the unintended consequence that both Britain and Israel have found themselves with. It was not their intention and therefore they deserve no blame.

So in my opinon neither deserve the hatred and vitriol.

What is surprising is the behaviour of Britain's government.

Britain has its own army in Afghanistan and Iraq, which are not even at war with Britain, yet its leaders, Cameron and Haig, cannot recognize that what Britain is doing is very much the same as what Israel is doing.

Except that Israel has more justification because the leaders of the Palestinians are at war with her and the people behind those leaders have threatend to destroy her.

Going back to Northern Ireland, there are many who asked what the hell British troops were doing there at all. They questioned the whole legitimacy of Britain's stewardship of a region conquered in a war in 1690 and then partitioned after the 1916 agreements.

The same goes for the Falklands and for Gibralter.

So why, when your country is occupying an island in the Atlantic, an island in the Med, and Northern Ireland, and has troops fighting and killing Afghans and Iraqis, both combatants and non-combatants, are the leaders of our country swanning around the Middle East calling on Israel to commit suicidal agreements to appease an implacable enemy?

That after all, is what started this exchange of views, the behaviour of the leaders of this country (and sadly now, joined by more and more of the rest of the Free world) to treat Israel so poorly when they are all involved, one way or other in the same activities.

Why and what drives their obsessions? Money? Oil? O something darker and Derek Bladier?

Yes, many of the Palestinian Arabs are victims. But of who and what?

The blame is being attached to the wrong people, for in the end, it is Israel and her Jews that once again are the victims of bias and crass ignorance.

Hope that I have answered you, Devilfish, and that you understand that I am both a patriotic Englishman and fully support Britain's right to Gib, the Falklands and Northern Ireland, as I do the right for a Jewish State of Israel to have the same rights to defend herself from similar thugs and terrorists.

Let me finish by making a final point that I hope Kate, if she is still following this will corroborate.

When the Palestinians in the West Bank and in Gaza get sick or injured, they cross into Israel and are treated in Israeli hospitals. This is a fact and it is not an exceptional event. It even happened during the height of Cast Lead.

Can anyone really imagine that this would happen the other way round?

This is because many ordinary Palestinias trust the Israelis to be humane and do the right thing.

R

C. Gee,
It is not clear whether you argue that Israel abides by the law, or that it does not need to; whether law has any place in international relations, or only power.

Whether the Zionists were representative is “irrelevant”, you say. Yet “self-determination” for “the Jews” is one of the standard arguments put forward on this blog. “Sufficient Jews voting with their feet...” is indeed what led to the creation of Israel. It is not what the Zionists argued at any time up to the establishment of the state by force, and not what most have argued since. Neither is it a practice likely to find favour as a general principle, since it would permit any group to establish a state anywhere, given sufficient weaponry (which even in the world of realpolitik is not quite how things work).

You say that the meaning of the Mandate is a matter of interpretation, as if there are no criteria for choosing between competing interpretations. I understand that the interpretation of those who drafted and ratified it is the one that is authoritative, the one that counts in law. If you read the Mandate, the work of its drafters, and the statements of the governments who were signatories, you will find that it does not promise a sovereign state to the Zionists (although it does allow them self-governing institutions). Such a promise of a sovereign state is the further interpretation of the Zionists, which is not authoritative. You argue over this, which implies that you consider the law to have some bearing; yet by arguing against the authoritative interpretation, you seem willing to disregard the law when it suits.

Your argument for the legality of settlements in the West Bank relies on the assertion that the territory is not occupied but “disputed” and that whoever is in possession of the disputed territory can do with it what they will, even while the dispute remains unresolved. (The Palestinians would recognise this as a version of the “pizza” argument: Israel can carry on eating the pizza while the two sides negotiate over how it is to be shared. It is not an argument that bears scrutiny – again, it would allow anyone to do what they want with any territory they declare “disputed”.) I don't know if you are claiming this as a legal principle, or merely asserting that Israel has the power.

That the territory is disputed, and not occupied, appears to rely on an argument you do not spell out. I take it to be based on the fact that 181 did not come into force (the Palestinian Arabs rejected it and the Israelis relied on UDI) or on the fact that a war was fought and that the principle that “war abrogates law” (however dubious as a legal principle) applies, so the West Bank was a part of Palestine that was simply up for grabs. If this is your argument, it is again unclear whether you are saying that what Israel has done is legal, or simply that it has done what it had the power to do. The latter is clearly true. The former is highly dubious.

The general drift of your argument on the legality of settlements gives the appearance of relying on law to justify Israel's actions. But it is not clear. In any legal case, each side will present its best arguments. What decides the case is the finding of the court. It is for the court to decide the point of law, not the parties to the case. Enforcement of its findings is not relevant to the point of law. The ICJ is the court that ultimately interprets international law (as the law now stands – the court has no legislative powers). The court derives its authority from the UN. Israel can insist that its interpretation of the law is the right one, as can any disgruntled plaintiff. As a sovereign state is can ignore the ICJ's ruling (as has the US and others). It cannot as a member of the UN deny that the ICJ's ruling (or opinion) is authoritative. If each and every state can simply say that its interpretation is the right one, there is no law. These are sovereign states and enforcement is problematic, but there is no question but that the ICJ is the source of authoritative rulings.

You base your argument for the legality of settlement on the dubious principle that the land is disputed and so Israel can do what it wants with it. But even if this principle were not dubious your argument fails because the land is in fact under belligerent occupation (as the Israeli legal authorities recognised when they established military rule after 1967 – the opinion of succeeding law officers only began to change once the politicians had decided to annexe the territory – they proved to have as much backbone as our own Mr. Goldsmith).

