Background and Foreground
For years, perhaps going back as far as the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991, influential international debate on the future of Palestine has almost exclusively considered variations on the theme of a two-state solution. The American Secretary of State, John Kerry, stampeded the Palestinian Authority and Israel into negotiations that ‘failed’ even before they started a year ago. At least Kerry was prudent enough to warn both sides that this was their do or die moment for resolving the conflict. It was presumed without dissent in high places anywhere that this two-state outcome was the one and only solution that could bring peace. Besides the parties themselves, the EU, the Arab League, the UN all wagered that a resolution of the conflict required the establishment of a Palestinian state. Even Benjamin Netanyahu became a reluctant subscriber to this mantra in his 2009 speech at Bar-Ilan University, although always in a halfhearted spirit.
The reasoning that underlay this consensus went along these lines: a viable solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict could not challenge the Israeli commitment and the essential Zionist Project to create a homeland for Jews worldwide; this meant that self-determination for the Palestinian people would have to be addressed separately, and the only way to do this was by way of a partition of historic Palestine. The British had come to this conclusion as early as 1936 in the Peel Commission Report (a British Royal Commission that concluded that the British mandate as applied to the whole of historic Palestine was unworkable because of the tensions between the two ethnic communities, and proposed that partition be imposed), which became the basis for the solution proposed in 1947 by the UN in General Assembly Resolution 181. It was reaffirmed in Security Council Resolution 242 unanimously adopted after the 1967 War that reduced the portion of Palestine assigned to the Palestinian from 45% to 22%, calling for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territory occupied as a result and reaffirming the principle of international law that territory could not be validly acquired by force of arms.
Underneath the partition consensus there is an intriguing puzzle to solve: why has the consensus persisted despite the leadership of neither Israel nor Palestine seeming to have opted for partition except as a second best outcome. The Palestinians made their dislike of partition manifest from the outset of large scale Jewish immigration in the decades after the Balfour Declaration of 1917, believing that imposing a Jewish homeland, much less a Jewish state, was an unacceptable colonial encroachment. In the late 1980s the Palestinians, as represented by the Palestine Liberation Organization, adjusting to the realities of Israel’s presence, accepted the idea of partition in the historic decision in 1988 of the Palestine National Council. In its essence, the Palestinians endorsed the vision embedded in SC Res. 242, envisioning a Palestinian reality based on an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-war green line borders, an expectation that, of course, never materialized.
More subtly, the Zionist leadership was at best ambivalent about partition, appreciating it initially as a path leading to sovereignty, which exceeded ‘homeland’ as a political outcome, and represented more than they could have hoped for earlier in their movement, yet decisively less than the biblical vision of Israel as encompassing the whole of historic Israel. As the situation evolved since Israeli independence, Israel has continuously revised its sense of a favorable balance of forces making it seem realistic to seek a fuller realization of the Zionist dream. In recent years, the Israeli one-staters have started to gain the upper hand, based partly on what has been happening on the ground, partly by the rightward drift of the governing coalition, and partly from the absence of real incentives to compromise territorially due to the falling away of Palestinian armed resistance and the absence of meaningful pressure from Washington. There is a renewed reliance in Israel on the contention that the ‘Palestinians’ do not really have a distinct ethnicity, and hence are not a ‘people’ entitled to self-determination under international law. Palestinians are and should be viewed as ‘Arabs.’ As such, they have no need for another state as already 22 Arab states exist. In my experience, within Israel, almost no Israelis refer to Palestinians as other than as Arabs, except of course the Palestinians.
Of course, what a Palestinian state meant to the Palestinians was different than what it meant to the Israelis. Additionally, what it meant for the Palestinian Authority was also far apart from what the Palestinians overseas dispersed communities and the refugee camps believed to be the necessary components of peace. Almost necessarily, the focus on Palestine as a state rather than Palestine as the communal recipient of rights reduced the conflict to a territorial dispute supposedly susceptible to solution by a ‘land for peace’ formula. This approach marginalized other Palestinian grievances, above all, the right of return of Palestinian refugees, creating tensions between Palestinians living under occupation and Palestinians living in refugee camps and in exile. It also situated issues relating to Jerusalem in some indeterminate zone that was neither territorial nor distinct from territorial claims.
On the Israeli side, too, there were big variations. The dominant Israeli position in recent years has been one in which the dimensions of a Palestinian state must be subordinated to the imperatives of Israeli security as defined by the Israeli government. In effect, that would mean confiscating all of Occupied Palestine to the West of the separation wall and the settlement blocs as well as controlling the borders and maintaining for an indefinite period Israeli security forces in the Jordan Valley. In addition, Palestinians must renounce all their claims as part of a final status agreement, which would seem also to imply the end of any assertion of a right of return for 1948 and 1967 Palestinian refugees. More maximalist versions involve even larger annexationist features and treat the city of Jerusalem as exclusively belonging in perpetuity to Israel. On top of all these demands is the insistence by Netanyahu that the Palestinian Authority recognize Israel as a Jewish state, which both relegates the Palestinian minority in Israel to permanent subjugation and effectively renounces any Palestinian right of return.
The Israeli government having in recent years become virtually inseparable from the settler movement has long appreciated that the function of endorsing a Palestinian state was little more than a way of appeasing, and thereby neutralizing, world public opinion, given its insistence that a political solution was possible and necessary, and could only happen if the Palestinian got their state, satisfying at the very least, the territorial core of self-determination. Even now the Palestinian Authority continues to sing the same lyrics, although the melody is more solemn. The Palestinian governmental representatives in recent years have lost even the ability to say ‘no’ to international negotiations despite having nothing to gain from the recurrent charade of such American orchestrated gatherings and quite a bit to lose by way of expanding settlements, the altered makeup of Jerusalem, and a gradual shifting international mood in the direction of accepting Israeli maximalism as unassailable, if regrettable. Ironically, Israeli media influence and the supportive voice of the U.S. Government also blames the Palestinians for each round of failed peace talks, although for the first time, the Israel obstructionist role was so evident, Washington blamed both sides.
There is no light at the end of this particular tunnel. With what appears to be the death throes of a failed peace process is being acknowledged in the form of an eerie silence in high places. There is an absence of conjecture or advocacy as to how the conflict might end abetted by the recent focus on the turmoil in the region, especially the renewed chaos in Iraq and intensifying strife in Syria that has shifted public and media attention away from the Israel-Palestine agenda. This evasive silence has for the present replaced earlier false hopes invested in futile diplomatic negotiations. In retrospect, it is easy to conclude that political preconditions for conflict-resolving negotiations premised on a viable Palestinian sovereign state never truly existed on the Israeli side, assuredly after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. This is mainly because the expansionist vision of the right-wing settlers became more and more accepted as official state policy in Tel Aviv, and there was no longer pressures being mounted by Palestinian armed struggle. On the Palestinian governmental side, in contrast, there was an eagerness to end the occupation and attain the status and rituals associated with being a sovereign state. Confusion surrounded the practicalities of what such an arrangement would yield. It always seemed doubtful as to whether a deal like this could be sold to the Palestinian people if it left the several million Palestinians living in refugee camps and overseas out in the cold. This assessment is especially true since the death of Arafat in 2004, which has led to a virtual leadership vacuum on the Palestinian side.
The security logic of the Israeli right is that Israel will only be able to maintain its security over time if it continues to control all or most of the West Bank. This image of security reflects the view that real threat to Israel no longer comes from Palestinian armed resistance. It comes from the surrounding Arab world that is moving toward more advanced weaponry, and at some point is almost sure to again turn its guns and missiles in an Israeli direction. Additionally, pushing toward a similar understanding, is the view that the full realization of Zionism involves the incorporation of the West Bank, always referred to in internal Israeli discourse by their biblical names of Judea and Samaria.
Peace through bilateral negotiations presided over by the United States has long seemed moribund to many close observers, but after the recent collapse of the talks this top down diplomatic approach seems discredited even among governments and at the UN, at least for now. Yet it is impossible for most of the world to accept the finality of such a stalemate that favors Israel, in effect, ratifying land grabs and apartheid structures, while consigning the Palestinians to regimes of misery of for the indefinite future, which translates into the rigors of permanent denial of rights, oppression, refugee camps, and involuntary exile. This bleak assessment raises the question ‘What Now?’
Constructing a New Box
In situations of this sort, where differences seem irreconcilable, the common call is ‘to think outside the box.’ The old box was the consensus associated with the two-state mantra, which appeared to have a solidity that never truly existed. Now appearances are more reliable. At present there is not even a box to think within. Yet silence and despair is not an option while Palestine suffering and denial of rights endures. Future alternatives need to be imagined and appraised. Five seem worth pondering, and each has some plausibility.
(1) Israeli One-State: Such an end game involves extending Israel’s border to incorporate most of the West Bank, keeping the settlements except, perhaps, relinquishing control over a few isolated outposts. This vision of Palestine’s future takes on heightened political relevance considering that Reuven Rivlin, the newly elected Israeli President, is an open advocate of a supposedly humane version of an Israeli one-state outcome, a position that directly contradicts Netanyahu’s endorsement of an eventual Palesinian state. This benevolent version, spelled out in some detail by an influential settler advocate, Dani Dayan, calls for a radical easing of Palestinian life in relation to day to day humiliations, ranging from the numerous checkpoints, restrictions on mobility, and anticipates and supports the dismantling of the separation wall. [See Dayan, “Peaceful Nonreconciliation Now,” NY Times, June 9, 2014]
Dayan proposes that the Israeli government take a series of steps to raise the Palestinian standard of living significantly. He admits that this type of ‘economic peace’ will never satisfy Palestinian political/legal grievances relating to territory, independence, and the right of return. Such a proposal is essentially offering the Palestinians a Faustian Bargain in which Palestinians give up their rights of resistance in waging a political struggle for self-determination in exchange for the tangible psychological and economic advantages of living better lives materially and enjoying some measure of dignity within an Israeli structure of governance. The obstacle here is that the authentic voices representing the Palestinian people seem united in refusing to renounce their political ambitions and their right of resistance. The acceptance of such an arrangement would be widely understood, including among the Palestinian people, as a political surrender to the de facto realities of Israeli settler colonialism carried to its maximalist endpoint. It is relevant to note that the Dayan proposal is coupled with the expectation that the Palestinians would renounce in principle and practice any right of violent resistance, while the Israeli state would be entitled to engage in violence whenever the perceived imperatives of security so demanded.
(2) Binational One-State: The more idealistic version of the one-state solution presupposes a secular state that encompasses the whole of historic Palestine, establishes a unified government with democracy and human rights for all, and creates semi-autonomous regions where Jews and Palestinians can exercise self-administration and freely express their separate national and ethnic identities. In effect, the two dominant peoples in Palestine would agree to live together within a single sovereign state on the basis of equality and democracy, but with agreed provisions creating separate national communities preserving culture, tradition, ethnicity, and religious affiliation. There are several obstacles: given the realities on the ground and the attachment of an overwhelming majority of Israelis to the Zionist Project of a Jewish State with its unlimited right of return for Jews worldwide, the proposal seems utopian, lacking political traction. Furthermore, the disparities in wealth and education would likely lead to Israeli hierarchy, if not dominance and continued exploitation, in any process that purported to unify the country on a non-Zionist basis.
(3) Israeli Withdrawal from Occupation: In this proposal, there would be no explicit shift in the structures of governance. In a manner similar to the 2005 Sharon Disengagement Plan for Gaza, this new initiative would apply to those portions of Palestine that Israel seeks to incorporate within its final international borders. This arrangement would leave the Palestinian Authority in charge of the remnant of the West Bank, as well as Gaza. It would maintain the actuality of the occupation regime, but without the presence of Israeli security forces and keep the separation wall, imposing rigid border controls and continue repression, effectively depriving Palestinians of the enjoyment of their most basic human rights. This approach rests on the assumption that Israeli military control is able to implement such a solution as well as to deal with external threats mounted from hostile forces in the region. The main obstacle is that Palestinians would have no incentive to accept such an outcome, it would be denounced in most international settings, including the United Nations, and it would have the likely political consequence of further isolating Israel in global settings.
(4) Palestinian Self-Determination: There is some new thinking in the Palestinian camp, most articulately formulated by Ali Abunimah in his important book, The Battle for Justice in Palestine. The emphasis is on civil society activism and nonviolent Palestinian resistance as building global support for a solution that is responsive to the Palestinian right of self-determination. What form self-determination eventually assumes is a matter, above all, for Palestinians to decide for themselves. The realization of self-determination presupposes leadership that is accepted by authentic representatives of the whole of the Palestinian people, including those living as a minority within Israel, those living under occupation, and those in refugee camps and involuntary exile. The contours of the territorial division or unity that emerges would be the outcome of negotiations, but its embodiment would address the legitimate grievances of the Palestinian people as defined by international law and international human rights and include a formal acknowledgement by Israel of past injustices done to the Palestinian people. The main obstacle here is one of hard power disparities and rigidities, as well as the continuing, although weakening, Jewish worldwide engagement with the Zionist Project. The way around such an obstacle is to gain worldwide support that mounts sufficient pressure on Israel, the United States, and Europe so as to induce a recalculation of interests by Israeli leaders and citizens based on a new realism associated with the increasing leverage of growing Palestinian soft power capabilities.
(5) Peaceful Co-Existence: In recent years, Hamas, strangely seems to be the last holdout for a version of the two-state solution, although in its maximalist form. Israel would need to withdraw to the 1967 borders, end its blockade of Gaza, and give Palestine control over East Jerusalem. The main obstacle here is that Israel would have to abandon its expansionist goals and dismantle the settlements, although it could retain the Zionist Project in its more limited territorial applications to Israel as it existed in 1967. The secondary obstacle is that the Hamas Charter calls for the total removal of the entire Jewish presence from historic Palestine, making the proposal seem tactical and untrustworthy, and at most intended to serve as an interim arrangement, an uneasy truce and unsustainable peace. Hamas officials have indicated a willingness to commit to 50 years of coexistence, a period in which much could change, including even the primacy of the statist framing of political community. It is impossible to imagine Israel accepting such a blurry outcome that rolled back the factual realities of expansion that have been created by Israel over the course of several decades. Besides, whatever its content the very fact that Hamas was the source of such a proposal would alone be sufficient to produce an Israel rejection.
A Concluding Comment
It is obvious that none of these five approaches seems either attractive enough to challenge the status quo or politically persuasive enough to shift the balance of forces bearing on the conflict. Yet, there are signs indicating both that the Israelis are moving toward a unilaterally imposed option and the Palestinians are becoming more inclined to combine nonviolent resistance with support for militant global solidarity. On the one side, the Israeli settler movement is on the front line, and on the other, the Palestinian BDS campaign is gathering momentum as the leading expression of the Palestine National Movement. In both instances, at this time the relevant governmental entities have been marginalized as political actors in relation to the struggle. This is itself an extraordinary development, but where it will lead remains obscure. Two images of the near future seem most relevant. From an Israeli perspective: the consummation of the Zionist project by the incorporation of all or most of the West Bank, the further ethnic consolidation of control over the whole of Jerusalem, and the rejection of any humanitarian responsibility or political ambition with regard to the Gaza Strip. From a Palestinian perspective: the growth of the global solidarity movement to a point where an increasing number of governments impose sanctions on Israel, reinforced societal initiatives associated with the BDS campaign, giving rise to new thinking in Israel and the United States about how best to engage in damage control. If such a point is reached, the experience of transforming apartheid South Africa into a multi-racial constitutional democracy is almost certain to intrigue the political imagination.
Global Justice in the 21st Century 
Professor Falk
You omit considering a further option that has a far more likely chance of success – dividing Sovereignty of the West Bank and East Jerusalem between Jordan and Israel in direct negotiations between those two States who are the successor States to the Mandate for Palestine and who presently exercise sovereignty in 95% of historic Palestine.
Jordan was the last Arab State to occupy the West Bank from 1948-1967. It ceded any claims to the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1988 – but should be given the opportunity to reconsider that position in the light of the PLO failure to resolve the issue of sovereignty with Israel after fruitless negotiations spanning the last 20 years.
If such negotiations can be successfully concluded – then future negotiations for the creation of another Palestinian Arab State in historic Palestine in addition to Jordan would be undertaken between Jordan and the PLO.
The Arab residents of the West Bank and East Jerusalem were happy to reunify that territory with Jordan and to become Jordanian citizens from 1950-1988. There was no demand for another State in those territories during that time. Maybe that position will be attained once again.
What is needed at the moment is a resolution of the issue of sovereignty.
Israel and Jprdan are the two partners most suited to undertake that task.
Mr. Singer
Although I do not share some of the underpinnings of your argument, I think you are correct to suggest that the Jordan Option
should be considered as an alternative future. I am not clear as to how it how it might be best formulated. Your conception of
‘historic Palestine’ is not widely shared as far as I know. And surely the notion that the Arabs were ‘happy’ under Jordanian
governance is an exaggeration; at most, some were content with such an arrangement as a lesser evil. I have spoken with many
Palestinians in the West Bank and in Jordan itself, and have yet to encounter a single advocate of the Jordan Option, and many
who resent Jordan’s relationship to the Palestinian struggle.
Professor Falk
I don’t really think you or I need to decide how the Jordan Option should be formulated other than to call for direct negotiations to be held between Jordan and Israel to allocate sovereignty of the West Bank and East Jerusalem between their two respective states and within the framework of their existing peace treaty.
The PLO make no bones about Jordan being part of ‘historic Palestine.’ Neither Did King Abdullah 1 or King Hussein or Abu Iyad or even Jimmy Carter. Neither did the Peel Commission or the UN in the days before the Six Day War changed the whole geography.
The West Bank Arabs agreed to unify the West Bank with Transjordan in 1950. They did not need to do so if they were unhappy with the outcome.
Any settlement of a dispute should leave both sides unhappy at the outcome. The West Bank Arabs must surely be happier if they are freed from Israel’s yoke and once again come under Jordan’s protection.
Have you read any of the writings of Mudar Zahran? I think he is a firm believer in the Jordan Option. So is Prince Hassan Bin Talal.
Given the unrest in the region Jordan must be feeling decidedly uncomfortable and should grab any prospect of direct negotiations with Israel under American or UN chairmanship with open arms.
Mr. Singer:
Thanks for this further comment on the Jordan Option. I need to inform myself further, but given
the difficulties with the conventional ‘solutions’ all plausible alternatives deserve consideration.
This is what I understand:
There is overlapping in appointing/spiritual authority. I cannot explain in detail as I see, but this is how it appears to me: David, Gene and Professor Falk have one appointed spiritual authority over Israelites/Jews that are Palestinians/contemporarily Muslims.
Then, Rabbi, David, Gene and Professor Falk have one appointed spiritual authority over Jews that immigrated into the Holy Land.
Rabbi is overlapping with Palestine and Israel Issues, and not in full capacity – there are significant limitations to his gift/anointing because they are not fully activated.
This is a persistent thing that I am seeing.
This overlapping needs to a bit more sensitive and smooth in overlapping and it would become sufficient.
This is what I understand:
Historical issues that were misdirected have had an impact and that what should have remained intact in Holy Land has not.
For that reason that it has not remained as it was – for that reason our perceptions are hazy.
I believe what David is saying can mean that between Jordan and Israel spiritual authority over Holy sites and Land is in overlap. This, from spiritual/literal perspective looks accurate. David may have another perception from which he draws his conclusion than I.
I do not see him off to this.
Gaza/West bank in part is not Holy Land Territory and it can be independent from Palestine and Israel, even become part of Jordan and now days Israel — rebuilding of Gaza can and should be imminent.
This is how I get to my conclusion: In general, Arabs in the region are mainly Jews under prophesy (actual Jewish Line), and Jews that immigrated are a grafted in Non-Jewish tribes, but spiritual line under Judaism.
Now, I may be wrong if I misunderstood what David was saying.
Another thing: Palestinians and Jordanians are mainly Palestinian/Arab people in Holy Land. So there is Jewish/Israelite population in Holy Land, but they have not established any valid landmarks for themselves.
Israel and Palestine can have separate states, but their capital city will not be Jerusalem if they pursue separate states because the city Jerusalem will be any state/peoples neutral. Do they want neutral city for their capital as two different states? Meaning, the capital city belongs to God and ecclesiastical people, and they do and do not have one city for their capital.
If they pursue one state solution – Jerusalem can become capital of New Israel’s and Judah state.
The thing is that based on Freedom of Faith Jerusalem cannot be a split city – for sure that it can, but with spiritual and natural consequences. This is an absolute truth.
So, from my perspective Jordanian folks can be Palestinian, and Palestinian folks can be Jordanian. Israel can belong to any of those two folks –or Palestinians and Israelites can integrate as one state, and be content with that. People of Gaza have many options aw well.
Further, they can just stop all warfare, and leave at that.
Richard, as usual your essay is an excellent summation of the historical and present problems in finding a way forward to a peaceful settlement between Israel and Palestine. Unfortunately, for all your expertize in this matter, you don’t offer a valid solution. Of course that is not your fault. I do not believe there is any Solomon-like answer to this problem. As Svirsky points out in his book “After Israel”, which I have been reading since I showed it to you yesterday, the Zionist mentally has been so inbred into the ‘Jewish-Israeli’ psyche, that they are not even aware of their unfairness to the Palestinians. Even among those Mizrahi Jews who have been equally mistreated by the European Ashkenazi Zionists. And mainstream diaspora Jews in the US and elsewhere (mostly also Ashkenazis) add to the make up of that Jewish-Israeli psyche, and have convinced the US policy makers to accept their positions. Thus forming a formidable enemy of Palestinian independence. As I have often expressed; so long as the US supports Israel, and it will for the time that it believes Israel is useful to it in its own empirical quest to control the ME, there will be no sincere quest for a solution. I do find solace in the possibility of international sympathies moving away from Israeli intransigence toward the Palestinian cause as witnessed by the growing success of the BDS movement. But I think we are still a long way from the South African model.
For me, the answer is the ultimate dissolution of the Jewish State and the creation of one greater Palestine, in which the two populations can live in a mixed secular environment, all with equal rights. Utopian, I know. But I can think of no other solution.
Gene, of course you are right. I am personally sympathetic with the one secular state solution but
my position all along has been that part of the process of self-determination is for such a choice to
be made by the people whose right is being realized, in this instance, by authentic representatives of
both peoples. At present, such an outcome seems, as you say, utopian, but if one is inclined to posit
a goal, I would affirm this kind of future as ‘a necessary utopia’! I really enjoyed our coffee together
with Danny yesterday.
In the above, *empirical” should read “imperialistic”.
Mr. Schulman, you say
“so long as the US supports Israel, and it will for the time that it believes Israel is useful to it in its own empirical quest to control the ME, there will be no sincere quest for a solution.”
Can anyone truly believe that Israel is a strategic asset to the United States? As far as I know, Israel is playing absolutely no part in the issue of ISIS in Iraq and has less leverage over any Arab state than the U.S. has directly. As we saw in the 1991 Iraq war, Israel was a liability that the U.S. was at pains to keep out of the conflict because so much is it reviled that its activity would destroy the ability to form a united force led by the U.S. That was 23 years ago, with no reason to believe anything would be different today in cooperative efforts in the area in the presence of a pariah.
Israel has become a kind of black box that just sits there ready to lash out unpredictably and with little control by the U.S., because the U.S. is helpless to assert any leverage. This small amount of control comes from the fact that Israel is almost the 51st state in Congress.
I await a statement, any statement, the tiniest most inoffensive statement, from any member of Congress that is not a fulsome reiteration of support of Israel, to indicate a change is coming in I/P. The special relationship has to be seriously weakened, and that has little to do with strategic considerations.
Dear Mr, Brown,
I would doubt that any well informed follower of this crisis would contest that Israel is very much involved in fomenting chaos in the ME, not only for its own purposes, but also on behalf of the US. Why otherwise would the US give preferential treatment, both financial and supplying of arms to Israel. Is there any question that Israel was involved in the overthrow of the Gadaffi government in Libya? Or its involvement in Georgia? Or now in Syria? All on behalf of the US. And the US reciprocates. They are partners in this endeavor. I am not sure which isthe dog, or which is the tail. But Israel is up to its neck. I offer just this one article, representative of many others like it, as evidence – http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/17/is-open-ended-chaos-the-desired-us-israeli-aim-in-the-middle-east/print
The 1991 Iraq war was along time ago. ISIS is today. Different circumstances.
I repeat, as long as this partnership benefits both parties – and Israel will see that it does – there is no hope that Israel will change its ways,
According to Brian, it seems that Israel is 51 states in the Land?
US Jews moved world-wide Jewish population to Israel, including US citizens. In Bosnia, there is hardly any Jews left after WWII, and then 15.000 was just moved by US Jews to Holy Land. They could have gone anywhere else as all other refugees, and they should have not had been moved to Holy Land in that large number.
I assure to you all that I would hate to know that any of these people is blown up by some lost and misdirected rockets (and not only against Bosnian Jews, but other peoples as well) that are blown up regularly in Holy Land, and Middle East.
These rocket shooting and Israeli and US going after that targets all over Palestinian, and Middle East civilians are an old stories that need to end.
For warmongers is a fun joke, and for me to see all that it is not. This is what I see: What Isreal as a lawless state cannot reach US has to take care of it? First, Jews were wiped out by Hitler and Nazism as they were killing grafing in line into Judisam (grafting in / convert to Judisam spiritual line). Second, who so ever is in Israel and US wiping out ancient lines of Jews in Palestine and Middle East — not only in the Middle East, as we know that? We do ask that.
There are things that have to be set straight.
Judisam is grafting in Non-Jewish people because wicked/satanic gospels could not have had. Prophesy is grafting in broken of Isrilites/contemporary Muslims.
Because after WWII and before that they have created significant issues with Zionisam in Holy Land — they have to reverse their works, in exceptions to this: either convert to Judisam or ancient people under Jewish faith can not be moved out from Holy Land against their free will.
God is going about grafting people in according to His way, and wickedness that is and was devil-directed is against that way.
Now Zionizam as teaching is misdirected, and error of human thought does not nor it can pay attention to that.
In addition to this, Zionism cannot be debated against because it is a doctrine of time pass, regardless how bad it is; it has to stay put; unless there are prophetic anointing appointed to rearrange things when comes to the approaches of that doctrine.
I can give you at least 12 of issues with Roman-Catolicisam that is bad and worse in nature, and yet it has to stay put, as it is. Unless, someone is appointed to go about that; meaning, a judicial person in the Church.
With that, let’s leave the discussion of invalid doctrines at side, and lets no longer go about that, when possible –we waste our time with all that.
Now, US Jews are under accountability to make things right for this point in time, and peaceful situation in Holy Land, and if they have to go to their Congress, they may well do it. Meaning, US weaponry is both in Israel and Palestine – why not US troops, as well, so that things can be a bit stabilised –just as elsewhere? Can this be valid?
Israel and Palestine can not achieve democracy by doing that what they are, and perhaps they should be distracted from warfare by other troops present in the Land, so that they can go about possible democratic outcome in the Land.
Look and see that US and Israel are democratic outcomes in other land than their own? Why is that?
Clif
You may have to wait a long time to see any abandonment of Israel by Congress for one simple reason – America sticks by its commitments.
This goes back to the 1920 Mandate for Palestine when the following American response was made:
“United States Government and the “Mandate” Policy
United States President Woodrow Wilson (the twenty-eighth President, 1913-1921) was the founder of the League of Nations for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919.
Wilson ‘s efforts to join the Unites States as a member of the League of Nations were unsuccessful due to oppositions in the U.S. Senate. Despite not being a member of the League, the U.S. Government claimed on November 20, 1920 that the participation of the United States in WWI entitled it to be consulted as to the terms of the Mandate. The British Government agreed, and the outcome was an agreement calling to safeguard the American interests in Palestine. It concluded with a convention between the United Kingdom and the United States of America, signed on December 3, 1924. It is imperative to note that the convention incorporated the complete text of the “Mandate for Palestine,” including the preamble!30
President Wilson was the first American president to support modern Zionism and Britain’s efforts for the creation of a National Home for Jews in Palestine (the text of the Balfour Declaration had been submitted to President Wilson and had been approved by him before its publication).
President Wilson expressed his deep belief in the eventuality of the creation of a Jewish State:
“I am persuaded,” said President Wilson on March 3rd, 1919, “that the Allied nations, with the fullest concurrence of our own Government and people, are agreed that in Palestine shall be laid the foundation of a Jewish Commonwealth.”31
On June 30, 1922, a joint resolution of both Houses of Congress of the United States unanimously endorsed the “Mandate for Palestine,” confirming the irrevocable right of Jews to settle in the area of Palestine – anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea:
“Favoring the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.
“Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. That the United States of America favors the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which should prejudice the civil and religious rights of Christian and all other non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and that the holy places and religious buildings and sites in Palestine shall be adequately protected.”32 [italics in the original]
On September 21, 1922, President Warren G. Harding (the twenty-ninth President, 1921-1923) signed the joint resolution of approval to establish a Jewish National Home in Palestine.”
(Eli Hertz – This Land is my Land)
Hi David,
I read what you wrote and I was thinking on this:
On June 30, 1922, a joint resolution of both Houses of Congress of the United States unanimously endorsed the “Mandate for Palestine,” confirming the irrevocable right of Jews to settle in the area of Palestine – anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea:
“Favoring the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.
“Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. That the United States of America favors the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which should prejudice the civil and religious rights of Christian and all other non-¬Jewish communities in Palestine and that the holy places and religious buildings and sites in Palestine shall be adequately protected.”32 [italics in the original]
A note:
It did not paste into the Black Board/Blog-web as you indicated “[italics in the original].” What is original – that which is directly quoted?
Is this a direct quote? as you wrote down:
“Favoring the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.
Can you clarify?
Also, where are those historical documents / originals? Is that which is in a direct quote an interpretation of the event and / or document or document itself?
I understand that there has to be a reversal of wrongdoing in the Holy Land, and US has to stick to that document in a valid way.
Likewise, the territory of Holy Land has to be pursued in a valid way, when is.
I have a reflection:
Would it be possible to getter up Jews and Muslims in US and clarify the terms (for issues in Holy Land) based on acceptable religious / theological term for “Jewish state.”
Some terms / wording is running us around in cycles – can they be redefined based on some valid realities/Laws?
Can anyone jiggle the term-definitions such as “Jewish state” and narrow them down to the validity for all religious / theological perspectives? How do we define “Jewish State” and what does that entail?”
I understand this:
We already have a “Jewish Holy Land” based on the people in the Land; a) Jews are natural / ancient people in Holy Land. (Meaning, contemporary Muslims that are under prophesy that has to be discerned; based on the Church Order according to Charismatic-Church writings / writings of Apostle Paul; it has to be discerned. Any form of prophesy in Church age is under that order); b) Jews are also a spiritual line / grafted in Line of Jews by Judaism as peoples of Non-Jewish tribes, as well as Jewish tribes.
According to my understanding, Book of Holy Quran falls under Spiritual Authority of Old Testament (during the Church age) it also falls under Spiritual Authority of Church Order of Church Charismatic under prophetic anointing, and its oversee, and its interpretation. All interpretation of any prophetic writing has to be interpreted in the exactly same prophetic anointing that was received.
This is why: The Scripture is interpreted in the exactly same way that was written down and rewritten based on the possibility that rewriting and preservation was subject to human error. Prophetic anointing can evaluate that as they can interpret the meaning for the specific areas of Sacred Texts.
A Note:
Is it possible that Prophet Muhamed was Charismatic, and is there any evidence that he may be — or that he was Charismatic?
In general, the Scripture can be read and can be in a study by anyone; it can not be interpreted outside prophetic anointing that is manifested as a gift of an individual, and corporate as a gift-spiritual with the base for authenticity of interpretation that is only vested in a corporate Spiritual authority.
Kata
This is footnote 32:
“32. Palestine Royal Commission Report, July 1937, Chapter II, p. 31.”
Dear David,
I was looking for that footnote, and I came across this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_land_purchase_in_Palestine
There were purchases of the Palestinian Land/territory by Jews/Jewish Rabbi’s.
Why and when did they (Jews and Muslims) stop that purchase and sales of territory practices, and implemented warfare, instead?
Does anyone know the valid answer for this question?
What would these thins mean, then? Reversal of works-invalid, and restitution for damages to each other betwixt people in the Land and outside the Land?
Kata
I am pleased to see you are doing your own research.
Personally I don’t find Wikipedia always reliable so be careful when you quote it.
So far as land purchases by Jews in Palestine between 1880 and 1948 are concerned I would refer you to the following scholarly work which is relatively short and worth reading in full:
Click to access the-case-for-israel-appendix2.pdf
Land purchases have continued since then – although Arabs doing so are liable to the death penalty.
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/PA-Death-penalty-for-those-who-sell-land-to-Jews.
Nobody condemns this prohibition of selling land to Jews on the penalty of death as being racist.
What do you think?
What do you think?
Dear David:
I read this and I have reread this over and over again and this is what I understand:
“Why are they so bewitched?”
First so foolish, then bewitched…
Whenever you look in the Scripture, you will not find, nor you can find the spirit of racism in it.
The only criteria for a Biblical / Scriptural discriminations (I will use the word ‘discriminations’) are based on the wickedness that comes from mishandling of the Scriptures.
Application of any Scripture outside a valid order of interpretation is a grave harm.
This is what I understand:
That what Prophet Mohammed was receiving for years; it was not written down by him. He was unable to write things down. The context of this is highly alarming! You have to have fully anointed and activated spiritual individuals go about a valid interpretation by specific gifts-spiritual. Otherwise, that, what is written down, can be interpreted in the spirit of any conscience, under any spiritual and natural condition.
I know that authentic Islamic Faith does not nor it can teach racism; it cannot based on the reality of the order for a valid Scriptural discrimination. So by the Scripture we know anything else would be invalid but a solid Scriptural discrimination.
Instruction of the literal works of the Law such as religious execution due to the sin cannot be valid in the age of dispensation of Grace to Non-Jewish peoples/Gentile tribes.
In the Church age the sin nature is handled based on the Law of the Spirit / the Law of the Grace in its fullness, and not by the works of the Law.
By the Law of the Spirit, it is possible to condemn the sin and apply judgment by Spirit, and that without any personal effort.
That cleric has mixed up his office as he holds an eccalistical and civil positions – that which is of grave harm to do for anyone.
For that reason, any interpretation of Secret text has to be in a corporate Spiritual authority that is manifested in exactly same kind of the gifts-spiritual — so that authentic truth is preserved and passed on to the each generation.
It is of grave harm for an individual to give anyone interpretation of any part of the Scripture/Sacred text outside a corporate discerning that has to lead to the authenticity of that interpretation.
That cleric cannot hold a judicial position – he has misapplied order of eccalistical offices to himself in Holy Land.
He is in a priest-king order–as King Saul was when he in his sin nature offered sacrifices and there was no prist & the prophet, in a way –that– which Samuel should have done for him. So, unless, he/the cleric is a prophet as well ( the prist, the prophet & the king) – then only he as a clerk may be valid as an individual in that eccalistical office.
We do not need a priest-king order in a judicial office in Holy Land, I think. Do we – or it is completely invalid? We ask that. I do not know.
That was what I was thinking.
The Land can be sold to Non-Jews and Jews in the Holy Land, as spiritual and natural line, I think.
I see that you have once again removed a comment by Mr. Livni, this one about the BDS threats on Paul McCartney’s life if he appeared in Israel. I realize that you can rationalize removing the comment but it looks to me that you are just burying your head in the sand.
Oh, Gene, when will you ever learn. Evidence? Counterpunch? A professor of Iberian studies? What this or that think tank says is not Israeli policy and certainly not evidence of Israel’s involvement in Syria, Iraq or Libya. Your misreading of Israel’s thinking is beyond belief. The last thing in the world that Israel wants is a destabilized Middle East, for reasons that even a ten-year-old child can understand. Your reading of the world reminds me of how East Europeans coming out from the behind the Iron Curtain 50 years ago with their Ice Age mentality saw elaborate conspiracies behind every door. You can do a little better than that. You are not completely without intelligence. It is your biases that are distorting your understanding.
Mr. Skolnik:
With all due respect, what about your biases? or are you telling us that you are bias-free as opposed
to those critical of Israel?
Many Israelis share the regional security view that it is dangerous for Israel to have strong stable neighbors,
especially among the the Levant countries, unless their alignment is strongly toward the West and neoliberalism (e.g.
Mubarak in Egypt).
As for Mr. Livni: it is his belligerent tone and aggressive style, as well as his enmity toward Arabs and Palestinians,
that I find unacceptable, and inconsistent with the sort of discourse that I wish to encourage for this website.
I’m sure you can find many Israelis who share every view under the sun. That does not make it government policy. You would have to do a lot better than quoting such people to “prove” that Israel in involved in such destabilization efforts, which make absolutely no sense, especially in view of the fact that Syria, for example, has maintained a quiet border with Israel for 40 years. With all due respect, Israel’s policy makers have a far better understanding of the forces at work in the Arab world than you or Mr. Schulman do and understand perfectly well what happens when regimes are overthrown.