Israel also claims that it acquired the territory in a war of self-defence, and therefore is entitled to keep it. I am not clear whether you are saying that the laws of war that define self-defence are silly and should be ignored, or that Israel has observed these laws. There are specific criteria that must be met for force to count as self-defence (not just proportionality). It would be a stretch to say that Israel has met them (advocates for Israel are of course happy to make the stretch, but no-one else). But, even if we assume that Israel has met the criteria, there is no law that I know of that says that territory acquired in self-defence can simply be kept. Israel got away with keeping much of Palestine in 1948 and may well get away with keeping much of what it took in 1967, but this has more to do with power politics than law.

You say that the Palestinians should simply reiterate that the state of Palestine continues to exist. I agree. I do not agree that Israel should simply unilaterally define its own borders to include territory appropriated in 1967 as well as in 1948. I am one of those naïve souls who think that, if states are required to observe generally accepted norms, more people will live in peace and relative prosperity. I am also one of those naïve souls who think that it is in Israel's interest to reach an accommodation with the people it shares Palestine with.

Derek BLADES

Stephen Rothfart suffers from verbal diarrhoea and I do not have time to read all the stuff that he writes. But this extra-ordinary claim caught my attention:

"Operation Cast Lead for example was only instigated against Gazan Hamas after almost 3 years of relentless rocket attack on civilian targets after Israel had left Gaza and signed a cease fire with them."

Operation Cast Lead was launched after a six-month cease fire that both IDF and Hamas had respected - barring the occasional warning shots from both sides. The timing of Cast Lead was calculated to fit in with the Israeli and US elections.

TDH

C. Gee,
I'm somewhat bemused to have been in receipt of so much of your contempt for not understanding that a state in Palestine was due to the Zionists as representatives of the Jewish nation, while R recieves a similar dose of your contempt for not understanding that whether or not they were representative is neither here nor there, all that matters is that enough of them turned up with enough in the way of weaponry and the right great power chums. It's all a matter of high principle, is it not, until the principles prove threadbare or inapplicable, then it becomes a pragmatic matter of what you can get away with.

Truthtriumphs

Blades.

How dare you raise your head again on this thread, without giving an explanation for your defence of the BBC, whilst refusing to explain the latter's outrageous expenditure of some half a million pounds of licence-fee money, suppressing the findings of the Balen Report, which it commissioned to investigate anti-Israel bias within its organisation?
I shall remind readers of this blog on every thread, until you do.
Meanwhile, your silence on this issue is a testament to your own hypocrisy and disregard for the truth.

Adam B.

No Blades, wrong again. Israel offered to renew the ceasefire (Hamas called it a hudna, which is not the same as a ceasefire). Hamas rejected calls for a renewal, and continued firing rockets. Cast lead occurred after - in order to stop the rockets.

Adam B.

I assume Blades, that you now accept that anti-Semitism is widespread in the Arab and wider Islamic worlds, in light of the evidence put before you? I notice you haven't acknowledged this, despite your previous claims.

Derek BLADES

I see Tuttitrumps is still frothing at the mouth about the Balen Report. The BBC's decision to treat the report as an internal investigation and not for wider publication was upheld by the highest court in the land which ruled that "the information requested was held 'significantly' for the purposes of journalism and therefore was exempt under the Freedom of Information Act."

That was in June last year. Since then the BBC has been getting on with its job of reporting news and providing balanced interpretations of world events which make it the world's most respected broadcaster. Tittitum and his anti-BBC chums should spend more time listening to the World Service (Medium Wave 648)or watching BBC World and less time aiming spittle-flecked missives at "Blades". They might learn something.

elzeide

Derek BLADES says that "Operation Cast Lead was launched after a six-month cease fire that both IDF and Hamas had respected - barring the occasional warning shots from both sides."
How can you ignore the daily attacks with missiles on civilian areas in Israel?
Besides Hamas don't wanted to renew the "hudna" (that is not exactly a ceasefire).
Is he completely blind or what?

Please Google "Sderot" and you'll see what Sderot, and others towns in Israel, were subjected to. And it's going on again nowadays.

Adam B.

Blades resents being addressed as such. This form the man who thinks it witty to call Stephen Rothbart, "Rothfart" (how old are we?) and Truthtriumphs "Tuttitrumps".

Back to substance, do you now accept that anti-Semitism is widespread in the Arab and wider Islamic worlds?

And as for the Balen report, the BBC has spent close to £200,000 of public money to suppress it and stop it being seen by... the public.

Is that what the BBC is for - to use public money to hold investigations which are in the public interest, and then keep the findigs private? Wonder why they wish to keep it secret.

Derek BLADES

Adam B writes "Blades resents being addressed as such. This form the man who thinks it witty to call Stephen Rothbart, "Rothfart" (how old are we?) and Truthtriumphs "Tuttitrumps".

I generally ignore contributors who have the discourtesy to address me as "Blades", but in this case both the windy Rothfart and the ridiculous Tuttifrutti had made slanderous and untruthful remarks about me. But you are quite right Adam. The best thing is to ignore twits like that.

C.Gee

R:

"Whether the Zionists were representative is “irrelevant”, you say. Yet “self-determination” for “the Jews” is one of the standard arguments put forward on this blog."

There is a lot of material on the opinion of world Jewry on Zionism. Most of it was developed recently to counter the absurd argument that Israel is illegitimate because it was not the demand of a majority of world Jewry. Opponents of Israel like to argue that a state was not wanted by most Jews who were happy where they were, and Zionists therefore were a troublemaking minority, craftily manipulating gullible great powers. Most of the discussion on the opinion of world Jewry during the Balfour era is speculation. An opinion poll was never taken, nor a vote, before the Balfour Declaration, nor after it. We know that Jews had started to immigrate to Palestine before Balfour, and did so in increasing numbers after it. We know that the British severely limited immigration. From 1939, the opinion of the majority of world Jewry on the theoretical desirability of a state for Jews becomes irrelevant. By the time 1947 arrived, I think it is safe to say that world Jewry was in favor of a Jewish state.