Fred,
Just one more example of Israel’s “thinking”: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38927.htm
Gene Schulman and Richard Falk, to understand the Fatah and Hamas thinking. Remember it all goes back to the Mohammad, Qureshi tribe agreement. This article describes exactly what i’v been trying to say. Sadly Mr Falk doesn’t allow opposition to his articles.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/15228#.U6xqXfldXls
Op-Ed: It’s Jew-Hatred, Stupid
For Hamas, peace talks and negotiating for borders or land swaps are completely inconceivable concessions. Jihad to eliminate the Zionist presence is the only acceptable tactic
Dr. Richard L. Cravatts
June 26, 2014
The disheartening, though not entirely surprising, breakdown of talks between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs marked yet another failure by the two sides to come closer to an agreement that would usher the way for a Palestinian Arab state. Yet, no sooner had the talks collapsed than blame was being assigned by both Secretary of State John Kerry and chief U.S. negotiator Martin Indyk—and naturally it was Israel that bore the brunt of their criticism.
Echoing the sentiments of Palestinian leadership itself, Kerry and Indyk pointed to the dreaded settlements as the principal sticking point of the talks, with Indyk suggesting that Israel’s approval of new housing units in the Gilo neighborhood Jerusalem would, as he put it, “drive Israel into an irreversible binational reality.”
Secretary Kerry had the same complaint, insisting that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s refusal to release the final third of Palestinian arab prisoners, coupled with the provocative new building plans, were the Israeli actions that blew up the nine months of negotiations.
On one development even the State Department was less than enthusiastic: the reconciliation agreement reached by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, announced at the end of April, which State’s spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, deemed “disappointing” and the timing “troubling.” Even diplomats have to face certain truths, and Ms. Psaki had to begrudgingly admit that, in her words uttered with breathtaking understatement, “It’s hard to see how Israel can be expected to negotiate with a government that does not believe in its right to exist.”
Diplomacy involving Israel and the Palestinian Arabs invariably reaches this point—the thorny and slippery intersection of the politically possible and the diplomatically desired, with the inevitable result being that it is Israel made to be seen as the guilty party in having talks collapse, regardless of the actual events leading up to such a failure. Without even the barest amount of self awareness of how the inability to hold the Palestinian Arabs responsible for any major acts of concessions for strategic negotiation, U.S. diplomacy is continually based on the assumption that it is Israel—and only Israel—that is going to make negotiation move forward, and that it is Israel, and only Israel, that has the will and ability to make changes in policy and any concessions necessary to satisfy the Palestinian’s maximalist demands.
As a result, and as the Palestinian Arabs have cleverly figured out, Israel is made to release terrorist prisoners, agreed to land swaps, or to deliver any number of other painful concessions, just to further engage them and keep them at the bargaining table.
While it may be comforting and diplomatically expedient for Secretary Kerry to insist that it is Israel’s fault when things go awry, or that Israel alone has the ability to do things and make concessions for peace, the idea that it is the settlements, or the number of murderers released to the Palestinians, or any other of the various issues of which Israel is always accused that is actually causing the logjam in the peace talks is simply naive and overlooks some far more lethal, pernicious, and ideologically-driven, far more intractable issues underlying negotiations between the Jewish state and its Palestinian foes.
What any honest observer of the history of conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors knows well, the Palestinian Arabs have been strident and inflexible in their maximalist demands, not to mention their intractability on such non-starters as the so-called “right of return,” the division of Jerusalem, and the proclaimed requirement that the Palestinian state will be judenrein, that, as Mahmoud Abbas himself has repeated, not one Jew will be allowed to live in the new Palestinian state.
But the unity pact between Fatah and Hamas brings to the surface a far more pernicious aspect, something that neither Prime Minister Netanyahu, Secretary Kerry, nor any other diplomat is likely to finesse in negotiations in Jerusalem, Ramallah, or Washington. While the State Department is quick to condemn the building of new apartments in Gilo, or hector the Israelis for not releasing Arab murderers in exchange for the possibility of continued talks, its seems to have been wilfully blind in not recognizing that the foundational document by which Hamas was established—the 1988 Hamas Charter—is animated with genocidal Jew-hatred, replete with a global strategy to extirpate Israel and murderous tactics based on millennial dreams of apocalyptic jihad.
There is, tellingly, no discussion in the Hamas Charter about the location of future borders or peaceful co-existence between a Jewish state and a new Palestinian one. There is certainly no recognition by Hamas of Israel being a legitimate state, or one that will prevail, let alone one that is a sovereign power on what is thought to be now and forever holy Muslim land.
In the first place, according to Hamas, the circumstances through which the “Zionist regime” was hoisted on the world through the perfidy of the treacherous Jews is, in the honor/shame culture of the Middle East, an open wound on the Islamic world, a situation which demands jihad to restore the sanctity of Islamic land and rid the world of the festering sore that is Israel. “[T]he land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [Islamic religious endowment] consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day,” the Charter proclaims. “The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem,” stipulating that jihad is not only a tactical choice for ridding Palestine of the Zionist interloper, it is seen as a religious duty; in fact, it is demanded of true believers.
Article 8 of the Charter contains the virulent, but clear, language of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood which has become the Hamas slogan: “Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its Constitution; Jihad is its path, and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.”
What should be more troubling to diplomats embroiled in this particular debate is the Charter’s Article 13, which is extremely clear—in a way that the more disingenuous Mr. Abbas is not when speaking to Western audiences—in stating its objection to any solution other than jihad. The division of what is perceived to be Muslim land is totally unacceptable; in fact, it is a violation of Allah’s will.
Thus, for Hamas, peace talks and negotiating for borders or land swaps are completely inconceivable concessions. Jihad to eliminate the Zionist presence is the only acceptable tactic. “Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement,” the Article states. “Abusing any part of Palestine is abuse against part of religion. Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion . . . There is no solution to the Palestinian question except by Jihad. All initiatives, proposals, and International Conferences are a waste of time and vain endeavors.”
Mr. Netanyahu has been goading the Palestinian leadership for some time to state that they recognize Israel as a Jewish state, a recognition that has heretofore not been forthcoming. But both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have obviously already recognized that Israel is Jewish state—and therein lies the very reason for the annihilationist hatred they have for it. What they have not, and will not, acknowledge is the legitimacy of a Jewish state, even if they are aware of its actual existence—something they have had to confront for over 60 years.
In fact, the existence of a sovereign Jewish entity in the beating heart of the Islamic ummah is doubly intolerable: first, for being a non-Muslim, dhimmi state with political autonomy and military strength, and second, more significantly, for being what is perceived to be a murderous, immoral, illegitimate regime existing for the benefit of and providing temporary nationhood to the most hated of beings—the Jews.
The Charter’s Article 7, specifically, contains the oft-cited hadith which exhorts Muslims to seek out and murder Jews specifically as a sacred obligation. Islamic teaching depicts Jews as the descendants of “monkeys and pigs,” treacherous deceivers, manipulative barbarians and thieves who attempted to murder the prophets, and who are satanic, murderous, unlawful occupiers of holy Muslim land whose elimination is sacralized in Koranic and hadithic precepts. “. . . The Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to realize the promise of Allah, no matter how long it takes,”
Article 7 reads. “The Prophet, Allah’s prayer and peace be upon him, says: ‘The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones, and each tree and stone will say: “Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,” except for the Gharqad tree, for it is the tree of the Jews.’”
The same genocidal Jew-hatred embedded in the Hamas Charter lives on and animates the public broadcasts and speeches of Hamas leadership. In 2010, for example, Mahmoud al-Zahar, Hamas Foreign Minister, informed the Jews of Israel that “[they] have no future among the nations of the world. [They] are headed for annihilation.”
Appearing on Hamas-sponsored TV, Yunis al-Astal, a Hamas member of the Palestinian legislature, informed his rapt viewers that “all the dangerous predators, all the birds of prey, all the dangerous reptiles and insects, and all the lethal bacteria are far less dangerous than the Jews. In just a few years, all the Zionists . . . will realize that their arrival in Palestine was for the purpose of the great massacre, by means of which Allah wants to relieve humanity of their evil.”
In a February 2010 statement, Abdallah Jarbu, a member of the Hamas government, suggested that “the Jews are thieves and aggressors. They are a foreign bacteria—a microbe unparalleled in the world. May He [Allah] annihilate this filthy people. I condemn whoever believes that they are human beings. They are not human beings. They are not people.”
It is no surprise that in a culture marinated in Jew-hatred, where Jews are debased, portrayed as a subhuman species, bacteria, a disease, fomenters of wars and strife—in fact, the enemies of God and mankind—the annihilation of Jews would therefore become not only a reasonable goal but a desired outcome.
Who would not exterminate Jews if they pose such threats to mankind and Islam specifically? Who would ever make peace with the eternal enemies of Allah, let alone negotiate a peace and borders for a new Arab state with them? And would not those jihadis who immolate themselves to murder Jews in the name of Allah be celebrated as shahids, martyrs, and have town squares and summer camps named for them and their bravery, exactly as they are in the ‘West Bank’ by Palestinian Arab leadership now?
Honoring those who murder Jews continues unabated, even within the newly-formed unity government formed by Palestinian Authority and Hamas “technocrats.” In May, the PA and Hamas jointly lauded Izz Al-Din Al-Masri, the homicidal maniac who, in 2001, immolated himself in a Jerusalem Sbarro pizza shop, murdering 15 Jews (seven of them children) and wounding many others. When Al-Masri’s body was recently returned by Israel to the PA, Hamas and the PA used the occasion to shower honor and praise on someone who was successful in deliberately exterminating Jews.
In fact, the event symbolized the new relationship between the two factions, united in genocidal hatred of Jews. “The popular gathering around the blood of Izz Al-Din Al-Masri is an honest and true expression of our people’s yearning for national unity [between Fatah and Hamas],” the groups proclaimed, seemingly without embarrassment for their mental disorder, “and unity of action.”
The creation of a Palestinian state is not even of central importance in this holy war against the enemies of Islam.
Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV broadcast the symbolic meaning of the martyrdom of this murderer of Jews, reporting that, “Izz Al-Din Al-Masri ascended to Paradise in a Martyrdom-seeking operation he carried out in the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem, where he gave the Zionists a taste of humiliation after killing 19 [sic] Zionists and wounding dozens . . . The citizens expressed their pride in Izz Al-Din’s heroism, along with the thousands who gathered to accompany him on his final journey, and they did not forget all those who played a role in this operation.”
If Jews are the most wretched of humans, and the “liberation” of all of Palestine—including present-day Israel—is considered a sacred duty and religious obligation, then the murder of Jews must, and will continue in this millennial apocalyptic struggle in which Hamas sees itself playing a central role. At a ceremony marking the twenty-fourth anniversary of the founding of Hamas the head of the organization, Ismail Haniyeh, for example, asserted “that the armed resistance and the armed struggle are the path and the strategic choice for liberating the Palestinian land, from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river, and for the expulsion of the invaders and usurpers [Israel] from the blessed land of Palestine. The Hamas movement will lead Intifada after Intifada until we liberate Palestine—all of Palestine, Allah willing.”
The creation of a Palestinian state is not even of central importance in this holy war against the enemies of Islam—primary among the kafirs, unbelievers, the Jews. A Palestinian unity government that is comprised of a faction with a foundational, sacralized hatred for and impulse to annihilate Jews can never, obviously, sit at a negotiating table with Israel to outline the borders of a new Palestinian state.
In 2006, weeks after Hamas was overwhelmingly voted into office and became influential in Palestinian politics, a grisly video was posted on its web site by a soon-to-be homicide bomber, revealing the morally-depraved ideology that jihad has wrought and suggesting that a peaceful settlement is not even a likely prospect. “My message to the loathed Jews is that there is no god but Allah, we will chase you everywhere! We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of Jews. We will not leave you alone until we have quenched our thirst with your blood, and our children’s thirst with your blood.”
If Secretary Kerry wonders why the negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis suddenly went “poof,” as he put it, it might be useful for him to consider whether the problem lies with the building of some apartments for Jews in the capital of the Jewish state or with a genocidal ideology which is already intent on inculcating a new generation of shahids dedicated to slaughtering the residents of those new apartments simply because they are, in fact, Jews.
Richard L. Cravatts, PhD, is the author of Genocidal Liberalism: The University’s Jihad Against Israel & Jews.
Let me clarify one more time. I do not object to substantive opposition, however much I might disagree with it on some occasions, and will
always allow it. What I object to are personal insults and a hostile tone that seeks to focus on my personalities. It is
sometimes difficult to draw the line between critical responses and personal attacks, but your comments often leave little
doubt as to their character and focus. I also will exclude comments that seem to me to promote or exhibit ethnic hatred, which the above
comment by Dr. Cravatts comes very close to crossing that line.
Livni,
Can you understand what this Muslim woman is saying to Brigitte?
http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/06/23/3451912/sarsour-gabriel-islamophobia/
Why do you think that an article that focuses solely on Hamas and its self-proclaimed determination to destroy the State of Israel “comes close to crossing the line” when far worse has been said about Israel and the Jews in your pages?
The article takes no account of the shifts in Hamas tactics–participating in electoral politics–or stated position of live and let
live as expressed in long interviews with respected journalists and UN officials. I am not claiming that this erases concerns expressed
in article, but the focus on only the most negative accounts of Hamas contributes to a propagandistic image that justifies Israeli violence
directed at the civilian population of Gaza. There is no consideration of the widely held view that most of the rocket activity is not the work
of Hamas (except in the context of retaliations during major Israeli attacks on Gaza), but of dissident or breakaway militia groups that Hamas
has reportedly tried to restrain, and in some cases, has imprisoned. Nevertheless, I did not exclude the article because it expresses a widely
held if one-sided view.
Again, as much as I respect your work, I think you’re not quite accurate on the documented record of Palestinian endorsement of the 2 state solution. There was a Security Council resolution in January 1976, initiated by Syria, Jordan and Egypt, regarding the international consensus we call the “2 state solution”, which was promptly vetoed by the U.S.
It covered all “final status” issues – refugees, borders, settlements and Jerusalem (the last 3 covered under the withdrawal order to pre-June 1967 borders) – and was fully supported by the PLO (we even have documented records of the Israeli leadership complaining that it was a “Syrian-PLO conspiracy”).
The formal declaration by the PLO in the 80s came much later and it’s a little disingenuous to claim that this is where acceptance of the 2 state solution by the PLO or Palestinian leadership began.
You will find the draft resolution in the list, under the date January 26, 1976 (s/11940):
http://www.un.org/depts/dhl/resguide/scact_veto_en.shtml
This is the record of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, confirming the Israeli complaint that the resolution was fully backed by the PLO:
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/MFADocuments/Yearbook2/Pages/150%20Statement%20by%20the%20Foreign%20Ministry%20on%20the%20Secur.aspx
Thanks for this clarifying comment, which I will follow up on. Very informative.
Zak
You accuse Professor Falk of being “not quite accurate on the documented record of Palestinian endorsement of the 2 state solution” and then commit the very same error yourself.
You cite the record of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs to substantiate your claim that draft resolution s/11940 “was fully backed by the PLO”
It said nothing of the sort.
What it did say was:
“The purpose of the draft resolution was to nullify Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, and thus further the Syrian-PLO conspiracy to frustrate the process of negotiations by abandoning the principle of negotiation and agreement between equal parties.”
That claim was made by Israel and may or not have been sustainable.
It certainly did not amount to any confirmation that the PLO had fully backed the draft resolution.
To support your claim you need to produce something coming directly from the PLO.
Please do so.
You yourself say that the resolution “was initiated by Syria, Jordan and Egypt.” If as you claim it was “fully backed by the PLO” then you should be able to point us to some evidence to support that claim PRIOR to the resolution being submitted to the Security Council – not even try to rely on a statement made by Israel one day AFTER the draft resolution was vetoed by America.
I commend your desire for accuracy and respectfully suggest you abide by that standard yourself..
HAHAHAHA The point of dropping the Israeli position to boycott the resolution debate was to point out that even the source of baseless propaganda – the Israeli gov and officials – admitted at this point in history that the PLO supported the 2 state solution.
There are many instances of PLO declarations of support for the 2 state solution – like say the transcript of the debate where the PLO representative expresses support for the basis of the 2 state solution and the positions of the draft settlement – but I wanted to pre-empt the hollow cries of not being able to trust the barbaric Arabs that were sure to follow if I quoted the PLO.
http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/D0242E9E210D937585256C6E0054DF8A
In any case, your issue is with my source, not the timeline of events or framework of the issue – that the Palestinians have formally expressed overt support for the 2 state solution for quite a long time, a lot longer than anyone cares to admit – so saying I’m being disingenuous doesn’t fit the bill. But thanks for coming out.
Zak
Now I understand why you tried to misleadingly and deceptively rely on a statement by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs – rather than quoting the PLO directly to support your claim that the draft resolution “was fully backed by the PLO”.
I read the transcript contained in the link you provided and especially the speech given by PLO representative Mr Khaddoumi.
Nowhere could I find any statement by Khaddoumi saying the resolution was “fully backed by the PLO”
Perhaps you can refer me to the specific statement you rely on.
You further rely on these proceedings to make the claim that the PLO favoured a two state solution as early as 1976 – which of course came as a surprise to Professor Falk as well.
Here are a few statements made by Khaddoumi in that debate that makes your claim not only inaccurate – but untrue.
1. “As you are fully aware, the PLO is a liberation movement engaged in combating—militarily, politically, economically and culturally—the Zionist occupation of our homeland. We take pride in the fact that our just aspirations and our armed struggle brought so much international support and recognition for the national rights of the people of Palestine and for the PLO. Freed from the most sinister attempt to deflect our struggle, we will intensify our efforts to prevent the Israelis from consolidating their control over our occupied lands.”
2. “However, I need not assure you that the successful consummation of the Palestinian struggle for national liberation is not entirely dependent on Security Council or General Assembly resolutions. The Security Council may have other opportunities to express a more affirmative and binding stand on this question. In this connexion the PLO will always be willing to contribute to the peace-making efforts of the Council while simultaneously engaged in its armed struggle to liberate Palestine.
3. “I should also not fail to address my concluding words to those countries which have genuinely and sincerely supported our just cause and our national rights during the debate. On behalf of the PLO, I extend to them, through their representatives, our deep appreciation and I assure them that with their support and our armed struggle victory is inevitable, for this is the logic of history and the destiny of all freedom fighters.”
Doesn’t sound like any endorsement of the the two state solution to me – but exactly the opposite.
Prof Falk,
With all due respect, your explanation of why the Cravatts piece (posted by Dan Livni) “skates close” to being censorable reveals more than perhaps you wanted about your criteria for censorship.
You say you censor only when a post is personally abusive or expresses racial, religious or ethnic prejudice. Your reasons for almost censoring Cravatt include none of this. Your complaint is that the piece presents an inaccurate or incomplete view of Hamas. Or more to the point, it presents an assessment that differs from yours.