But quite aside from the spurious issue of whether most Jews wanted a state, there has never been a nation established on majority approval of the people seeking "self-determination". During the nineteenth century the nationalist (self-determination) uprisings against empire were started by a determined few, gathering to them men of power, influence and intellect, and thereafter a critical mass of the people to justify being a popular movement. Popular uprisings were assumed to be actions condoned by the entire people. The history of the Jewish nationalism in establishing Israel is no different. Determined Zionists acted in the name of national self-determination, they persuaded men with power to help them, and sufficient numbers rallied not just to the cause, but to the reclamation of the land.

I have no idea what to what you are referring when you say: "It is not what the Zionists argued at any time up to the establishment of the state by force, and not what most have argued since."

“Neither is it a practice likely to find favour as a general principle, since it would permit any group to establish a state anywhere, given sufficient weaponry (which even in the world of realpolitik is not quite how things work).”

In the geo-political history of the planet, a group could establish its sovereignty anywhere given sufficient weaponry. Despite the efforts of post-world war institutions to establish rules governing aggressive conquest, it still is the case that sufficient weaponry counts. In Israel’s case the argument is: the Jews had moral and legal claims to the land, which they properly established and vindicated in a defensive war, but even if, as her enemies assert, it was a war of conquest, then they have right of possession - just like any other state.

Your discursions on “authoritative interpretations” of the Mandate, on the authority of the UN and the authority of the advisory opinions of the ICJ reflect the common misunderstanding of the authority of international law. No point in my explaining yet again what international law is, upon what authority it is made and the difference between political and judicial authority.

“You base your argument for the legality of settlement on the dubious principle that the land is disputed and so Israel can do what it wants with it.”

No. That the land is disputed is a fact, not a principle, dubious or otherwise. It should not be a matter of dispute - meaning ownership has become subject to negotiations - between the PLO and Israel, but between Jordan and Israel. Jordan abandoned claims to the land, but it was Israel’s (stupidly) not declaring sovereignty over it and permitting it to become subject to negotiation that gave the PLO a legal claim to it. The legality of settlement does not rest on the status of the land. See my last comment.

“But even if this principle were not dubious your argument fails because the land is in fact under belligerent occupation (as the Israeli legal authorities recognised when they established military rule after 1967 –...).”

“Belligerent occupation”? Military administration of territory taken in a defensive war is not “belligerent” merely because it is military . What legal effect do you hope “belligerent” has? Does it turn the defensive war into an aggressive one?

The relevant law regarding territory won in self-defense says simply that the state which holds territory gained in self-defense has a better claim of title to it than the defeated enemy.

The law of war does not confuse what self-defense is with how it is implemented, as you seem to do.

“You say that the Palestinians should simply reiterate that the state of Palestine continues to exist.”

Do I?

“I am also one of those naïve souls who think that it is in Israel's interest to reach an accommodation with the people it shares Palestine with”

One of those, are you? That's nice. Thanks for sharing.

R

C. Gee,
Wilful distortion is not refutation. What is the point in knocking down straw men?

“Opponents of Israel like to argue that a state was not wanted by most Jews who were happy where they were”. I know of no-one who argues any such thing, and I certainly do not.

“There has never been a nation established on majority approval of the people seeking 'self-determination'". Self determination only began to feature as a serious consideration in international law after the First World War. What does self-determination mean if not consultation with the people of a state as to how they wish to be governed? How could it be self-determination if a minority prevail?

Zionists have traded on a peculiar variation whereby world Jewry, citizens of many states, could choose to take over one particular state regardless of the wishes of its people, and call it self-determination. You propose further that it does not matter whether a majority of world Jewry in fact supported this takeover. You appear to subscribe to the Bolshevik notion of a vanguard. If the vanguard decided “in the name of national self-determination” to take over a particular state and “persuaded men with power to help them”, and “sufficient numbers rallied not just to the cause...” then this is to count as “self-determination” despite the fact that it is very evidently the opposite. You try to support your contention by obfuscating the fact that the Zionists were for long very clearly in a minority among world Jewry, and by saying that Jews voted with their feet - given a free choice, they tended to vote for the UK and US.

You say that the question about the wishes of world Jewry is spurious. It is certainly secondary to the question whether the wishes of world Jewry, let alone the minority among them who were Zionists, should have had any bearing on political arrangements in Palestine.

“It still is the case that sufficient weaponry counts”. Again, who said otherwise? It requires a further argument that it is all that counts, an argument even you are unwilling to make. You say rather that Israel “vindicated” its “moral and legal claims to the land” in a “defensive war”. This is romantic, not to say chivalric. “Moral claims”? “Legal claims”? That it had either is not clear. That they could be “vindicated” by force, rather than moral and legal argument, is not clear. And that possession confers a right is also not clear.

“No point in my explaining yet again what international law is, upon what authority it is made and the difference between political and judicial authority.” This is a shame, since it is the crux of your argument, and you have so far asserted but not explained it.

You appear to assert that the intentions of those who drafted the Mandate instruments and signed the Treaty of Lausanne have no authority in their interpretation; that the intentions of the members of the UN in setting up the ICJ have no bearing on its authority in interpreting international law. You appear to base these assertions on the undeniable fact that politics enter into international law (but not national law?). This is sufficiently heterodox to require not just explanation.