That in no way skates close to the criteria you state.
You add that “the focus on only the most negative accounts of Hamas contributes to a propagandistic image that justifies Israeli violence
directed at the civilian population of Gaza.”
But in your posts on this blog and writing published elsewhere, including for the UN, you invariably focus on the most negative accounts of Israel.
If extreme one-sidedness justifies censorship, you might begin by censoring yourself.
Rabbi Ira Youdovin
Prof. Falk
I just noticed your concluding sentence and have to say that it simply gives me the chills to see the almost offhand way that you are “placing on the agenda” the elimination of the State of Israel: “If such a point is reached [BDS-inspired government sanctions against Israel], the experience of transforming apartheid South Africa into a multi-racial constitutional democracy is almost certain to intrigue the political imagination.”
The comparison with South Africa is disgraceful and the transformation that you are so blandly talking about means nothing less than the dismantling of the State of Israel, which is obviously predicated upon flooding the country with the descendants of the original Palestinian refugees, because Israel already is a multi-national democracy grounded in egalitarian law. In this multi-national democracy the Arabs are a national minority and the Jews are the national majortity, just as the Kurds are the national minority and the Turks the national majority in Turkey. You are again willfully confusing apartheid with the discrimination that is the natural though regrettable by-product of a national conflict in order to cast Israel into the worst possible light. You are also understandably avoiding the question of why Israeli Arabs (the Arabs of Wadi Ara) prefer to remain citizens and subjects of Jewish Israel to living under Palestinian sovereignty in any furure land swap.
Mr Falk Hamas is 100% behind the missiles behind fired at Israel from Gaza.
NO sane, rational country would tolerate this nonsense on its borders and accept Hamas terrorists firing missiles at Israeli civilians.
If England, France, Italy, the US, or ANY other civilized country faced such continuous violent attacks on their citizens from across the border daily, they would promptly invade and wipe out the violent perpetrators once and for all. Israel’s response has been humane, measured, and quite restrained — too restrained. And that is part of the problem. Until and unless Israel takes off the gloves and deals with this scourge once and for all, as it should, and as any country would, this violence will continue.
The funny thing is that no nation on the face of this planet wants the Palestinians on their territory. They won’t even give them a deserted island in the middle of nowhere. That is why nations are trying so desperately to have the Israelis give them a homeland. Talk about passing the buck.
Not even The Palestinians homeland of Jordan wants them back.
Note that not a word is uttered in these pages about Russia’s actions against Chechen Muslim extremists. Russia’s two Chechen wars resulted in tens of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands of displaced persons. But that is of course Russia, which can do no wrong. As I’ve said more than once, remove Israel and America from the equation and the Israel and America haters couldn’t care less how many Arabs or Africans or Asians or Slavs are slaughtered in local wars.
A non sequitur if I’ve ever read one. Stay on topic, Fred. This post is about Palestine, not Chechnia.
There is no Palestine, Gene, and there probably won’t be for a long time to come if the Arabs keep dreaming that Israel will go away with the help of Prof, Falk. Chechnya is relevant because it unmasks the hypocrisy.
Mr. Skolnik:
I resent your false and misleading innuendo about my views on the Israel-Palestine future relationship.
Chechnya is irrelevant. I have, in fact, denounced Russian behavior there on several occasions, although it is not
a conflict that I have studied. The conduct of Israel is given appropriate emphasis on several grounds: its origins and
existence owe a great deal to the UN and to the governments of the UK & US; Israel continues to receive by far the largest
peer capita economic and military aid package at the expense of American taxpayers; injustice to the Palestinian people
is perpetuated, in part, because of Washington unconditional and essentially uncritical support of whatever Israel chooses
to do; Israel sets itself up for criticism by branding itself as ‘the only democracy in the region.’
And Palestine does exist according to UN criteria, formally since the 2012 vote of the UN General Assembly, and by
virtue of diplomatic recognition by more than 130 countries. It exists as an occupied country whose fundamental rights
are being daily denied.
Professor Falk
You state:
“And Palestine does exist according to UN criteria, formally since the 2012 vote of the UN General Assembly, and by
virtue of diplomatic recognition by more than 130 countries. It exists as an occupied country whose fundamental rights
are being daily denied.”
Could you please advise:
1. What are the boundaries of that “Occupied country”
2. Who is occupying that “country”
3. Please specify the “UN criteria” to which you refer.
I am sorry, Prof. Falk, but no fair-minded person who considers the Arab record in the Middle East conflict can come to the conclusion that Israel is the great culprit in all this. If you resent the American aid to Israel you would have to resent the American aid to the Allies in World War II. If you resent the terms of Israel’s occupation, you would have to resent the Allied occupation of Germany as well, where nearly 600,000 Germans were brought to trial between 1945 and 1955 for crimes against occupation forces as well as other offenses, not including trials of suspected Nazis. That’s what happens when you start a war and get your territory occupied. As for the manner in which Israel was constituted, it does not differ in any way from the way the Arab states in the region were constituted through the good offices of the Great Powers.
Washington certainly does not uncritically support Israel. It criticizes Israel continuously but is is committed to its security unlike yourself, and recognizes the dangers to its security that emanate from hate-filled Muslim regimes and organizations. You cannot be so blind to the causes of the Arab-Israel conflict not to see the Arabs’ part in it.
You casually introduce into the discussion the South African experience, which can only mean, unjusifiably, the end of the State of Israel, and are then offended when someone calls such a suggestion despicable. No country on earth is being threatened with dismantlement other than Israel, and for you to suggest such a possibility as an “intriguing” option is beyond contempt in its presumptuousness.
I beg to differ with you Mr. Skolnik. In my experience, most fair-minded people have come to the conclusion that Israel is the culprit in the Middle East crisis. Including such writer/thinkers as (most recently) Marcelo Svirsky in his “After Israel”, and Marc Ellis in his “Future of the Prophetic”. Not to speak of the many other writer/historians you regularly criticize, plus the innumerable members of Israeli dissident groups such as BDS, etc.
Again, your examples are off topic. The Israel/Palestine crisis is nothing at all like the situation between the Allies or Germans in WWII.
I have told you before that if you continue to distort history in your comments, there is no point in discussing these matters with you. Ergo, I hereby cease any further response.
You continuously distort my words and my intended meaning, making dialogue impossible.
You disrespect those who disagree with your views, and cannot resist personal denunciations
and self-serving apologetics for behavior condemned nearly universally.
Well, Gene, you run away very nicely from anyone who might challenge your assertions by pretending that it is beneath you to continue the discussion. But I am not here to have a discussion with you, only to point out your fictions. Three “examples” for “most” and “many” isn’t good enough. Neither is turning a deaf ear to what the Arabs themselves tell you their aims are.
Prof. Falk
I do not distort your words, I quote them. If you do not find the idea of dismantling the State of Israel as a Jewish state “intriguing,” please say so. I understand that there is a tendency in the academic world to “throw out’ ideas without any regard to their practical consequences but no responsible individuals makes proposals that could turn out to be catastrophic for millions of people. If Syria has not taught you a lesson about what happens when destructive forces are unleashed in the Middle East, nothing will.
As for my representation of the Arab-Israel conflict, I am not aware that anything I have argued is factually incorrect. My view is that the Arabs, started a war, lost a war, got their territory occupied, organized terrorist groups to murder innocent Israeli civilians and have been unable to reconcile themselves to the existence of a non-Muslim state in the Middle East. Nothing in this is untrue. It is also not untrue that both the Jews and the Arabs made claims to the same territory, one claim no less valid than the other at the very least, and that while the Jews accepted a compromise in 1947, the Arabs did not and attacked Israel with the aim of destroying it.
You may argue that the settlements are illegal but that is not what is preventing an end to the conflict, whose contours are clear to everyone. My conclusion is that the Arabs are not ready to give up the Big Dream. I arrive at this conclusion through an intimate knowledge of the Middle East. I may have a pro-Israel bias but this does not lead me to create fictions. I also do not disparage observers who take an unbiased view of the conflict and point their fingers at both sides. However, when it is argued that one side is completely right and the other is completely wrong I understand that something is at work other than fair and balanced judgment.
Dan Livni wrote this:
“The funny thing is that no nation on the face of this planet wants the Palestinians on their territory. They won’t even give them a deserted island in the middle of nowhere. That is why nations are trying so desperately to have the Israelis give them a homeland. Talk about passing the buck.
Not even The Palestinians homeland of Jordan wants them back.”
A Note:
I am starting to have a religious reflection on it, but I do not understand it. It is roughly anywhere betwixt past and present Church issues and immigration.
Now, this too is drawing some reflection (whatDan Livni wrote).
What is this? I feel like my head is in my belly, I am starting to feel ill.
“Mr Falk Hamas is 100% behind the missiles behind fired at Israel from Gaza.
NO sane, rational country would tolerate this nonsense on its borders and accept Hamas terrorists firing missiles at Israeli civilians.
If England, France, Italy, the US, or ANY other civilized country faced such continuous violent attacks on their citizens from across the border daily, they would promptly invade and wipe out the violent perpetrators once and for all. Israel’s response has been humane, measured, and quite restrained — too restrained. And that is part of the problem. Until and unless Israel takes off the gloves and deals with this scourge once and for all, as it should, and as any country would, this violence will continue.”
Many official Israeli sources and mainstream Israeli media (or vehemently pro-Israeli foreign) outlets have been adamant that indeed Hamas prevents, or attempts to prevent, others from launching rocket attacks (in accordance with provisions it has agreed to, during the periods those agreements are in effect). This is common knowledge by now for anyone remotely familiar with official Israeli statements and the situation in Gaza.
lol, we’ve even got the high profile leaks of secret negotiations between Gershon Baskin and the Hamas official (who was assassinated), which confirmed without a doubt that not only has Hamas been central to preventing rocket fire under negotiated terms, but that the highest Israeli officials and security establishment recognize and trust this fact.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/16/us-israel-palestinians-gaza-idUSBREA0F18820140116
http://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-establishes-special-force-to-prevent-rocket-fire/
http://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-deploys-hundreds-of-men-to-guard-border/
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.569300
http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Israel-will-make-Hamas-suffer-if-Gaza-rocket-fire-continues-338448
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Yaalon-Palestinian-prisoner-release-under-discussion-amid-tensions-336120
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115760/hamas-rocket-fire-israel-drops-promising-development-peace
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4538827/Hamas-not-responsible-for-recent-rocket-attacks-says-Israel.html
I’m confused why Professor Falk continues to engage with obvious trolls who come with zero facts and are obviously looking to harass only, not discuss. All of the things being discussed in these threads are diversionary sidestepping – the behaviour or record of other states, focus on Hamas, recognizing Israel’s existence or “Jewishness” or whatever – none of it address the documented record, has any bearing on the article posted here or comes close to the political reality on the global stage.
There was a comment regarding the US “commitment” to Israel or whatever, how the US “sticks” to it commitments and this is why US policy on this issue will not change any time soon. This also seems divorced from reality. A simple look at the economic relationship between Israel and the US tells us clearly what motivates US policy – even when such actions seem to be in contrast to broad national US interests. The aid money that gets shipped to Israel every year, much of that money is designated to be spent on purchases from US corporations in the defence, security and high tech industries. The motivation of politicians in Congress to continue funding ethnic cleansing, rampant human rights abuses, brutal occupation and outright rejection of international law and the international community lies here, most likely – politicians funnelling money through state subsidies and aid programs to the corporations that help fund them into office.
The idea that any Israeli lobbyists in the US hold more political capital or influence on Congress than the largest US industries such as defence companies, weapons manufacturers, tech giants and supply companies that receive contracts for food, transportation, building materials, etc., is comical at best. This is why US political elites support increased militarization in Israel, the status quo of Henry Kissinger’s “stalemate option” and increased brutality in the Occupied Palestinian Territories – it continues to enrich the right companies and investors.
Dear Zak:
About what David wrote, and you are referring to that:
“There was a comment regarding the US “commitment” to Israel or whatever, how the US “sticks” to it commitments and this is why US policy on this issue will not change any time soon.”
We are brainstorming…
We are limited here, and we will move in that limitation.
I would not be too critical either of you or David. This is why: both of you have an excellent Spirit. With that, I find that limitations are more relevant to both of you, rather than invalid arguments of two of you.
I guess that there are more facts than what general public can go about it, at least in this somewhat not a private setting.
I assure all of you that there was a dead-end to our arguments until David clarified few things. I do not think that anyone can exclude his validity. He is limited, but his argument are significantly valid.
We need more of exactly the same kind gifts and anointing here.
Our cultural differences and religious or non-religious backgrounds may be acting as rough edges – so we can keep in mind to keep that limited as much as we can.
Dear Zak
It took two small wars to convince Hamas that it is in its best interests to keep things quiet. Before those wars, it had fired over 10,000 rockets into Israel in a period of 10 years, not to mention its own boastful scorecard of terrorist acts. From Israel’s point of view it makes no difference who fires the rockets now. It holds Hamas responsible for every rocket fired from its territory, just as the United States would hold Canada responsible for attacks on America originating from its territory.
You sure do read a lot of newspapers to whip out and “reference” at the drop of a hat. Are you a troll too?
I’m sorry but those rockets began after a few decades of brutal, illegal military occupation, rampant human rights abuse, consistent destruction of civil society and infrastructure, tens of thousands abducted and held illegally, and on and on. The “wars” you talk of – closer to illegal massacres (laws covering military occupations, like the Geneva Conventions, do allow for “self defence” but they do not define carpet bombing, use of human shields, attacks on schools and hospitals, destruction of crops and livestock, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, the use of chemical weapons, etc., as “self defence”) – have nothing to do with the rockets. Israeli aggression on civilian populations started a long time before rockets.
Zak
There is nothing illegal about military occupation, Israel’s or anyone else’s. You start a war, you lose a war, you get your territory occupied. That’s the oldest story in history. If Isael had wanted to massacre anyone, Gaza would look like Dresden with up to 100,000 dead in two days and no one would be dropping leaflets and phoning residents to warn them to evacuate areas about to come under attack. Mentioning hospitals and schools gives the game away (you are forgetting mosques and apartment houses). That’s where Hamas stored its rockets and that’s where they set up their rocket launchers. You’re so eager to criminalize Israel that you don’t even have the sense to realize that Israel would have photographed the incriminating evidence. Since you’re so good at “referencing” things, I’m sure you can find the aerial photographs yourself on the Internet.
The problem with human language is that you can write grammatically correct sentences like yours that are completely false but seem to make sense. Israel acted in self-defense and made every effort to avoid civilian casualties. It is permissible in war to return fire in built-up areas. The proviso is that maximum care must be taken to avoid such casualties, and this is exactly what Israel did, to an extent that has not been equaled in modern war. If you don’t like the results you should have traveled to Gaza with Prof, Falk and urged its residents to throw Hamas and its rockets into the sea.
You are whitewashing Arab terrorism. The terrorism came first, from the Arabs, just as the war came first from the Arabs. You can manipulate and rationalize events all you want, and selectively and uncritically reference a thousand newspapers, which are apparently your only source of information, but you will not alter these basic facts. No terror, no “aggression.” It’s as simple as that. Before Hamas came along, the Gaza border was open and up to 40,000 Gazans worked in Israel ever day.
http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/news/african-immigrants-in-israel-stage-egypt-border-sitin_24760
Are these people Jewish Diaspora / Jewish Exiles who can not enter the area of the Holy Land and why not, if so? Regardless, if they are not Jewish Diaspora — why can they enter the Holy Land area?
Why are these people camping in the wild? They are refugees — for whatever reason. All should be integrated with the local population, according to their self-determination due to ‘unclear forces’ that moved them from where they were. Why are they not?
Kata
These people are firstly not Jewish and cannot exercise any automatic right of return under Israeli law.
They are illegal immigrants. Like most countries around the world illegal entry is not permitted.
If they are deemed to be refugees – i.e deemed to be people fleeing for their lives fearing political persecution if they return to their country of origin – then they can apply for and be granted asylum.
These people have travelled through Egypt and the Sinai to each Israel. Having already reached a safe haven – Egypt – they cannot be said to be entitled to refugee status in Israel.
The 1000 people mentioned in the article you refer to have made it clear they do not want to stay in Israel.
They are not camping in the wild. They are housed in a detention facility which they are allowed to exit during the day but must return at night – as the article clearly states.
Israel is a party to the UN 1951 Convention relating to the Status
of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol as is Egypt..
Interestingly Saudi Arabia, Syria and Jordan are not.
The article clearly states:
“The Israeli population and immigration office said that in late 2013 there were 53,646 African immigrants in Israel, 35,987 of whom were Eritrean, 13,249 Sudanese and the remainder from other countries.”
You must wonder why they would want to come to such a terrible place like Israel that is constantly being delegitimised and condemned for heinous breaches of international humanitarian law on a daily basis.
What was wrong with staying in Egypt?
I forgot – it is irrelevant to ask such questions or why little is said in this blog about the 170000 Syrians who have been killed in the last three years or 2.5 million Syrians made refugees or the 6.5 million Syrians who have been internally displaced.
We must concentrate on these 1000 illegal immigrants Kata and ignore what is going on in Syria and Iraq.
Have you ever concerned yourself with the fate of the Syrians by posting one comment anywhere to express your opinion?
Zak, The Palestinians’ plight is due to their own fanaticism, hatred, intolerance and intransigence.
Can you Read!
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.601938
Poll: Palestinians overwhelmingly reject two-state solution, want Palestine ‘from river to sea’
However, clear majority also opposes violence to achieve goals, favors Abbas over Haniyeh.
Haaretz Jun. 30, 2014
By more than a 2-1 margin, Palestinians oppose the two-state solution, favoring instead the goal of a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea,” according to a recent poll by the centrist Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
At the same time, though, the poll found that a large majority of Palestinians favored the tactic of “popular resistance” – such as demonstrations and strikes – over violence to achieve their goals, Globes reported Sunday.
Interestingly, Gazans were more moderate when it came to tactics, but more hardline about the goal.
The survey also found that West Bank leader Mahmoud Abbas was a much more popular leader than Gazan leader Ismail Haniyeh – both in the West Bank (28.1 percent to 6.9 percent) and in the Gaza Strip (32.4 percent to 11.7 percent).
The poll, which questioned a relatively large sample of 1,200 respondents, was taken June 15-17 – following the abductions of three Israeli teenagers, the formation of the Fatah-Hamas unity government, and the collapse of the Kerry peace talks. However, it was conducted just before West Bank protests arose against Abbas for his cooperation with Israel’s search for the kidnapped boys and crackdown on Hamas.
Goals vs. tactics
Asked what political goal they favored over the next five years, 60.3 percent replied “action to return historic Palestine, from the river to the sea, to our hands,” while 27.3 percent answered “end[ing] the occupation of the West Bank in order to reach a two-state solution.”
Another 10.1 percent said the goal should be a “one-state solution, for the entire region, from the river to the sea, in which Jews and Arabs enjoy equal rights.”
If a Palestinian leadership were to reach agreement with Israel on a two-state deal, 64 percent said Palestinians should still continue to press on for a Palestinian state encompassing the territories and Israel, while 31.6 percent said they would accept a two-state solution.
On the question of tactics, again, the trend was toward moderation, with 70 percent of Gazans and 56 percent of West Bankers saying Hamas should observe a cease-fire with Israel. Asked if Hamas should go along with Abbas’ demand that the unity government publicly renounce violence, 57 percent of Gazans agreed, while West Bankers were split evenly.
Popular resistance won the support of 73 percent Palestinians in Gaza and 62 percent of those in the West Bank.
@Dan Livni, yeah, I can read. Like this Jerusalem Post article citing the same poll, how it mentions that this latest Palestinian sentiment is a “sudden, hardline shift within the Palestinian community”. I bet after 40+ years of the modern era’s most brutal military occupation and continued ethnic cleansing and illegal colonization carried out under the banner of something called the “peace process”, along with the stamp of what we refer to as the “2 state solution”, you might start to reject it too lol.
There’s also something interesting mentioned right at the outset. The qualification given by the article for “rejecting” the 2 state solution is in terms of a means to “end their struggle with Israel”. If you know anything about the local politics, the civil resistance and the arguments surrounding the 1 state-2 state debate, you know what this means. Many people are turning towards supporting a civil rights struggle and completely abandoning addressing borders or a separate, sovereign Palestinian state. It’s within this context that these poll results are being not only released, but reported in domestic Israeli media. Make sure to come with something better next time.
http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Majority-of-Palestinians-now-oppose-two-state-solution-new-poll-finds-360489
No one has to come up with something better. If the Palestinians want a state they will have to negotiate one with Israel. Its contours are understood by everyone except people like yourself. If they aren’t ready to live in peace with Israel, they will discover one day that Jordan and Israel have solved the problem by dividing the West Bank between themselves and the Palestinians will once again have to seek self-determination within the borders of Jordan. When you work up your rhetorical arguments, Zak, try thinking of the practical consequences as if you actually had a say in the matter.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/bodies-missing-israeli-teens-found-hebron-source/story?id=24367041
Israeli PM Calls Killers of Three Israeli Teens ‘Human Animals’
Jun 30, 2014.
Palestinians are not onligated to negotiate anything. Under international law, Israel is required to withdraw from the Occupied Palestinian Territories, remove all settlements and participate in a “just solution” of the refugee question (2 state solution).
Just because the US and Israeli regimes are militarily superior and can bludgeon the Palestinians into submission does not mean it is a legitimate position to require Palestinians to negotiate. Just like when the Palestinians can secure concessions by lobbing primitive rockets into Israeli territory, it doesn’t legitimize their acts of indiscriminate attacks. Realpolitiks and law are 2 different things. I’ve stuck to the law here and your attempts to sidestep that are useless.
If you think the Palestinians are not obligated to negotiate anything, that is fine. As I said, you should be thinking about the practical consequences of what you say if you take yourself seriously and have any real concern for the Palestinian people. I explained to you what the consequences are liable to be. But that’s all right, it will give you something else to fulminate about.
@Fred, Israel has been ordered by the UN Security Council to withdraw to the pre-June 1967 borders, on many occasions, begining immediately after the territory was acquired. This makes it illegal. Israel has ratified the UN Charter making it a violation of domestic Israeli law as well. There is no debate about this.
And this is to say nothing about the rampant violations of humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions, in the carrying out of the occupation.
I’m not aware of any “order” of that kind. The UN doesn’t give orders. It expresses, emphasizes, affirms, requests. It’s resolutions are recommendations. Resolution 242 creates a framework for a negotiated settlement with a number of clearly defined conditions and principles. It even designates a Special Representative “to maintain contacts with the States concerned in order to promote agreement and assist efforts to achieve a peaceful and accepted settlement. That means negotiations. It matters very little how you or people like you interpret a UN resolution. Without such negotiations the conflict will not be resolved and the Palestinians will not get a state. Do you understand that? Do you even care?
lol, Security Council resolutions are binding on all members. Membership in the UN requires domestic ratification of the UN Charter, making the Security Council orders binding on all members, under their domestic laws. But thanks for coming out.
The UN resolution called on the parties to negotiate a settlement. Resolution 338, after the 1973 war, declares “that, immediately and concurrently with the cease-fire, negotiations start between the parties concerned under appropriate auspices aimed at establishing a just and durable peace in the Middle East.”
@David, what we call the “2 state solution” is pre-June 1967 borders,l removal of settlements and a “just resolution” of the refugee question (Jerusalem is covered under borders). This is it. There is nothing about Palestinian concessions, Israeli claims or pretexts of security (there is a provision of all states living in “peace and security” but this applies equally to Israel and Palestine, and is obviously untenable as long as the occupation continues and there is no Palestinian sovereignty) or whatever other propaganda points you wanna throw out there.
The language of the PLO representative in the debate, about armed and other types of struggle, as well as cooperation with the UN, to achieve Palestinian liberation and sovereignty, is fully in accord with the resolution being debated, and what’s called the “2 state solution”. If you actually read the transcript and are familiar with the relevant resolutions – which I doubt – you know exactly what’s going on. The PLO rejected 242 and 338 on the ground that they did not specifically mention Palestinian national rights, which is the subject of the resolution being debated – along with the other “final status” issues. Not only this, but if you actually cared, you would have gone and looked up media reports from the time, all indicating the PLO support for this resolution, and Israeli rejection of it precisely because of that.
But just in case there’s still going to be doubt, here’s a leaked diplomatic cable from that year, right after the debate and veto of the resolution, coming out of Israel. Very clearly states that the Israelis consider the draft resolution a joint PLO-Syrian initiative and that Arafat “implied” acceptance of Israel’s internationally recognized borders (the green line). There is garbage about rejecting this resolution because it nullifies 242 and 338 which supposedly put “negotiations” on the table, but this is wholly false and easily identifiable to anyone with access to the resolutions. As the entire world concedes (there are votes on this every year at the UN General Assembly, with the entire world voting one way, and the US, Israel and a few pacific islands, plus sometimes Australia and Canada, voting the other way, so we know exactly how the international community feels about this), there is nothing to negotiate. There is only binding orders from the UN Security Council for Israel to withdraw to it’s recognized borders (this covers East Jerusalem and settlements) and participate in a “just resolution” of the refugee question. There are no demands on the Palestinians, according to international law, on the major items – or what’s called “final status” issues – of the “2 state solution”. It’s simply not a matter of interpretation, it’s a matter of codified law.
https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1976TELAV00686_b.html
Dear David and Zak:
Since 1948, there was a significant shift / change in Holy Land due to few factors.
One of these factors is that world-wide peoples were integrated into the Holy Land area (legally or illegally–this makes no difference).
1948 line is somewhat an imaginary without substance because it violated UN charter when it was created.
People that were integrated into the Holy Land are not an imaginary without substance, regardless of the base for the time sphere.
.
I believe that we should focus on the law, but also the purpose for the law, which is to regulate spiritual and natural wellbeing of the peoples, equally–that what Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan and else who in the region can’t do.
Zak
1. You state:
“what we call the “2 state solution” is pre-June 1967 borders,l removal of settlements and a “just resolution” of the refugee question (Jerusalem is covered under borders).
(a) Who do you mean by “we”
(b) there were no pre-June 1967 borders – only 1949 armistice lines. As a lawyer you would know there is a huge difference between a “border” and an “armistice line”
(c) don’t you think removal of all settlements to be racist and amounting to apartheid ? Why can’t Jews live in an Arab state as citizens of that State as Arabs currently live as citizens in a Jewish State?
2.You state:
“The PLO rejected 242 and 338 on the ground that they did not specifically mention Palestinian national rights, which is the subject of the resolution being debated – along with the other “final status” issues.”
(a) You have at least got this right. That is what the resolution was all about. It had nothing to do with any two-state solution. Jewish national rights didn’t even rate a mention.
(b) Funny that 242 and 338 did not mention Palestinian national rights – considering we are now told the “Palestinians” are indigenous to the area and even Jesus was a Palestinian.
How come the then Security Council members – Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Denmark, Ethiopia, France, India, Japan, Mali, Nigeria, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and United States of America.- were so totally ignorant of “Palestinian rights” that they were not mentioned in Resolution 242?
Could it have been because any such rights had already been created in Jordan – 78% of Mandatory Palestine – in 1922 – and that attempts to extend that area in 1936 and 1947 were rejected by the Palestinian Arabs?
Was it because they had blown the opportunity to establish an independent state between 1948-1967 to include all the West Bank and East Jerusalem when not one Jew lived there after all of them had been driven out of by six invading Arab armies from what was their biblical and ancestral homeland and part of the the land in which the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home was legally sanctioned by the League of Nations Mandate forf Palestine?
Could it have been because the West Bank Arabs chose to unify the West Bank with Transjordan and give birth to a new nation – Jordan – in 1950?
Could it have been because the term “Palestinian national rights” was an invention of the 1964 PLO Charter which excluded Jewish and non- Arab Christian inhabitants of former Palestine – another good example of racism and apartheid at its worst?
3. Apropos the leaked cable – you state
“Very clearly states that the Israelis consider the draft resolution a joint PLO-Syrian initiative and that Arafat “implied” acceptance of Israel’s internationally recognized borders (the green line)”
Please refer me specifically to the section of that cable that supports your above contention.
4. You state:
“As the entire world concedes (there are votes on this every year at the UN General Assembly, with the entire world voting one way, and the US, Israel and a few pacific islands, plus sometimes Australia and Canada, voting the other way, so we know exactly how the international community feels about this), there is nothing to negotiate”
As you must surely be aware Resolutions of the General assembly are not binding in international law,
5. You state:
“There is only binding orders from the UN Security Council for Israel to withdraw to it’s recognized borders (this covers East Jerusalem and settlements) and participate in a “just resolution” of the refugee question.”
(a) Can you please specify the terms of these Security Council “binding orders”
(b) Can you explain why Israel has not been subjected to any form of action by the the Security Council for breach of these “binding orders”
6. You state:
“It’s simply not a matter of interpretation, it’s a matter of codified law.”
What codified law are you referring to?
David, I’ll answer the questions that haven’t already been answered with ample citations.
1(a) – By “we”, I mean people who use the term “2 state solution” in reference to the international consensus (countless UNSC resolutions and the annual vote and the UNGC), international law (ICJ, UNSC resolutions, refugee and human rights laws).
2(b) I don’t know what the “lawyer” reference here is about, but the 1949 armistice line is Israel’s international recognized border, as stated in numerous UNSC resolutions and confirmed by the ICJ. Again, if you go back to the scholarship on the drafting of resolution 242, you see clearly that the only changes on the that border that would be accepted by the international community were to be “minor” and “mutual”. So yes, the 1949 armistice line, also called the pre-June 1967 border and green line, is Israel’s internationally recognized border.
2(a) Israeli national rights are covered under the language speaking about states in the region. At this time in history, Israel was a UN member state and is therefore covered under the references to regional states.
2(b) There were many references to “Palestine” before 1948, and even going back to the early Aliyahs. There is the Jerusalem Post that was originally called the “Palestine Post”, the “Anglo-Palestine Company”, and of course, the numerous references to “Palestine” by late 18th century and early 19th century Jews, Zionists, Arabs and others. It’s simply not a matter of debate, your Joan Peters propaganda has been thoroughly debunked for decades now, even by Israeli historians.
3 The PLO involvement is mentioned under #4 and Arafat’s recognition of Israeli borders is talked about in the last paragraph of the cable. If you really cared to know though, you would’ve read it yourself. But I’ll play the game.
4 I never stated the UNGA resolutions are binding, this was brought up in the context of describing the feelings of the real international community – not the one that consists of the US, Israel, and a handful of pacific islands. This was not about international law, but about the global consensus on the issue.
5(a) The “terms”? I don’t understand what you mean here, but the resolution is widely available, you can see for yourself. It’s also been posted in this comments section. It states clearly that Israel is to withdraw from the territories acquired after the June 1967 conflict.
5(b) There is a clear record of why no enforcement action has been taken against Israel by the UNSC. Just google “list of UNSC resolutions vetoed by U.S.”
6 The “codified law” I was referring to is the UN Charter, the process of domestic ratification required by all member states, the authority stated in the UN Charter – of the Charter itself and the Security Council – and that since Israel has ratified the Charter, and the Security Council has issued orders, those orders are binding on Israel. You can check articles 2, 3, 4, 24, 25, 39, 48 and 49 of the Charter if you’re really interested in the jurisdiction and powers of the UN Charter and UN Security Council.
Zak
In response to your answers:
1 (a) The international consensus is expressed in Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 which do require Israel to have secure and recognized borders – none of which presently exists.
Even you have acknowledged that ” If we go back, again to the documented record of the drafters on this issue, we know clearly that yes “all territories” was excluded.”
1(b) The 1949 armistice line is not Israel’s recognised international border.
Your propensity to speak in generalised terms such as “numerous UNSC resolutions and confirmed by the ICJ” and ” the scholarship on the drafting of resolution 242″ is a waste of time. Specify what you are relying on to support your arguments.
I thought you were a lawyer. Am I wrong in so assuming?
1(c) Noticed you overlooked answering this one:
” don’t you think removal of all settlements to be racist and amounting to apartheid ? Why can’t Jews live in an Arab state as citizens of that State as Arabs currently live as citizens in a Jewish State?”
Care to share your thoughts on this query?
2 (a) It may seem smart to you to try and avoid my question by providing an answer that does not deal with the question.
I was talking about “Jewish national rights” not “Israeli national rights” .
2(b) Again you fail to deal with my comments.
I am not talking about the term “Palestine” but about the term “Palestinians” – which originated in 1964 with the PLO Covenant which excluded all Jews and non-Arab Christian residents of Palestine from being included in the definition of “Palestinians”.
Would you care to address my earlier remarks and not seek to avoid a response by providing an answer that has nothing to do with the issues raised by me in 2 (b).
The red herring of Joan Peters whom I never mentioned shows how intent you are on not answering my comment.
3. You spoke of a “Syrian- PLO initiative”.
#4 speaks of a “Syrian-PLO conspiracy”.
There is quite a difference.
Why do you continue to twist and subvert what I and others write?
The final paragraph of the cable states:
“ARABS WERE FORCED TO TONE DOWN THEIR ORIGINAL DRAFT
AND IMPLY ISRAEL’S RIGHT TO EXIST WITHIN SECURE,
RECOGNIZED BORDERS. EVIDENTLY, THERE IS NO SUPPORT
FOR THE PLO AIM OF A SECULAR STATE INSTEAD OF ISRAEL.”
How can you claim that this paragraph substantiates your comment that “Arafat “implied” acceptance of Israel’s internationally recognized borders (the green line).”
4. One moment you are quoting international law – the next “global consensus”. I am only interested in upholding international law in settling disputes between conflicting parties.
The structure of the UN may be considered defective but it is what it is and must be accepted as such until changed.
Trying to change it by non-binding resolutions in the General Assembly is a waste of time – and I am sure you know it.
5.(a) My query to your following statement:
““There is only binding orders from the UN Security Council for Israel to withdraw to it’s recognized borders (this covers East Jerusalem and settlements) and participate in a “just resolution” of the refugee question.”
was:
(a) Can you please specify the terms of these Security Council “binding orders”
Your response is:
“The “terms”? I don’t understand what you mean here, but the resolution is widely available, you can see for yourself. It’s also been posted in this comments section. It states clearly that Israel is to withdraw from the territories acquired after the June 1967 conflict.”
But even you have admitted earlier that ” If we go back, again to the documented record of the drafters on this issue, we know clearly that yes “all territories” was excluded.”
So I ask again – how do the terms of resolution 242 amount to “binding orders”?
5(b) You now admit here that there are no binding orders because of the US veto. Why have you been trying to mislead readers that there are “binding orders”?
6. Glad to see you are providing some evidence to back up your claims.
With respect most of the sections you quote are irrelevant.
Articles 24 and 25 are relevant in that they make a mockery of the “global consensus” which you use at the drop of a hat and your further unsubstantiated claim “that since Israel has ratified the Charter, and the Security Council has issued orders, those orders are binding on Israel.”
I repeat – there are no current orders issued by the Security Council that are currently binding on Israel.
Here are the terms of Articles 24 and 25:
“Article 24
1. In order to ensure prompt and effective action by the United Nations, its Members confer on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and agree that in carrying out its duties under this responsibility the Security Council acts on their behalf.
2. In discharging these duties the Security Council shall act in accordance with the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations. The specific powers granted to the Security Council for the discharge of these duties are laid down in Chapters VI, VII, VIII, and XII.
3. The Security Council shall submit annual and, when necessary, special reports to the General Assembly for its consideration.
Article 25
The Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter.”
Are the members of the UN in breach of the Charter in trying to usurp from the Security Council the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security which they have all authorised the Security Council to carry out on their behalf?
It is interesting that you have failed to mention the most relevant and important article in the Charter – Article 80 – that is most appropriate to our discussions and the issues raised by Professor Falk in his article.
Article 80 provides that the provisions of the Mandate for Palestine are still alive and kicking in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem – which includes the right of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in all of these areas on land owned by Jews and State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes whilst ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced.
Was your omission to quote Article 80 an accidental oversight or a deliberate attempt to mislead?
Are the members of the UN actually in breach of the terms of the Charter in failing to recognize and denying the vested legal rights of the Jews created pursuant to article 80 to “close settlement” in these areas?
@Fred, the resolution does not put the issue of withdrawal to negotiations. Negotiations are cited as a meassure to bring about peace. The withdrawal order is unconditional and the UN Charter is cited to this effect. Again, plain to see for anyone who as access to the UN website and can call up the resolution to read it. You’re not fooling anyone.
lol not to mention there is scholarship on this issue, by people who drafted the resolution and explain what their intentions were. This isn’t about anyone’s interpretations – though it’s funny you mention that since it has been the US and Israel interpreting the resolution to mean withdrawal and borders are up to negotiations, disagreeing with the entire international community – this is about the plain language of international law and it’s applicability to a UN member state. On this there is no debate.