As I said, it is all too easy to announce that land is in dispute and say that by the fact of the announcement it is indeed in dispute. The status of the territories is only in dispute because Israel defies international law. The ICJ has expressed its opinion unanimously. I am not sure why you think it should be for the two parties who have illegally annexed the territory at one time or another to decide who should continue to occupy it. Jordan has renounced any claim to Palestine. Israel could indeed make a claim to sovereignty, against the stipulations of international law about the inadmissibility of the acquisition of land by force. It could hope to get away with it, as it did in 1948. That it has not done so suggests that even the US would find such illegality unacceptable, and that Israel has not worked out what it would do with all the Palestinians it would acquire.

“The legality of settlement does not rest on the status of the land.” Again, the ICJ is unanimous. While Israel can continue to defy international law, it cannot claim to observe it. “International law as interpreted by Israel” is not international law.

“'Belligerent occupation'? Military administration of territory taken in a defensive war is not “belligerent” merely because it is military”. Tsk, tsk, and you the master of legal jargon, and (you believe) legal substance.

“The relevant law regarding territory won in self-defence...” I would be interested in the reference.

“The law of war does not confuse what self-defence is with how it is implemented...” It is your turn to be obscure. There are clear criteria for when military action can be deemed to be in self defence (although clearly there can be legitimate dispute whether a particular episode counts or not).

Of course you did not say that the Palestinians should “reiterate etc.” I think you did say that they are welcome to make a unilateral declaration of their independence. Since the state of Palestine has been in existence since the Treaty of Lausanne, this would amount to a reiteration etc.

You offered “If you would like a readable, well argued “non-mainstream” but persuasive argument on the legal foundations of Israel, I can recommend one.” I would be grateful for the reference.

C.Gee

"Self determination only began to feature as a serious consideration in international law after the First World War."

What was it before it was "serious"? A self-identified people claiming its own polity from foreign imperial control has been a serious aspect of geo-politics since history began. "Self-determination" became multinational institutional jargon when the great powers rolled back defeated powers' empires and their own. The "selves" allowed to be self-determining were not always national selves: a huge section of humanity was arranged on sectarian identity. And a number of nation-states were created without considering the identity of the majority of people within the territory at all.

“What does self-determination mean if not consultation with the people of a state as to how they wish to be governed?”

You are confusing the claims of national movements and international policy with established liberal democracy.

“How could it be self-determination if a minority prevail?”

Ditto. As I have said, their were sufficient Jews wishing to leave the countries where they were citizens to take up their national lives in Palestine and establish a Jewish State there. What precisely would the opinion of a German Jew against Zion matter to a Polish Jew who decided to make a life in Zion? Later, of course, it mattered to the German Jew, that a Polish Jew had opted for recreating Zion. The majority that mattered was the majority in Palestine - as Britain, the Arabs, the Zionists and Jews everywhere perfectly well understood. The fact that there are more Jews living as citizens of foreign countries that living as citizens of Israel, is no basis for denying the status of Israel as the Jewish State. There are ex-pat and diaspora populations all over the planet. Their choice to emigrate does not call into legal question the legitimacy of their national home (particularly where the national home is a charnel house). Why does an ingathering of nationals to their ancient territory create such an issue? If they were willing to take on the hatred of the people they bought land next to, that is their business. That hatred provides no legal claim negating the legal claims of the incomers (returnees). It can, of course, rouse people to war, but unless they win, their hatred cannot be converted to dominion.

“This is a shame, since it is the crux of your argument, and you have so far asserted but not explained it.”

Sorry, I will not start asserting or explaining the differences between assertion and explanation. I offer no explanation for that particular assertion.

“The status of the territories is only in dispute because Israel defies international law.”

No. That is a tautology - and the premise is an error. The status of the territories is in dispute because Israel is in compliance with international law: the legal status of the territories is “disputed”. The settlements do not effect the legal status of the territories.

“Tsk, tsk, and you the master of legal jargon, and (you believe) legal substance.”

If you want confuse “belligerent occupation” with “military occupation”, go right ahead. If you want to load the dice or stack the deck, go right ahead. Bring your attorney to the game.

“There are clear criteria for when military action can be deemed to be in self defence (although clearly there can be legitimate dispute whether a particular episode counts or not)” So they are not quite clear enough, then.

“Since the state of Palestine has been in existence since the Treaty of Lausanne, this would amount to a reiteration etc.”

What?

I recommend Howard Grief, The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel Under International Law. Available through Amazon.

Adam B.

Blades ignores the issue of anti-Semitism in the Arab and wider Islamic worlds, despite being confronted with evidence which shot down his contention that it wasn't an issue.

Worth noting. Now who is the twit?

devilfish13

Stephen Rothbart: I've replied to you, but unfortunately the 'Moderator' has chosen not to let it through. God knows why. Anyway, this used to happen in the past with the excuse that the internet can be 'quirky'. Frankly I don't buy that. So.... since I have a rather busy schedule these days, I regret I'm unable to partake further in this debate.

Steve

R

A fascinating debate on the complexities of 'international law' and the 'formation' of nations but I think you make my argument for me.

It seems that there are many ways that nations emerge. International agreements which re-draw boundaries and 'create' new entities (eg. India / Pakistan / Bangladesh), internal civil wars which split or split away from existing entities (balkans, USA etc.), merging of separate smaller entities into a larger whole (UK, Germany, Italy etc.), annexing by foreign powers (East Germany), expansion, by force or otherwise, of existing entity (China, Russia), Increase by purchase of land (USA again), etc.

None of these situations attracts the level of criticism, debate, approbrium etc. that the formation of the Jewish state has attracted. It is this absolute maniacal obsession which first attracted my attention to Israel (well that and the murder of athletes at the biggest international sports event in the World and relative absence of ensuing outrage) and continues to disturb me. As I have said before, if this isn't motivated by anti-semetism, please tell me what it is.