There is no withdrawal order in Resolution 242:
The Security Council,
Expressing its continuing concern with the grave situation in the Middle East,
Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security,
Emphasizing further that all Member States in their acceptance of the Charter of the United Nations have undertaken a commitment to act in accordance with Article 2 of the Charter,
1. Affirms that the fulfilment of Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles:
(i) Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;
(ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force;
2. Affirms further the necessity
(a) For guaranteeing freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area;
(b) For achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem;
(c) For guaranteeing the territorial inviolability and political independence of every State in the area, through measures including the establishment of demilitarized zones;
3. Requests the Secretary-General to designate a Special Representative to proceed to the Middle East to establish and maintain contacts with the States concerned in order to promote agreement and assist efforts to achieve a peaceful and accepted settlement in accordance with the provisions and principles in this resolution;
4. Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Security Council on the progress of the efforts of the Special Representative as soon as possible.
The Resolution calls, not by accident, for Israel to withdraw from “territories.” The word “the” was removed from the final draft to allow for the negotiation of new borders to replace the old armistice lines. Security Council members knew exactly what they were voting for even if you don’t, since they are the ones who negotiated the language of the resolution, which also speaks of peace, recognition and negotiations. The immediate answer of the Arabs at the Khartoum Conference was their three famous Noes: no peace, no negotiations, no recognition. Why don’t you get on to some of their websites and remind them about the sanctity of UN resolutions.
Since all this pointless argumentation of yours is meant to “prove” that the Arabs are not obligated to negotiate anything, I have no problem with that. That’s fine. I am sure you’ll have ten law degrees by the time the Palestinians get their state and then you can really help them
Thanks for dropping the text of the resolution Fred, which does order the Israelis to withdraw to pre-June 1967 borders, multiple times.
And just so we don’t confuse legal matters with rhetoric, the UN Charter is binding on all member states and is domestically ratified in all member states (conditions of membership), making the Security Council’s resolutions binding on all members, as a matter of international and domestic law. This makes the use of the word “order” accurate.
Also, the reference to the UN Charter and the article stating “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” renders this “all” or “some” territories business mute. If we go back, again to the documented record of the drafters on this issue, we know clearly that yes “all territories” was excluded but that the UN Charter and territorial acquisition by war was brought up to emphasize that no Israeli claim outside of the green line would be accepted by the international community, in accordance with the law. This claim has been thoroughly exposed for some time now. Pages 288-289 in the following link give you a small sampling, but I have the book in case anyone is interested in the full section covering this claim. I would be happy to type it all out.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=Xmi2Yw0QzN8C&pg=PA289&lpg=PA289&dq=resolution+242+norman+finkelstein+drafters&source=bl&ots=YB_TmNuWUL&sig=9umUmaCbqIyLLW7WrLKs8AsUZUY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nPeyU6P-LbKn8QG2joHoAw&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=resolution%20242%20norman%20finkelstein%20drafters&f=false
Thanks, Zak, I find you clarifications and elaborations useful, as well as persuasive, but you have adversaries
who seem with one eye closed.
Zak
You seem to be prone to inaccurate and misleading statements such as this one:
“Also the reference to the UN Charter and the article stating “the inadmissability of the acquisition of territory by war” renders this “all” or “some” mute.”
Fact is – there was no such article. That statement was contained in the preamble to Resolution 242.
The significance of this is explained in the following comment by Meir Rosenne:
“True, the preamble specifically refers to “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.” Yet this principle was placed by the drafters of Resolution 242 in the preamble and not in the operative paragraphs below. There is a ruling of the International Court of Justice (from the dispute over Danzig) that preambles of League of Nations resolutions are not binding – only the operative parts of these resolutions can create legal responsibilities. This determination carried over from the era of the League of Nations to that of the United Nations.
The Acquisition of Territory Captured in a War of Self-Defense is Different from a War of Aggression
There is a further cardinal point regarding the question of whether the acquisition of captured territory from 1967 by Israel can be regarded as illegal. The great authority in international law, Elihu Lauterpacht, has drawn the distinction between unlawful territorial change by an aggressor and lawful territorial change in response to an aggressor. In drafting its preamble, the architects of Resolution 242 were referring to known international legal principles that precluded territorial modifications as a result of aggression. The preamble talks about “acquisition of territory by war.”
Is the acquisition of captured territory by Israel in 1967 illegal?
There is a distinction between unlawful territorial change by an aggressor and lawful territorial change in response to an aggressor.
The case of a war of self-defense in response to aggression is a very different matter. This distinction was further made by Stephen Schwebel, who would later become the legal advisor of the U.S. Department of State and then serve as President of the International Court of Justice at The Hague.
The preamble of Resolution 242 was a compromise that took into account the other drafts that were before the Security Council, even though it did not really apply to Israel’s case. And by keeping it in the preamble and not in the operative parts of the resolution, the architects of Resolution 242 avoided creating any legal obligations for Israel that could be construed as precluding the resolution’s call for new “secure and recognized boundaries” beyond the earlier 1967 lines”.
– See more at: http://jcpa.org/Security_Council_Resolution_242/#sthash.rFbiDpoK.dpuf
Zak
Here is another inaccurate and misleading statement from you:
“And just so we don’t confuse legal matters with rhetoric, the UN Charter is binding on all member states and is domestically ratified in all member states (conditions of membership), making the Security Council’s resolutions binding on all members, as a matter of international and domestic law. This makes the use of the word “order” accurate.”
No it doesn’t as Professor Lapidoth explains hereunder:
“Although it is also authorized to adopt binding decisions, in particular when dealing with “threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression” (under Chapter VII of the Charter), it is well known that in most cases the Security Council adopts resolutions in the nature of recommendations. The
effect of this particular resolution was discussed by the Secretary General of the UN in a press conference given on March 19, 1992. Replying to a question, the Secretary General said that “[a] resolution not based on Chapter VII is non-binding. For your information, Security Council Resolution 242 (1967) is
not based on Chapter VII of the Charter.”
In a statement of clarification it was said that “the resolution is not enforceable since it was not adopted under Chapter VI!”
Thus it would seem that the resolution was a mere recommendation, especially since in the debate that preceded its adoption the delegates stressed that they were acting under Chapter VI of the Charter. They considered themselves to be dealing with the settlement of a dispute “the continuance of which is likely
to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security.” There is no doubt that by referring to Chapter VI of the Charter, the speakers conveyed their intention that the resolution was recommendatory in nature.”
Professor Falk: I hope you find my clarifications and elaborations useful in changing your opinion as to those misleadingly being made by Zak.
Of course this is how people get propagandized into believing facts that are simply not true.
It is typical of what happens.
He makes a claim in 10 words and I have to rebut it in 200 words.
However if they are not rebutted they will continue to be made.
One eye closed, Prof. Falk? The truth is, many Israelis had both eyes closed when Jordan began shelling Jewish Jerusalem on the night June 5, 1967, without provocation and despite Israel’s assurances via Gen. Odd Bull and the U.S. State Dept. that Israel would not act against Jordan if it stayed out of the coming war. Jordan attacked Israel and consequently lost a war and got its territory occupied. Occupation is not illegal. Do you really require a Zak to “clarify” the law to you. Why not get his legal opinion about the Allied occupation of Germany. Or the Russian annexation of Crimea.
I’m sure glad Zak has taken on the burden of putting Fred in his place. But I’m unhappy that the two of them seem to have taken over the all the space on this blog, dissuading anyone else to even step in. Frankly, for all of Zak’s efforts, I don’t know why he bothers at all. Fred will never listen to a reasonable argument, let alone cede to one.
You’re absolutely right Gene that there is no point in attempting discussion here. I recognized pretty early that this was about baseless propaganda that has been throroughly torn apart a long time ago. My motives are not about convincing anyone or having any discussion, I just saw some opportunities to drop factual information and references. There may be people reading this now or in the future and as much as it’s divorced from the topic of the original article, I wanted to leave some points of the documented record in the hopes that it may get someone to look into the issue further.
lol for example, I will be posting some information about the whole “the territories” claim, something that was long ago put to rest, but still shows up in pamphlets and talking points as if it’s credible. Again, not because I have the illusion that someone who claims there’s “no withdrawal order” in a UNSC resolution he references (a resolution that clearly issues an order for withdrawal, multiple times) is interested in discussion but because I hope that someone else may find the information useful.
All this sleight of hand does not alter the fact that the UN called on the parties to negotiate an inclusive settlement and did not call upon Israel or the Arab side to act unilaterally with regard to any paragraph. You’re a little too smug for your own good. I really suggest that you study law instead of playing at it and then maybe you can help the Palestinians a little more intelligently.
Just to make it simple for you, Zak, before I sign off, the UN did not state that occupation is illegal, it stated that acquisition of territory by war is illegal (inadmissable), that is, annexation, which never happened in the West Bank. You are confusing two terms. What year of law school are you in? It further stated that Israel should end the occupation in the framework of a peace settlement that included many other stipulations, few of which the Arabs were prepared to accept. Do you get it now? Occupation is an accepted and legal act in war. Acquisition of territory is not. Israel did not annex the West Bank. It occupied it. Should I say it again?
Yeah, say it again, Fred. If the Israelis don’t consider the West Bank an acquisition, why are they building settlements there? Either way, both are illegal.
Sorry for breaking my word. Never again!
If occupation was illegal, the Allied occupation of Germany would have been illegal. Back to law school, Gene.
Dear Fred,
That what Russia is doing in Ukraine would not be illegal? Why penalize them by sanctions, then?
Tell me that Russia is protecting self-determination / self-preservation of a people, and whenever they withdraw – things will just look all right — but why? Or say that Israelis ever withdraw from all territory that the occupied in Holy Land – how would that look like?
On Friday, I will sneak into perpetual prayer chapel, and I will have a prayer request said for you that is based on Grace.
You have to have a code to sneak in and out, and you have to sign in every time you walk in and you walk out; it is a hassle…
Catholics are so controlling – you can’t just walk in and pray; it is awful…
Russia annexed Crimea. That’s what makes it illegal.
Dear Fred,
The word “annexed” does not make it illegal, literally.
“Annexed” means nothing to me, in my perception it has a zippo meaning to itself. To me “Annexed” is same as “gementiXed” – it has no purpose.
Explain “annexed” in literal terms, and do not forget to reflect on the series of different sequences of events, according to different elements. Do not give me a theory that is based on one word, I need an analysis — a careful analysis and appropriate application of the taxonomy. Meaning, classification of information according to units should be considered, according to different elements.
You gave me one single word – one would think “what kind of nonsense is that,”? Do you expect me to understand what you mean?
I am sorry; I do not understand your argument. (Zmile)
I appreciate the comments professor Falk I hope some of the points I mentioned and maybe even the sources I dropped spark some reflection in someone, get them to look into the matter a bit deeper.
I’ve followed your work for some time (thank you for what you do) and now that I understand you are receptive to discussion of all kinds, I will be sure to contact you again in some way regarding the 1/2 state debate. I would be extremely interested in hearing your thoughts on this, more than what you have already released. I will be sure to ask the next time you publish something on the topic. Thank you for your time and efforts.
@David the reference to the acquisition of territory through war, and it’s legitimacy, is in the “preamble” because this is where you explain the purpose of the resolution. It’s location has no bearing on either the principle, international law, the Charter or the order – given within the resolution – to withdraw from the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
This argument about whether Security Council orders are binding or not is irrelevant and, to be honest, ridiculous. Read the Charter, what it says about conditions of membership, the rights and responsibilities that go along with it, and the behaviour member states are expected to display when the Security Council makes a decision.
Zak
You really are attempting to mislead readers:
1. I have given you the reasons why the reference to the acquisition of territory by war was included in the preamble and its legal effect.
You give no evidence to support your claim that “It’s location has no bearing on either the principle, international law, the Charter or the order – given within the resolution – to withdraw from the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”
You know your claim is false. The resolution does not call for withdrawal from “the Occupied Palestinian Territories”
None of those words were used.
The words used were withdrawal ” from territories occupied in the recent conflict;”
Why do you insist on using the word “the” – trying to convey that withdrawal is to take place from “all” territory – when you yourself have previously admitted:
“If we go back, again to the documented record of the drafters on this issue, we know clearly that yes “all territories” was excluded”
2. You claim – again without any evidence – “This argument about whether Security Council orders are binding or not is irrelevant and, to be honest, ridiculous.”
Yet you referred me to Article 24 (1) of the UN Charter which states:
” In order to ensure prompt and effective action by the United Nations, its Members confer on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and agree that in carrying out its duties under this responsibility the Security Council acts on their behalf.”
Need I say more?
Stop the generalising and do some good honest and diligent research.
It beats pure unsubstantiated propaganda every time
@David you can attempt all you want to feign ignorance but your points were all answered. For example, “the” or “all” territories being present in the resolution changes nothing in terms of the binding nature of the resolution, or that it was outside the green line that was captured and referred to in the resolution, which is referenced in every relevant resolution after. If there was any doubt that this is Israel’s internationaly recognized border, the ICJ put this issue to rest when they ruled that indeed the area outside the green line was “Occupied Palestinian Territory”. In this, I am completely accurate with the use of the term. And the order to withdraw is there, in plain sight. Engaging in this is like having a conversation with someone who insists the sky is red, while we are actually looking up at that very moment, at a blue sky. The resolution is posted right here in these comments lol.
Or like, when you pretend that I’m confusing UNGA and UNSC resolutions and their jurisdiction. As already explained, the reference to the UNGA consensus was in the context of talking about what the international consensus is on the issue, which yes, happens to coincide with the legal view as well, but I made the distinction explicitely clear. Keep pretending if you want.
Jewish national rights are irrelevant. Like Arab national rights, Latino national rights or Caucasian national rights. All irrelevant. Jews are not a nation. Latinos are not a nation. Arabs are not a nation. These are ethnicities (and in the case of Jews, a religious group as well), and perhaps we could bring in a cultural grouping as well, but certainly not national. Israelis are a recognized national group, with a state. And just as this talk about Jewish national rights is ridiculous, the PLO referred to Palestinian national rights, not Arab national rights.
Your comments are full of garbage like this, anything relevant has already been addressed.
@ Zak, et al. Forget all the nonsense about the UN, etc. Look at what the Israeli Declaration of Independence says and tell me they have kept their word:
“The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”
The Jewish State of Israel cannot be a democracy – by definition it is a theocracy. That’s all you need to know.
Dear Gene,
This is what I understand:
Old Testament has Spiritual authority over the Holy Land. Jewish Rabbis have spiritual authority over the Old Testament, and they have Spiritual authority over the Holy Land, and the Lanmarks –all together.
Another thing: they are supposed to be integrating Arabs as Jewish Exiles into the Land? – why are they eliminating Arabs then, as Jewish Exiles? Is it because Arabs as Jewish Exiles cannot be grafted in – or will not to be grafted under Spiritual Authority of Old Testament?
Holy Land is not under Spiritual Authority of the Church or Islam, nor can it be based on the fact to the reality.
For sure, Arab-Palestinians as Jewish Exiles in Holy Land can be under rule of Old Testament, and be grafted in into the Theocracy of Israel, in a way.
As you said that it was/is a theocracy. However, wait – you said that! If that does not validate with Jewish Rabbis (individually and corporately) then it can be trashed, all together–right?
I have a question: But why are they, as Israelites is then practicing democracy in the Land, and do not listen to valid Rabbis?
Or do they?
Kata,
I urge you not to rely on the Old Testament as a source or solution. It has no relevance to today’s world. For an excellent analysis of this I suggest you read “Future of the Prophetic: Israel’s Ancient Wisdom Re-presented” by Marc Ellis. In it he compares the biblical exodus and exile to contemporary Israel. The latter does not fare well.
Zionism is a secular power, but by claiming that Israel is Jewish and a homeland for all Jews, they con the world into believing that Israel is a haven. They are wrong!
I agree with you Gene, and this is why: Zionism is not valid; it is wrong. It is as same as Roman Catholicism, in a way: not valid and very wrong.
There are two things that is wrong in Holy Land:
1) “Stop killing” (World and Palestinians say that).
2) What is going on with the territory of the Holy Land –what exactly it is?: “Arabs: Give the Land Back.”
Absolutely Not – No, Zionism cannot be applied as an approach in Holy Land, Church-invalid nonsense cannot be applied in the Land, nor can be Islamic Law that kills the prophets – they were and were killing the prophets – it was always like that. Let’s look who all is killing?
Let’s look and see who is practicing illicit/invalid Jewish and Islamic marriages — rather ask that? Am I kidding, Gene?
Why do they act as Bipolar with all they touch, including the Scriptures and keep on to be killing in the Holy Land? In general, why are their minds like bee-wiz that makes blood, and guilt of the blood?
Jews are in Holy Land and Landmarks are irrelevant! Why can’t they just stop? – we ask that.
I thought Israel was a theocracy. You’re getting mixed up again, Now Zionism is a secular power, now Israel is a theocracy. And Zak is even more mixed up, thinking he can win arguments with word play. Yes, the Jews are an ethnic group in the United States, just like the Italians and the Irish in the United States, but that doesn’t mean that the Italians and the Irish are not a national group in their own country. The desperate effort to delegitimize Jewish national consciousness and identity goes beyond partisanship. It is a little venemous. Zak’s determinations of what other people are or are not or what Security Council resolutions mean or do not mean are totally without meaning or relevance outside blogland. My only advice to him would be never to tell the Arabs that they are not a nation. He is liable to get his throat slit.
Your sophisticated, verbal bullying is not persuasive; it amounts to cruel, racist, murderous obfuscation and pathological self-aggrandizement. This militant, predatory “gaming” is making life on earth a living hell for all. Unless, gasp!, the violent actually enjoy killing and the adrenalin rush of abuse.
Fred’s verbal bullying is not only not persuasive, it is also not sophisticated. It is pure hasbara.
“Zionism is a secular power, now Israel is a theocracy.” These are not mutually exclusive.
Jews in the US are not an ethnicity like the Italians or the Irish. Judaism is a religion, not an ethnicity. The ethnicity of many of the Jews who immigrated to the US may be German, or Russian, or Polish. What have you. But it is definitely not Jewish. That is their religion.
This is by Psychological illness implemented:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/18/pope-john-paul-ii-blood-tour_n_5505894.html
I can give you # XXX of reason why is this spiritually ill and why mere Roman Catholicism is in Hell!
Church Catholic Charismatic asks the church-wicked that is in Rome and elsewhere: please bury all the remains of human parts, and we ask this in the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
No, Gene, Judaism is not their religion. Most American Jews, like most Israeli Jews, are not religious. Judaism is the religion that religious Jews observe and the Jewish people are a nation, just as Catholicism is the religion that religious Italians obseve and the Italian people are a nation. All through history the Jews have thought of themselves as an “am” (people or nation). You will also have to look far and wide to find an American Jew who thinks of himself as an ethnic Pole, Russian, Rumanian, Hungarian, etc. You can say the Jews as Jews were ethnic or religious minorities in these countries, though Stalin did in fact look upon them as a national minority for whom he created the Birobidzhan Autonomous Region, but in Israel they are a national majority just as the Spanish and the Turks are national majorities. You are playing with words for the sole purpose of delegitimizing Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people and it is obvious why.
I have a reflection:
On July 2, 2014 at 6:54 pm# this is what David wrote to Zak:
“I was talking about ‘Jewish national rights’ not ‘Israeli national rights ‘ ”.
This is what I understand: Jewish National rights are under Spiritual authority of Jewish Rabbis, and there is really not much room to budge on that.
We are talking about Holy Land, and Old Testament in all spiritual and natural essence of that. So, not Church issues and wishes, and not Islam issues and wishes in Holy Land. Certainly, not even Zionist issues and wishes.
Zak
1. All my points were not answered as you wrongly claim. I am awaiting a response to this one:
“don’t you think removal of all settlements to be racist and amounting to apartheid ? Why can’t Jews live in an Arab state as citizens of that State as Arabs currently live as citizens in a Jewish State?”
And this one:
“It is interesting that you have failed to mention the most relevant and important article in the Charter – Article 80 – that is most appropriate to our discussions and the issues raised by Professor Falk in his article.
Article 80 provides that the provisions of the Mandate for Palestine are still alive and kicking in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem – which includes the right of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in all of these areas on land owned by Jews and State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes whilst ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced.
Was your omission to quote Article 80 an accidental oversight or a deliberate attempt to mislead?
Are the members of the UN actually in breach of the terms of the Charter in failing to recognize and denying the vested legal rights of the Jews created pursuant to article 80 to “close settlement” in these areas?”
There are a few more but answers to these two will suffice at the moment.
2. You have yet to provide one “binding order ” that Israel has failed to comply with.
3. Please direct me to any part of the ICJ judgement ” when they ruled that indeed the area outside the green line was “Occupied Palestinian Territory”.
4. Why do you not tell the readers the advisory opinion of the ICJ has no binding legal effect?
5. You state “Arabs are not a nation.”
The PLO does not agree with you.
Article 1 of the PLO Charter states:
“Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.”
Care to comment?
Is there anything else in the PLO charter you disagree with?
Mr. Singer:
I have the impression that you raise questions not seeking answers, or in the spirit of dialogue, but to
deflect criticism of Israel that is widely shared and based on a combination of public reason and scholarly consensus.
Three quick points to illustrate my discomfort with the way you pose these series of time-consuming and distracting questions:
–Article 80 of the UN Charter is of no practical relevance, and can be interpreted in multiple ways to promote diverse goals;
–an Advisory Opinion is only ‘advisory’ in relation to enforceability by the UNSC; it is the most authoritative judicial source
of guidance as to the requirements of international law, and when findings are supported by a 14-1 majority as was the case with
the Wall AO, this authoritativeness cannot be reasonably questioned;
–the entire rationale of the Wall AO was the unacceptability of constructing such a barrier on occupied territory, implying that had
it been built along the green line it would probably have survived such a legal challenge.
Professor Falk
Zak in particular has made a number of generalized claims that I have rebutted. He has not sought to challenge my quoted sources or direct me to any sources to justify his comments.
Deflecting criticism of Israel is surely justified where the criticism of Israel is unjustified.
Do you believe otherwise?
As to your “quick three points”
1. Why is. Article 80 of the UN Chater of no practical relevance? On what basis do you make this claim? The Levy Report certainly considered it was relevant.
2. Please advise the multiple ways article 80 can be interpreted
3. Advisory opinions of the ICJ have no binding effect . Do you disagree?
4. Are you aware the question or relevance of Article 80 was not considered by the Court nor was any reference to it included in the brief or dossier of documents submitted by the Secretary General to the Court?
If you supply half the facts or relevant documents when seeking an advisory opinion you will only get half an answer.
5 . Whose territory is Israel occupying?
6. You have still not answered the following query I put to you on 29 June
“You state:
“And Palestine does exist according to UN criteria, formally since the 2012 vote of the UN General Assembly, and by virtue of diplomatic recognition by more than 130 countries. It exists as an occupied country whose fundamental rights are being daily denied.”
Could you please advise:
1. What are the boundaries of that “Occupied country”
2. Who is occupying that “country”
3. Please specify the “UN criteria” to which you refer.”
“Tabernacle” darkness
Zak
1. All my points were not answered as you wrongly claim. I am awaiting a response to this one:
“don’t you think removal of all settlements to be racist and amounting to apartheid ? Why can’t Jews live in an Arab state as citizens of that State as Arabs currently live as citizens in a Jewish State?”
And this one:
“It is interesting that you have failed to mention the most relevant and important article in the Charter – Article 80 – that is most appropriate to our discussions and the issues raised by Professor Falk in his article.
Article 80 provides that the provisions of the Mandate for Palestine are still alive and kicking in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem – which includes the right of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in all of these areas on land owned by Jews and State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes whilst ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced.
Was your omission to quote Article 80 an accidental oversight or a deliberate attempt to mislead?
Are the members of the UN actually in breach of the terms of the Charter in failing to recognize and denying the vested legal rights of the Jews created pursuant to article 80 to “close settlement” in these areas?”
There are a few more but answers to these two will suffice at the moment.
2. You have yet to provide one “binding order ” that Israel has failed to comply with.
3. Please direct me to any part of the ICJ judgement ” when they ruled that indeed the area outside the green line was “Occupied Palestinian Territory”.
4. Why do you not tell the readers the advisory opinion of the ICJ has no binding legal effect?
5. You state “Arabs are not a nation.”
The PLO does not agree with you.
Article 1 of the PLO Charter states:
“Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.”
Care to comment?
Is there anything else in the PLO charter you disagree with?
I have a reflection:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06/29/pelosi-calls-surge-illegal-immigrant-children-opportunity/
Are these people / kids illegal immigrants or are they ’modern / contemporarily’ refugees?
I am thinking on this based on things that David wrote down, just few days ago –we talked about refuge/ immigration issues.
In addition to that – How does Internal Displacement/s looks like? Does anyone understands that?
Kata: You are quite right to ponder over such questions. I do regard this category of ‘illegal immigrants’
to deploy a language that avoids acknowledging the extent to which such persons generally, although not always,
are seeking refuge from circumstances where their capacity to survive has been jeopardized. Internal displacement
also takes many forms, and often raises similar issues of desperation. In my experience people, particularly those
who are very poor, do not leave their places of habitual residence unless severely provoked by material conditions
or some form of discriminatory harassment. With best wishes, Richard
The problem is easily solvable. James Baldwin wrote many years ago that what enabled white liberals to lament the “Negro problem” without reference to themselves was their treatment of it as a social (or political) problem rather than as a personal problem. As long as it was a social problem, it was America’s problem, and therefore the people who were supposed to deal with such problems, at the administrative level, so to speak, were the ones who would have to solve it. Now since there is a reservoir of right-thinking people in America – all those who care so deeply about the Palestinians and would have Israel open the gates and resettle millions of them – I am sure that they would be happy to sponsor Latino families wishing to live in the United States, putting them up in their homes and guaranteeing their incomes. Wouldn’t that be something to get behind and rally the BDS forces for? – tens of thousands of them opening their doors to the needy. It would solve a lot of problems.
Professor Falk,
I read this and I was thinking on that for a while, and I understood about social abuse of elderly people on the streets.
I have a reflection about things that Mr. Skolnik has said:
When comes to Israel and Palestinian issue – yes, they can reintegrate peacefully into the Holy Land under spiritual authority of Old Testament. They can even shear the settling areas; it would be excellent toward their consciences, if only they could do that. Can they do that – can they live together in Israel /areas of Holy Land where ever they want?
Would it be spiritual fright/resentment for Jewish Muslims to integrate under the Spiritual authority of Old Testament and with other nations that are under spiritual authority of Old Testament as Jews? – Or would they be just fine either to integrate or not. Well lets’ look now how well Israelites Palestinians are doing in State of Israel? I’ll say well enough for such a violent and rebellious Israel as a state.
For sure they can integrate with Israel as a state and Spiritual authority of Old Testament in the Holy Land, and hope for better then it is – or they can go anywhere else and be under anyone else’s Spiritual authority. They can go to Saudi Arabia; they can go to Jordan, and they can go to Syria, Iraq, and Iran –where ever they feel spiritually conferrable/content. However, Holy Land is under Old Testament, and that will not change because it is an inflexible item to change – but people can change according to their wishes.
In general, lay-people that are in no calling what so ever can do whatever they will, and they can follow their way of comfort as much and long as they will and can – we do not care about that.
This is what we care about: People are being spiritually converted/grafted in by different /specific Scriptures and specific traditions of it, so nothing else is inflexible, so as that that cant change.
There was a time that God gave the Scriptures to the prophets and lay-people decided for themselves that prophets were there to mock them, and then abuse and would kill prophets.
Now, the offspring of the prophets looks on, and laughs as they look just how much popular and loved all not discerned writings and Scriptures that are passes down are –and are without God’s presence. Why is that? Well, so did they because not that they could not discern their left hand from the right one — they had pure and handed down Scripture without any human error. From the prophets it was given straight to them.
When comes to refugees:
Whenever you go about people’s self-determination, so to speak shake them of their invalid conscience, then you have to insure that you have figured out their self-preservation for them, as well (spiritual/natural). Anything else would be illegal to do toward the peoples. However, why – we should ask that? Would you act as a false prophet?
I really like Fred’s explanations right here. This is why: to me it sounds just right thing.
What is not right is what we see with displaced population in Middle East, and elsewhere altogether. They shook nations such as Syria empowering people to some delusional self-determination, and now what?
When you have displaced population you do not put them in tents and all of that – you put them in closest community centers and then you integrate them into any safe areas that are already populated whenever you can. Anything else then integration into the local and/or near/far population of their choice is somewhat like INVALID and what was done in Germany and else where during the WWII and after, but contemporarily it only looks more like a delusional humanitarian effort. That is exactly what it is because it hinders rapid/fast self preservation for them — why are refuges hindered like illegal immigrants – if there is such thing at all as ‘illegal immigrants’ by the Law of the Scripture — but there are laws.
How many years are Middle East issues going on, and they are still refugees in tents and despicable conditions for any civilized human?
I can just guess, and say whatever I think is right – or I will know by Faith of the Church that authentic Islam Faith would have to be invalid Faith and practices that forbids racism, all together.
Why do Palestinian people as Jewish exiles, and Muslims then have to graft in under Spiritual authority of Old Testament? – This is what is happening, but it is, and it does not appear as so. I do not understand and know all what God is allowing/doing and will do from one point in time to another. I can only reflect in that what was and is now, and only hope in things that are written down, as I do not understand those things, all together.
I do have understanding that there is a valid purpose why Palestinians as ancient Jews are to be integrated into the contemporary state of Israel—regardless what Israelis do in this point in time, as a lawless state. We have to think now–time and what they are up to “right-now” and really why are they doing those things all together…and what can be corrected and what cannot be corrected.
Another thing:
BDS has had its purpose, just as legitimate/illegitimate wall barrier has had its purpose and just as legitimate/illegitimate landmarks – so to speak all this had its purpose that was valid / invalid.
One thing that you can not miss observing in US is definitely the spirit of racism and diversification of minds/spirits, and not one in Spirit and diversity of the gifts. However, where does this chaos come from? Well, bottom-up – dead-end churches in irrevocable, grave sins and nothing else but that. In that spiritual condition, hardly anyone is legitimately a Church, and they have nothing valid. Their Church marriages are not valid, and with that there is no holy offspring generationally – the spirit of racism and diversification in spirit / sins remains generation after generation just as was, and it is – all that takes place is that Israelites and Gentiles are mixed in seed. The more they mix the merrier it is – for they are illegitimate Israelites, right here in the Land.
Occasionally, they will be just not ‘lucky’ so to speak and be grafted into a valid Church-Charismatic, and be under spiritual authority of a pastor who is a valid charismatic and is under prophetic anointing – Evangelicals/Baptist modern have no valid teaching office of the Church except by that.
Not even in the valid Church setting because you hardly ever hear them pass on the doctrine of Church Faith by Spirit of God. Even the prayers and rituals in Catholic Churches are not exclusively the same. I can go about all that, but it would be irrelevant – what is relevant is the culture of death. They think that they are Christians and are evangelizing left and right. No, they are not unless they are in valid substance and the Laws of that.
For the Churches know that He comes and fights with the sword of his mouth and removes the Lampstands.
I never saw anything like this; it is as like death alone is breathed into the society. Just look and see how well they are with their children individually as churches and corporately as US-Church. Well, the business benchmarks cannot meet the needs of sexually immoral men. (Not the needs of poor residents). What do I mean? Why sexually immoral and sexually and spiritually abused women/mothers cannot take care of their children –or will not? That is bad enough? How do you suppose these women can raise just wild children that are in irrevocable sins on their own, without Church, all together? They are the Church members –or not. Well, they are and they are not.
Do what then, kill the unborn babies/children by death—one certainly cannot nor is possible for you to take care of them? Well, you cannot be spiritually ill, desperately evil and unmerciful at the same time as Church corporate and get your way.
It is really interesting with the Churches. Why can’t they give women more choices, service and/or start baptize In God’s Spirit their illegitimate babes? We do ask that.
Also, why are spiritually abused and mentally disabled peoples on the streets and/are homeless? Elderly should be in nursing homes along with youth and /or rehabilitation centers over and over and over so to be integrated into the society. By avalid law, you really have to take care of those peoples as long as they are alive – by whatever means.
Otherwise, as Churches they can go on and behave just as Nazis and let people just lay around and somewhat move in their limitations, as society and God looks on.
It is just like that.
I have to make correction due to one writing error:
I wrote this: “I can just guess, and say whatever I think is right – or I will know by Faith of the Church that authentic Islam Faith would have to be invalid Faith and practices that forbids racism, all together.”
* invalid
It should read as this: I can just guess, and say whatever I think is right – or I will know by Faith of the Church that authentic Islam Faith would have to be in valid Faith and practices that forbids racism, all together.”
With that “in valid” is correct.
Kata: Your meditations on what it might mean, as the French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, put it for Israelis and Palestinians ‘to live together well’
has underlay my own disagreements with how Israel has evolved over the years. Without some sense of this as the root question, discussions of peace or
justice are beside the point, and yet this question is remote from diplomacy and most advocacy, and the bodies, mainly Palestinian bodies, keep piling up.
In this sense, only a religious perspective, although not necessarily from any institutional tradition, has the potential to bring peace with justice to
either people, although it is the Palestinians who not only are deprived of peace and justice, but are also daily oppressed and humiliated in a variety
of ways, while many Israelis forget the issue (until some horrible incident reminds them) or are content to forego peace for the sake of the material
benefits of exploitation and one-sided insecurity.
Palestinian bodies keep piling up because the Palestinians are engaged in acts of terror that necessarily involve their entire population. Palestinians are denied peace and justice because their leaders and a good part of the population are unable to reconcile themselves to the existence of a sovereign non-Muslim state in the region. This is the root cause of the conflict.
Stunning in its self-serving departure from the realities of a tragic situation–historical, moral, legal, and humanistic!
That does not mean that all this does not have attributable causes. Seven million Germans died in World War II, including innocent people. That does not put the Allies in the wrong.
A case could easily be made for putting the Allies in the wrong: Unnecessary fire bombing of cities at end of war; dropping of atomic bombs on Japan, and any other number of war crimes committed during.
The root cause of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is the ousting of Arabs from their homes and villages (illegally, forcefully and murderously) by a colonial, non-native entity.
Gene: Agreed on both issues. We need to recall over and over again that the geopolitical launch of the
Zionist movement was in the British Foreign Office..
Not really, Gene. The conflict existed before 1948, and it is the Arabs who conquered the Middle East and colonized it in an orgy of rape, massacre and forced conversions. And by all means, do make out a case putting the Allies in the wrong. No one really has since the last Nazi was hanged.
As I’ve mentioned before, Prof. Falk, Israel was created in the same way as the Arab countries in the region, through the good offices of the Great Powers. What is good for Jordan, Syria and Lebanon is certainly good for Israel.
And finally. I’d like to clarify to both of you that the Jews did not colonize anything. They purchased land from absentee Arab landowners under Ottoman sovereignty and afterwards lived under British rule. Arabs who buy land in Miami Beach are not colonizing America. As for the separate issue of sovereignty, Jewish aspirations to recreate the sovereign national life of the Jewish people in its ancient homeland is no less legitimate than the aspirations of any other people and is recognized as such by the entire world, including the United Nations, whose resolutions are quoted here so often.
Mr Skolnik:
I find your recent comments much more polemicizing than clarifying. Perhaps, you would care to
comment in a truly clarifying fashion on Gideon Levy’s recent columns in Haar’etz published since the teenage kidnapping incident.
Prof. Falk
I don’t read Gideon Levi but have heard him often enough in Israeli television studios to know what his views are, which are pretty much identical to yours.
I don’t know what clarifying comments you expect about such heinous acts. The difference for me is that while the murder of the Arab teenager has been condemned at every level of Israeli society, all the way to the extreme right, the murder of Jews is habitually celebrated at every level of Palestinian sociery and the murderers martyrized.
I was just going to reply that Fred probably doesn’t read Levy, but if he did would compare him to Richard Falk. Thanks, Fred, for confirming. Below is a recent exchange I had with an Israeli friend with a different point of view:
In response to my “Declaration of Independence”
Gene
I think it’s important to add that to your declaration.
Personally, I was enraged with Israel’s reaction to the settlers murder – taking advantage of the situation to attack Gaza. Two individuals who decide to murder settlers and the Palestinian people as a whole have to suffer for it (like they’re not suffering enough). It’s incredible to me how (us) Israelis aren’t enraged with their own government’s violence that murders tens to hundreds of Palestinians every year.
Lastly, the political atmosphere here has become poisonous. The Israeli public voted fascists into the government who in turn push the public to demand more extreme measures. It’s a horrible cycle.
On Sat, Jul 5, 2014 at 9:41 PM, Gene wrote:
Yes, Tomer. But the latest incident over the alleged kidnapping of those settler kids, giving the Israeli government an excuse to continue their ethnic cleansing was the straw that broke my back. I felt I just had to “come out” publicly to express my anger and explain why I don’t, can’t, consider myself Jewish, or a member of that tribe. I wish others would follow my example.
Your problem with your Jewishness is your problem, not mine.
You are overly fond of the phrase “ethnic cleansing” without really knowing what it means.
The kidnappers are members of Hamas. That has been established. Israel does not differentiate between Hamas in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza or “political” Hamas and terrorist Hamas and it makes very little difference who gives the orders or who takes a specific initiative. Israel is at war with a brutal terrorist organization and will respond appropriately to its murderous acts.