R

C Gee,
You appear to think that an idiosyncratic version of the history of kingdoms, principalities and empires past and a romantic, not to say mystical, 19thC European version of nationalism comprise the meaning of the term “self-determination”.

It is indeed an awkward term, as Woodrow Wilson's own officials complained when the old humbug started on about it. It is worth quoting his Secretary of State: “The more I think about the President's declaration as to the right of 'self-determination', the more convinced I am of the danger of putting such ideas into the minds of certain races...What effect will if have on the Irish, the Indians, the Egyptians, and the nationalists among the Boers? Will it not breed discontent, disorder, and rebellion? Will not the Mohammedans of Syria and Palestine and possibly of Morocco and Tripoli rely on it? How can it be harmonized with Zionism, to which the President is practically committed?”

We are discussing the establishment of the state of Palestine in the Treaty of Lausanne and the instruments of the Mandate. The term is there used as a term of art or jargon, as you say, such as Secretary Lansing certainly understood, as did Balfour who wished to exclude Palestine, knowing that the population did not accept Zionism.

However, we do not need to dwell on this, since we agree on the principle and what it means, as your comments on Israel show: “The majority that mattered was the majority in Palestine - as Britain, the Arabs, the Zionists and Jews everywhere perfectly well understood. The fact that there are more Jews living as citizens of foreign countries that living as citizens of Israel, is no basis for denying the status of Israel as the Jewish State.” The rest of the paragraph is confused or disingenuous, but can I remind you that we have been discussing the establishment of the state, not its current standing.

“Sorry, I will not start asserting or explaining the differences between assertion and explanation. I offer no explanation for that particular assertion.” This I take to be an effort to evade a challenge by passing it off with an attempt at a witticism.

“The status of the territories is in dispute because Israel is in compliance with international law: the legal status of the territories is 'disputed'”. Unfortunately, this depends on the prior demonstration that international law equates to Israel's interpretation of international law, which is what is at issue. As an aside, I am struggling to picture a tautology (which is necessarily true) that has a false premiss - no doubt it can be done, but I'm not good enough at elementary logic.

“Belligerent occupation” follows from the interpretation of international law by the institutions vested with the authority to interpret international law. If you decide not to evade the challenge to provide an explanation why Israel's interpretation of international law should trump all others, then we can revisit the terminology.

“So they are not quite clear enough, then.” The criteria are quite clear enough. Obviously, the facts must be established to determine whether the criteria apply.

“What?” As an admirer of Howard Grief, you should be able to take this in your stride. He argues that the Treaty of Lausanne and the Mandate established the Jewish state. He is correct that they established a state. They established the state of Palestine, as a reading of the documents and of court judgements in various jurisdictions over subsequent decades will confirm.

I had dismissed Grief's monograph because of what on the face of it looks like very special pleading requiring a fanciful reading of the evidence. Since I take your opinions seriously, I will clearly have to study it more closely.

factschecker

Yisrael Medad If you are going to make comment that is fine but if you are going to state something as fact please make sure you get it right.Britian was not required to do anything but Govern as the League of Nations had no power to make conditions as to how that Mandate should be carried out and your statement that the decision was intended to "reconstitute" the Jewish national home,is also incorrect Yes the Zionists did pressure the English ot include that in the Belfour Declaration but they refused to do so.

Steve

VE Bott

"...For what it's worth, the explosion of Arab racism abroad was a response to Israeli independence and Arab humiliation..."

I thought the accepted narrative was that the Arabs (muslims) are still angry about the Crusades and the loss of the 'Caliphate'. I think you'll find that these pre-date the formation of Israel by quite some time.

VEBott

“What is the point in knocking down straw men?”

Perhaps that it raises a good solid wall of obfuscating dust?

“The status of the territories is only in dispute because Israel defies international law.”

Yes. Israel will not comply with the judgements of the authorities that Israel itself recognizes as having jurisdiction in matters of international law bearing on the status of territories that come under a state's control as a result of military action , namely the ICJ, the Security Counsel of the UN, and the UN General Assembly.

The fact that Israel at times refuses to recognise the competence of said bodies to rule on this particular issue is a subsidiary matter, since said competency is part of the judgement of said bodies.

Much more interestingly, had the Palestinians been organized enough to do as the Israelis did and issue a declaration of independence, even one without specified borders, then, come the armistice, the green line might have demarcated both Israel's internationally-recognized boundaries and those of (mostly) Jordanian-occupied Palestine.

Unfortunately for them , the fellahin were, at that time, just glove-puppets for the British client states in Jordan and Iraq.

devilfish13

I've read and reread this post & for the life of me I can't find anything seriously wrong with it. Would you kindly publish it please.

Stephen Rothbart: On the question of self-defence you would agree therefore, that since the events of 1948 the Palestinians have held the right of self-defence that on occasions has permitted a violent response. Further, I must assume that you agree that the Zionist project as conceived and executed in the 19th and 20th century was entirely unjustified, and could reasonably be regarded by the inhabitants of Palestine as a very serious threat. In my view to seek the total domination by one ethnic group over of all others in the Region was wrong and unacceptable.

That the Zionist Jews and Jews generally may have acquired pressing reasons for wanting a Jewish state doesn’t change this. The Zionist project was the major cause of all the terror and warfare that has been aroused ever since.
I’m glad you agree that one group can't acquire the power of life and death over another without their consent. However, it exposes as a myth the claim that Israel is a real democracy. The Jewish state is a state run by and for Jews. Therefore in such a state, Jews are sovereign. The state is run in their interests. It is reasonable, therefore, for non-Jews to expect as much. But nothing remotely like that is occurring

Jews have a monopoly on power in the areas they control: resistance is futile. The Jewish state is simply a state where Jews are firmly in control. Within its borders, Jews hold all the power over Jews and non-Jews alike. It is the true meaning of Zionism in Israel today.

But it wasn't always that way. The Jews, who came to Palestine as individuals, and as small groups, had various motives. But the ultimate goal of the Zionist movement was to bring all these groups together and found a sovereign Jewish state. Jews would always have the final say in everything. And to that extent Zionism has succeeded. Affairs are run entirely in the interests of the Jewish people. The final decision on how much force is used to advance those interests is in the hands of the Jewish occupants.

However this doesn't mean that non-Jews have no representation. It doesn't mean that non-Jews have no civil-rights, or that their human rights are necessarily violated. But it does mean that since it is the essence of a Jewish state to be Jewish, run by and for Jews, things are always arranged so that sovereignty remains in Jewish hands. So it is for Jews alone to decide whether human rights are honoured. Hence Israel cannot be a real democracy as generally defined and accepted elsewhere.
On the settlements what makes Israel's position about the territories so indefensible is its utter gratuitousness. There is absolutely no reason for Israel to promote the settlements that cause so much misery. The settler movement is built on pseudo-Biblical foolishness, bad history, greed and worse a racist doctrine which doesn't deserve any tolerance, consideration or respect. Israel could have not only peace, but vastly increased security tomorrow if it chooses. It has all the options and the Palestinians none.

These are the latest consequences of Zionist expansionism in the lands once known as Palestine. Even if the Zionists had never dreamed of taking all of Palestine from the Palestinians, its plain unrealistic to suppose that they would not come to do so, bit by bit.

C.Gee

“As an admirer of Howard Grief, you should be able to take this in your stride. He argues that the Treaty of Lausanne and the Mandate established the Jewish state.”

Howard Grief views the San Remo Resolution of April 25, 1920 as one of the foundations of Jewish legal rights and title of sovereignty to the land of Israel and Palestine. His book describes in detail how boundaries were decided upon and the how considerations of the ancient Jewish lands came to bear upon the decisions. At no point does he talk about the “state” of Palestine. Palestine was the name of the Mandate territory. And it certainly was not the name of an Arab state. The Treaty of Lausanne bears no relevance to Palestine whatsoever: it was a peace treaty which dealt with other sections of the Ottoman Empire.

C.Gee

Steve
March 1st, 2011 9:27am:

Yes, indeed, and well said. It always does come back to the Jewish exception and the irrationality that underlies it.

Barra Spears

Authors comment
Let’s get out heads round this one, shall we?
The wording of the motion is, first of all, malicious slander. Israeli building in the disputed territories is not illegal. Nor is it illegitimate. Israel is legally and morally entitled to be there. This was first enshrined in the terms of the Mandate for Palestine which required Britain as the Mandatory power to settle the Jews throughout these lands, a right which has never been abrogated in law.
Wrong A League of Nations mandate was an authorization granted by the League of Nations to a member nation to govern a former German or Turkish colony after the 1914-1918 war Iraq and Palestine were assigned to Great Britain. Britian was not under any obligation to establish a Jewish State in Palestine as The League's Permanent Mandates Commission was not empowered to enforce its will on any of the mandatory powers. The following is the Belfour Declaration Letter word for word from Foreign Office November 2nd 1917.
Dear Lord Rothschild, I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet. “ His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious of existing non Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country” I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation
Note the words best endeavours not guarantee, and the term national homeland not Independent State! in other words it would still be under control of the British then there is the “nothing shall be done clause”. The Mandate gave the British the right to Govern Palestine and it is and was obvious that they considered the unrestricted intake of Jews would be in breach of the “nothing” clause as it was apparent the Zionists intention was the eviction of all non Jews. The British did use their best endeavours as per the Balfour Declaration but owing to the Jewish violence and acts of terrorism carried out by various Jewish Terrorist Groups found it necessary to hand the Mandate over to the U.N and we know the outcome of that. If the British had kept on with the terms of the Belfour Paper their would be no Jewish State of Israel but one area called Palestine that would be the home for both Jews and non Jews alike as was Balfour intention. We all know that the Arabs did not accept the terms of the U.N partition for various reasons but the Jews did and the terms of acceptance were the right of return and acceptance of the areas of that partition and therefore have every right to demand Israel abide by those conditions. The Israelis have two options request the U.N to hand back The right to Mandate to the British or the U..N one they cannot and must not be allowed to go beyond either of these for to do makes a mockery of all who have fought wars to stop the use of force being used to displace people, annex their land and take from them that which is rightfully theirs

TDH

C.Gee
March 1st, 2011 7:58pm
The Treaty of Lausanne was when Turkey ceded sovereignty and Britain became trustee.

This is when the state came into being that Grief argues was a Jewish state, and is here argued was the state of Palestine.

Grief argues it was a Jewish state because the wording of Balfour's letter was included in the San Remo treaty.

He thinks this inclusion requires the statement in the League of Nations Covenant about the communities in the former Turkish territories to refer to world Jewry and not the inhabitants.

He thinks the wording of Balfour's letter must mean what Balfour, Lloyd George and Weizman wanted to say, but what the British did not think they could get away with saying.

He thinks it should mean not what the signatories to San Remo understood by it, although San Remo, the Mandate etc. is what gave the wording legal force.

He thinks the wording should be ignored when it guarantees the civil rights of the inhabitants.

He presumably thinks that elucidations of the meaning such as the Hogarth message are also to be ignored.

It takes a heroic number of implausible assumptions to sustain his interpretation.

I have been reading Jonathan Schneer's recent book on Balfour. He gives an example of Albion's perfidy that I had not known about. Even as they were celebrating with the Zionists over Balfour's letter, ministers were trying to prise Turkey from its alliance with the Central Powers. One of the sweeteners was continued sovereignty over Palestine.

VEBott

Steve,
" The Arabs (muslims) are still angry about the Crusades and the loss of the 'Caliphate' "

That is a kindergarten generalisation.

By 1948, the Arabs had experienced years of occupation, first by the Turks, then by the French and Brits.

Talk about restoring the caliphate was a feature of early manifestations of pan-Arab nationalism against the Ottomans, but after San Remo and Sevres, it was superseded by an anti-colonial Arab nationalism that was increasingly secular. In most, though not all, Arab countries, it was resentment of the Zionist project, which stood in direct opposition to the aspirations of Arab national self-determination, that spurred Arab anti-Jewish actions in the 30's and 40's. There was a direct correlation between periods when Arab governments espoused pan-Arab as opposed to purely national aspirations and the extent that the Jews were persecuted and denied Government protection. Nazi influence also played a part.

Jews were resented to very different extents in different countries, sometimes as agents of colonial powers, or as cosmopolitans whose loyalties were not primarily to the local community and who in some cases even enjoyed immunity from the jurisdiction of the local courts.

Egypt, which was originally very resistant to pan-Arab ideology, is a good example. It was mostly Palestinian activists and Egyptian pan-Arabists who promoted anti-Jewish sentiment there in the period following independence. There were minor anti-Jewish student demonstrations as a result but it is striking that the first major acts of violence against the Egyptian Jewish community in this period were on 2 November 1945, during an anti-British and anti-Zionist demonstration to mark the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.

Nothing to do with crusades or caliphates. I wish I could say the same for today's mediaevalist idiots.

Grumpy true Zionist

www.ipetition.com/str-asp

'Jordan is Palestine'

Sign now - and give the palistinians their rightful home

C.Gee

TDH:

Grief's documentary analysis - including his analysis of the Treaty of Lausanne and its whether it altered the Jewish rights to Palestine created in other documents is a tour de force of legal reasoning.

TDH

C.Gee
March 1st, 2011 11:51pm

Oh, C. Gee. And you were doing so well. A relapse was to be expected. Pick yourself up. Dust yourself off. With perseverance, you will yet rid yourself of this mucky little habit.

TDH

C.Gee
March 2nd, 2011 5:59pm
A tour de force, certainly.

TDH

...in much the same way as Erich von Daneken produced a tour de force on the ancient civilisations of South America - a monument of misapplied energy and ingenuity.

R

A second look at Howard Grief's book confirms my first impression. It is full of useful detail. Yet, at every crux in his argument, he assumes what he purports to prove. In considering each document, he incorporates his interpretation in his description of it. Even when he quotes those who drafted the documents and who appear on the face of it to contradict him, he cites them as confirmation of his conclusions. His understanding of how politics and diplomacy work becomes conveniently naive when he requires one thread in a complex skein to be the definitive and only truth of the matter. His strictures and definitions all too often come with the proviso "of course, this does not apply to the Zionists, only their opponents". He expects his interpretation of legal principles to be accepted without much more than perfunctory argument. The interpretation that suits his case is canonical. Everything else, whether from the drafters of documents, politicians, diplomats, jurists, is a betrayal. I had hoped that C. Gee was basing his unshakeable confidence on something more solid than this. Indeed, there has to be something more solid than this on which to base the case for the legality of Israel's establishment.

Derek BLADES

After reviewing Howard Grief's book, R. tells C. Gee "… there has to be something more solid than this on which to base the case for the legality of Israel's establishment." I have not been following this closely but when I last looked I got the impression that C. Gee uses force of arms as the basis of Israel's legitimacy.

I have no problem with that. Most of the United Nations' 200-odd members can trace their origins to armed conquest so why should Israel be different? What I do find offensive is the attempt to claim legal justification for Israel’s land grab on the West Bank.

TDH

There is a little known story about the Italian contribution to negotiations at Versailles, San Remo etc. about the break-up of the Ottoman Empire. The Italians, much influenced by the recently constituted "Virgilians" movement, pointed out that the Romans had a historical claim to their ancestral home in Troy. After much negotiation, during which it was pointed out that the Western Powers would be better able to contain the USSR if they had a presence in Troy, it was determined that Clause 22 of the League of Nation's Covenant, in talking of the communities resident in the former Ottoman Empire, in the instance of Troy referred to Italians and Italian Americans, who were to exercise their right of self-determination by establishing a blah blah blah. The talk of self-determination clearly did not refer to the communities of Turkic origin, who had plenty of territory in central Asia, or somewhere, to exercise what self-determination the Great Powers would determine to be appropriate, they being less civilised than New Yorkers blah blah blah. For some reason, this story does not make it into most textbooks, but really ought to - to provide some perspective.

C.Gee

R:

So you are not (surprise !) persuaded by Grief’s argument.

The next step would be to provide an argument for Israel’s illegitimacy that would not exhibit - or could not be characterized as exhibiting - the same flaws as you see in Grief.

“Yet, at every crux in his argument, he assumes what he purports to prove.” No, he does not - and that is what makes his book well-reasoned.

“In considering each document, he incorporates his interpretation in his description of it.” Legal interpretation of a document, is precisely the finding of meaning in it. The result of an interpretation is what amounts to a restatement of the documents with the meaning clarified, or glossed.

“Even when he quotes those who drafted the documents and who appear on the face of it to contradict him, he cites them as confirmation of his conclusions.” What? He very carefully examines the statements of the drafters where they appear to contradict his interpretation, and places them in context with other statements, and understandings with parties to the documents, to demonstrate how they too must be interpreted. Most advocacy manages not to tackle contradictory evidence. Grief is scrupulous in addressing the counter-evidence.

“His understanding of how politics and diplomacy work becomes conveniently naive when he requires one thread in a complex skein to be the definitive and only truth of the matter.” Isn’t this just a way of saying that your understanding of how politics and diplomacy work takes you to a different truth? You would have to point to what skeins he has left out - and clear yourself of cherry-picking tendentiousness in choosing them - before this charge can have weight.

“His strictures and definitions all too often come with the proviso "of course, this does not apply to the Zionists, only their opponents".” This would need textual reference and counter-argument to establish that these “provisos” were not correct.

“He expects his interpretation of legal principles to be accepted without much more than perfunctory argument.” Legal principles are the building blocks of legal interpretation. They form part of the body of legal knowledge and a legal scholar can assume that other scholars know them. How they are applied in argument or to the interpretation of a document is the heart of the matter. If you think that his arguments are “perfunctory”, it may be that you need to flesh them out for yourself before you can say they are wrong. Error must be demonstrated. The persuasiveness of a work is subjective. A reader may profess bafflement as a means to dismiss the argument, but that does not establish that the argument is objectively unclear.

“The interpretation that suits his case is canonical. Everything else, whether from the drafters of documents, politicians, diplomats, jurists, is a betrayal.” That is to say: he believes his interpretation to be correct, and other interpretations to be incorrect. Characterizing Grief as messianic does you no credit. The real world of politics, diplomacy, and jurists is filled with self-seeking, distortion, manipulation, lies, half-truths, spin, self-contradiction, changes of mind, changes of policy - and, yes, betrayal.

“I had hoped that C. Gee was basing his unshakeable confidence on something more solid than this. Indeed, there has to be something more solid than this on which to base the case for the legality of Israel's establishment.”

My confidence in the legality of Israel’s establishment is based on the solidity (shakeable) of its existence. Grief’s arguments are more solid than the arguments against the legality of Israel’s establishment, for the purposes of moot court.

C.Gee

“What I do find offensive is the attempt to claim legal justification for Israel’s land grab on the West Bank.”

What I find puzzling it the attempt to claim legal justification for Palestinian sovereign ownership over the West Bank, and if over the West Bank, why only the West Bank, and not the entirety of Israel and Jordan? And why should those who claim legal justification for Palestinian sovereign ownership of Palestine take offense at the presence of Jewish settlements anywhere in Palestine?

R

C.Gee
March 3rd, 2011 7:21pm
You have declined to defend what you yourself have said, so it is good of you to come out in defence of Mr. Grief.

However, I think that what you say in his defence shows that we risk involving ourselves in fruitless exegesis and counter-exegesis. To make my criticisms of him sufficiently clear to show that your responses miss their mark would require of me too detailed a commentary on Mr. Grief's book, and would in turn require of you, to pinpoint precisely where you think I have gone wrong, too detailed...

My remarks were not intended to be that detailed commentary, and I would have been better not to have bothered with them.

The same would apply to any works I referred you to.

I think we have at least sufficiently illustrated why points of law are settled in the end by reference to authority. Your profession of bafflement concerning the illegality of Israel's actions is therefore still something of a puzzle to me.

I can agree with a version of one thing you said: "My confidence in the legality of Israel’s establishment is based on the solidity (shakeable) of its existence." Israel may have come to exist by a unilateral declaration and by force of arms. But there is no question but that Israel is now a state like any other.

But the discussion here has not been about this, but about the dubious comments in the original article about what was and wasn't "enshrined" in the League of Nations Mandate, and about the interpretation of international law.

TDH

And so we are left with the conundrum: Israel insists it has a rightful legal claim bestowed upon it by the institutions of international law it defies. All the elaborate rationalisations leave this unanswered.

Adam B.

TDH - it does have a legal claim.

All else is politics.

TDH

Adam B.
March 6th, 2011 11:34pm
It isn't condescension at all, as you complained in a hurt voice to Herzen. You really do struggle! Struggle and fail to comprehend.

Adam B.

TDH, I think the comprehension difficulties lie with you - Herzen hasn't even posted on this blog.

On another blog, Herzen claimed that anti-Semitism was "obsolete" in all Christian denominations.

He is wrong.

TDH

Adam B.
"There was a time when rank anti-semitism was deemed orthodox in just about any Christian denomination." - Herzen.

The key word there is "orthodox". I cannot see where he says that there is now no anti-semitism among Christians. If you do not misunderstand, then what?

Similarly, I said that Israel claims legal title from the institutions it defies. An apparent inconsistency. Simply to say tout court "Israel has legal title" is to miss the point. (C. Gee's answer is correct, insofar as he says that Israel's claim now is that it exists and is recognised - it now needs no more than that.) If you do not misunderstand, then what?

These are not isolated examples. AGain and again, you misunderstand or misrepresent.

TDH

Adam B.
...or, if there is such a denomination (and I would not be surprised if some American funamentalist sect supporting Israel in the hope of Armageddon is anti-semitic) - it simply allows us to say that Herzen's point is not purely hypothetical. If such a sect set up a school teaching anti-semitism, I would hope you would object (the education of children is not purely private). Similarly, with public servants like these foster parents.

Herzen deplores anti-semitism. You deplore anti-semitism. Herzen says the doctrine of the Christian denominations is no longer anti-semitic. I say there may be American right-wing fundamentalist sects, for example, who still teach anti-semitism. You say it is not obsolete in all Christian denominations. I take it you mean there are faithful still prejudiced - which no-one has denied. All this is beside the point. Herzen's argument takes the form: IF there is such a Christian denomination and it insists on teaching anti-semitism, THEN...