Yesterday, I was reading some old posts on Israel, and when I read what Fred said
“The conflict existed before 1948, and it is the Arabs who conquered the Middle East and colonized it in an orgy of rape, massacre and forced conversions” – I also remembered this:
David wrote this on June 10, 2013 at 5:02 pm
“Yes – the clock can’t be turned back – but one can attempt to do the best one can.”
https://richardfalk.wordpress.com/2013/06/06/whose-two-state-solution-end-game-or-intermission/#comments
Let’s look exactly at all that Arabs have done in Holy Land since they settled there? What kinds of sins are having legal bindings on their offspring?
The entire issue may not be what Israelis are doing now, but what was done by Arab-Palestinians/Jews way, way back.
I understand this: When comes to the Israeli settlers – these people were misled, and they are excused, and perhaps even the blessed one – but these who misled them are not excused.
What the Israeli settlers are doing is very recent, and it can be corrected –or perhaps even not a point of importance to go about any correction of whatever they are doing. I am really not sure.
What I am sure is this: Time pass can tell you exactly what is going on in this point in time, and who all is responsible and who is not.
Who will point out historical events of key importance? Please do that when ever you can.
Professor Falk:
Do you intend replying to my following post:
“David Singer
July 5, 2014 at 5:50 am #
Professor Falk
Zak in particular has made a number of generalized claims that I have rebutted. He has not sought to challenge my quoted sources or direct me to any sources to justify his comments.
Deflecting criticism of Israel is surely justified where the criticism of Israel is unjustified.
Do you believe otherwise?
As to your “quick three points”
1. Why is. Article 80 of the UN Chater of no practical relevance? On what basis do you make this claim? The Levy Report certainly considered it was relevant.
2. Please advise the multiple ways article 80 can be interpreted
3. Advisory opinions of the ICJ have no binding effect . Do you disagree?
4. Are you aware the question or relevance of Article 80 was not considered by the Court nor was any reference to it included in the brief or dossier of documents submitted by the Secretary General to the Court?
If you supply half the facts or relevant documents when seeking an advisory opinion you will only get half an answer.
5 . Whose territory is Israel occupying?
6. You have still not answered the following query I put to you on 29 June
“You state:
“And Palestine does exist according to UN criteria, formally since the 2012 vote of the UN General Assembly, and by virtue of diplomatic recognition by more than 130 countries. It exists as an occupied country whose fundamental rights are being daily denied.”
Could you please advise:
1. What are the boundaries of that “Occupied country”
2. Who is occupying that “country”
3. Please specify the “UN criteria” to which you refer.”
With all due respect, I do not have time to respond to a list of such essentially polemical questions.
We are too far apart in our views about these issues to make such discussion productive, at least from my
point of view. All of these issues are matters of complex interpretation for which there are no satisfactory
short answers.
On the other hand, you do have the time to produce lengthy polemical exercises whose sole purpose is to criminalize Israel.
Professor Falk
With respect – you made generalised one line throwaway statements that you are now not prepared to substantiate when challenged – claiming they are “matters of complex interpretation for which there are no satisfactory short answers ”
I doubt you would have accepted such a response from one of your students.
Needless to say I am extremely disappointed with your response.
I am not one of your students, and this blog makes no pretension of being a classroom experience. I also
would not expect or accept such rhetorical questions from my students, and in my 50+ years of teaching neither was asked
such questions by students or others nor were such questions posed to me except by you!
BTW I think the questions you raise about a Jordan solution are constructive and worthwhile.
Professor Falk
How do you expect me or anyone else to accept that article 80 of the UN Charter is of no practical relevance – when you give not one reason to support your claim?
How can you refuse to answer my claim that no mention of article 80 was included in the brief or dossier of documents given to the ICJ by Kofi Annan?
You yourself claim that article 80 can be interpreted in multiple ways. Why wasn’t the Court asked to give its interpretation?
Why is it so complex for you to answer what are the boundaries of the country that Israel is occupying?
Did your students accept without qualification or questioning every generalized and unsubstantiated statement made by you?
I appreciate that you consider the questions I have raised about a Jordan solution constructive and worthwhile. Given the current level of conflict between Israel and Hamas the sooner attempts are undertaken to involve Jordan and Israel in direct negotiations the better.
An article by you setting out your views on that option could indeed be a constructive contribution to resolving the Jewish- Arab conflict.
Dear David,
Just a simple note about the interpretation of difficult documents and /or parts of difficult documents:
What Professor Falk has said is not just a view, but it is a reliable interpretation? Is this possible?
If that is not satisfactory – would you give us your interpretation, and we can look at that to make it sufficient. Alternatively, if you feel that Professor’s interpretation is not sufficient – what will make it sufficient, and based on what?
We look at series of different sequences of events / instances, in a chronological and parallel order –simultaneously. It is really difficult to transfer that application, in writing.
Say, the first-order and the second order of interpretation that overlaps and/or integrates.
This is what I understand:
The issue is this: how one comes to any valid interpretation to anything – one has to draw different conclusions from chunks of various information’s /the context itself. When you have sufficient resource of conclusions – you can make an interpretation.
How would you go about an interpretation?
Wouldn’t you go about neutralizing conflicting information/context and only reapply it to already sufficient interpretation – if you can. If you cannot, it would be invalid – or remain neutral to the information / context by which you achieve an interpretation?
If one applies the term “view” — there is no flexibility and really what corrections can and can not be made to the context of the issue / interpretation? Unless, the interpretation is 100% valid or issue is inflexible based on reality of the context.
David, I believe that is an acceptable time to close the doors that need to be closed and open the doors that need to be opened.
Kata
Let me give you an example of what I object to when Professor Falk refuses to answer my queries:
1. I posted the following response to Zak
““It is interesting that you have failed to mention the most relevant and important article in the Charter – Article 80 – that is most appropriate to our discussions and the issues raised by Professor Falk in his article.
Article 80 provides that the provisions of the Mandate for Palestine are still alive and kicking in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem – which includes the right of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in all of these areas on land owned by Jews and State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes whilst ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced.
Was your omission to quote Article 80 an accidental oversight or a deliberate attempt to mislead?
Are the members of the UN actually in breach of the terms of the Charter in failing to recognize and denying the vested legal rights of the Jews created pursuant to article 80 to “close settlement” in these areas?”
2. Professor Falk enters my discussion with Zak to respond:
“Article 80 of the UN Charter is of no practical relevance, and can be interpreted in multiple ways to promote diverse goals;”
No reasons are given for Professor Falk’s above conclusions and indeed I wonder why he felt it necessary to respond whilst Zak appears to have departed from the scene.
3. I then ask Professor Falk:
” Why is Article 80 of the UN Charter of no practical relevance? On what basis do you make this claim? The Levy Report certainly considered it was relevant.
Please advise the multiple ways article 80 can be interpreted”
I believe that Professor Falk needs to substantiate these generalised sweeping statements for them to have any credibility.
4. Professor Falk responds:
“With all due respect, I do not have time to respond to a list of such essentially polemical questions.We are too far apart in our views about these issues to make such discussion productive, at least from my point of view. All of these issues are matters of complex interpretation for which there are no satisfactory short answers.”
I find this response totally unsatisfactory – rendering Professor Falk’s statements in 2 above as lacking any value. Statements having great import such as those he made cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged – otherwise they become accepted by default and can be quoted by others as an answer to dismissing my claim that article 80 is the most relevant article in the UN Charter in relation to discussing the issues raised in this article written by Professor Falk.
To further support my view consider the following:
!. On 8 May 1947, Rabbi Abba Silver representing the Jewish Agency addressed the First (Political) Committee of the United Nations and he had this to say about Article 80:
“The Balfour Declaration, which was issued by His Majesty’s Government as a “declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations”, declares: “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” The mandate, in its preamble, recognises “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine” and “the grounds for reconstituting” – I call your attention to the word “reconstituting” -“their national home in that country”.
These international commitments of a quarter of a century ago, which flowed from the recognition of historic rights and present needs, and upon which so much has already been built in Palestine by the Jewish people, cannot now be erased. You cannot turn back the hands of the clock of history.
Certainly, the United Nations, guided by the great principle proclaimed in its Charter, “to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained”, can never sanction the violation of treaties and of international law.
With this situation and similar situations in mind, a specific provision, you will recall, was written into the chapter of the Charter of the United Nations which deals with territories which might become trusteeship territories, and which is therefore especially applicable to territories now under mandate. This is Article 80 of the Charter…”
2. In evidence given to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine on 7 July 1947, David Ben Gurion as a representative of the Jewish Agency said of Article 80:
“This is the special Article of the Charter which applies to Palestine. It was introduced only because of Palestine.”
Professor Falk claims article 80 is of no practical relevance – but is not prepared to say why. That is not good enough for me given the above evidence and the reliance of the Levy Report on article 80 – and Kata – with the greatest respect – it should not be good enough for you.
Dear David,
I do not disagree with you.
I came across this few weeks ago; it is one single source of reference:
http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1501&context=etd
I believe that Professor Falk has valid reasons for his claim, and he can explain that – but this is not his accountability to go about that? Not alone, at least.
I am thinking this: Who is accountable to go about this? Let’s look back /time-pass. Perhaps the brawls that Rome had with Jewish Rabbis can correctly tell us what’s going on now.
So now what? Let’s get Jewish Rabbis, Vatican nuncios / diplomats to figure out who did what and how legal and illegal was context of all of that that took place in that time-pass? If the context in which the “declaration” given was illegal then; it would be illegal now.
This is how I feel about this: these religious issues are just bizarre nonsense that has us all stuck, running in the cycles –so let’s just clarify all of that once and for all.
Was The Balfour Declaration initiated by false prophets –or has had Church in Rome dismissed valid prophets when they brawled with Jewish Rabbis?
We do not know if they were valid or not. Vatican has to figure out if they were or not.
In another hand, were Jewish Rabbis empowered / restricted by false Church/prophets, all together? We do not know that, either.
I have a good reason to believe this: Let Vatican and Rabbis go about that, and we for sure need to know what their interpretation in corporate and betwixt on all of that is, all together.
I have bizarre feeling that repent-full gesturing; carping about what should be and / or was is not good enough for no one because strongholds that are understood and are relevant have to be broken off in this point in time.
I assure you this: When I look at time past I can only see the pattern of half-way religiously things done, and with that nothing is valid, all together. They do so because they are lawless: civilly and religiously lawless.
In this setting, we are limited because religious leadership has to figure out what religious leadership has done in the past. It is between them and God — we can just watch on.
We do ask for valid and reasonable religious leaders to go about this, all together.
This is how I feel about these things, and I may be wrong.
Kata
This issue has nothing to do with Vatican Nuncios or Rabbis. it is an issue that deals with people who make general statements that they are not prepared to substantiate when challenged..
The Balfour Declaration has relevance because it was referred to in the Mandate for Palestine unanimously adopted and passed by the League of Nations in 1922. It had no binding legal effect on its own in international law when originally issued in 1917.
The Mandate however became binding in international law and its provisions remain still operative in 2014 because of article 80 of the UN Charter
If Professor Falk has any reasons for his claim that article 80 has no practical relevance – then he should give those reasons. That is all I asked him to do – but he has said he has not got the time to respond, we are too far apart in our views to make such discussion productive, it is a matter of complex interpretation for which there is no satisfactory short answer.
Until he does substantiate his statement – it carries no persuasive weight with me whatsoever – nor do I believe it should with you or other readers.
Dear David,
I understand what you are saying, and I do not disagree with you.
Still, I note this:
The Mandate for Palestine has drawn its authority based on illegal substance: The Balfour Declaration. I believe that Professors Falk’s argument / statement to you was based on issues that surround these general facts as given here:
http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1501&context=etd
It was said that
“…the Balfour Declaration as incompatible with the spirit of the Treaty of Versailles, and with the Covenant of the League of Nations (p.37).”
“ Gasparri reminded both the British government and the League that the Mandate, which purported to support “the well being and development of the peoples of Palestine”, in fact was becoming “an instrument for the subordination of the indigenous population for the advantage of other nationalities.” (p. 37).
“ In July 1922 the League of Nations approved the Palestine Mandate, and in December it officially came into force” (p. 38-39).
“The Declaration, which promised British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, contained assurances of protection to non-Jewish communities in Palestine, though it ominously neglected to discuss the rights of Palestinian Arabs, who constituted nearly
90% of the population (p. 35)”
“ The Vatican‟s stiffest challenge to Zionism in this early period came in the form of official protests issued by Gasparri to the League of Nations in and to the British government in 1920 and 1922 which severely censured the British Mandate for Palestine.
The Cardinal censured the Mandate as providing the Zionists a “privileged and preponderant position relative to other nations and faiths” in the territory, creating a situation which favoured continued Jewish immigration into the territory.40 Gasparri further critiqued the Balfour Declaration as incompatible with the spirit of the Treaty of
Versailles, and with the Covenant of the League of Nations, which stated that mandates were supposed to be a “tutelage” which one power assumed over “peoples not able to support themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world.”41 The Vatican,
accurately, did not consider the Zionists in Palestine to constitute such a fragile population. Gasparri reminded both the British government and the League that the Mandate, which purported to support “the well being and development of the peoples of Palestine”, in fact was becoming “an instrument for the subordination of the indigenous population for the advantage of other nationalities.”42 (37-38).
I note again:
“…the Balfour Declaration as incompatible with the spirit of the Treaty of Versailles, and with the Covenant of the League of Nations” (p.37).
“Gasparri reminded both the British government and the League that the Mandate, which purported to support “the well being and development of the peoples of Palestine”, in fact was becoming “an instrument for the subordination of the indigenous population for the advantage of other nationalities.” (p. 37).
“In July 1922 the League of Nations approved the Palestine Mandate, and in December it officially came into force (p. 38-39).
David,
Who was Gasparri, in essence ? Now we do ask that.
I believe that I see this in a valid way.
Again, I may be wrong.
What would be a valid interpretation to these issues? We do ask that.
Also, who can go about that – so that we have a valid perception what exactly took place, and what in exact forms has caused all these issues with Holy Land.
You noted this: “The Mandate however became binding in international law and its provisions remain still operative in 2014 because of article 80 of the UN Charter.”
These are small fractions of information – how do we go about this, in a valid way? Where does this information fit –where can it be applied to our interpretation?
We look at this: 1) Treaty of Versailles and the Covenant of the League of Nations 2) article 80 of the UN Charter.
We can note this: the Balfour Declaration has led to what, and what exactly it was, based on requirements/principles of the Treaty of Versailles and the Covenant of the League of Nations?
Was it an Illegal Persuasion in writing – implemented?
Has then the Balfour Declaration achieved an illegal impact on article 80 of the UN Charter, as well – just as did with Treaty of Versailles and the Covenant of the League of Nations?
Unless the Balfour Declaration had no illegal impact / violation of principles applied to Treaty of Versailles and the Covenant of the League of Nations who approved Palestine Mandate…
What makes things/deeds illegal — civilly and / or ecclesiastically illegal?
They attempted things in their will power, as they violated established principles / laws — they done things-illegal civil and ecclesiastical.
David, Is this reflection sufficient? Please let me know.
I believe that we have to get these issues to the next step, and in a valid and a legal ways civilly and ecclesiastically.
It is the only way.
Kata
1. I thought I had made it abundantly clear to you that the Balfour Declaration had no binding legal effect when I stated to you on 9 July:
“The Balfour Declaration has relevance because it was referred to in the Mandate for Palestine unanimously adopted and passed by the League of Nations in 1922. It had no binding legal effect on its own in international law when originally issued in 1917.”
2. The Mandate for Palestine became binding in international law because its terms were unanimously endorsed by all 51 members of the League of Nations – namely:
Albania, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, British India, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Italy, Japan, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, Latvia, Liberia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New
Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Persia, Peru, Poland, Portugal,
Republic of China, Romania, Siam, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Union of South
Africa, United Kingdom, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
3. Article 80 of the United Nations Charter has preserved the terms of the Mandate so that they are as applicable in 2014 as they were in 1922.
As a charter, it is a constituent treaty, and all members are bound by its articles – including article 80. Furthermore, Article 103 of the Charter states that obligations to the United Nations prevail over all other treaty obligations
4. The real problem in resolving the current conflict has been the attitude of the PLO – whose Charter declares:
“Article 20: The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.”
Dismissing established international law as though it doesn’t exist is not the way to resolve disputes – as the long running Jewish-Arab conflict illustrates.
Certainly one is always entitled to seek to change the law – but until that happens respect for and compliance with the law is the norm that should be followed.
Conscientious objection is allowed but usually comes at a price.
Canon law is really of no persuasive legal effect in this discussion.
Dear David,
You wrote this:
“I thought I had made it abundantly clear to you that the Balfour Declaration had no binding legal effect when I stated to you on 9 July:.”
You noted:
“‘The Balfour Declaration has relevance because it was referred to in the Mandate for Palestine unanimously adopted and passed by the League of Nations in 1922. It had no binding legal effect on its own in international law when originally issued in 1917. ‘ ”
1)
“Balfour Declaration had no binding legal effect.”
2) The Balfour Declaration has relevance because it was referred to in the Mandate for Palestine.
With that – if it had “no binding legal effect” why then was “referred to in the Mandate for Palestine?”
David: When you say, “Canon law is really of no persuasive legal effect in this discussion.”
Specifically, what Cannon Law you have in mind?
I need explanation because what I understand do not correlate with that which you are writing down.
Kata
“The Balfour Declaration was a British statement of foreign policy. It originally had no legal force, and the British had merely committed to “use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object (i.e.: the reconstitution of the Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine)
At the San Remo Peace Conference, April 25, 1920, the British accepted the role as Mandatory, the administrators, of the Mandate for Palestine. The San Remo Declaration transformed the Balfour declaration from a British commitment to use their “best endeavours” to a legal obligation to “put into effect” the creation of a Jewish country called Palestine.”
http://www.justicenow4israel.com/balfour.html
The Balfour Declaration was subsequently included and referred to in a recital in the Mandate for Palestine document – adopted unanimously by all 51 members of the League of Nations – in the following terms:
” 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;”
– See more at: http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/2FCA2C68106F11AB05256BCF007BF3CB#sthash.lU3WThBs.dpuf
My reference to canon law being of no persuasive legal effect in this discussion was made in response to your comment:
“I believe that we have to get these issues to the next step, and in a valid and a legal ways civilly and ecclesiastically.”
As I have attempted to make clear – I believe the peaceful resolution of the Jewish-Arab conflict can only ever be achieved within the framework of international law.
Professor Falk disagrees with me and considers that if one doesn’t like any aspect of international law then it is all right to declare it null and void and act as though it never existed.
Declaring the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter to be null and void has been a mistake of historic proportions for the PLO for the last 50 years.
This is – and has proved to be – a recipe for disaster for both the Palestinian Arabs and the Jewish people for the last 92 years.
Mr. Singer:
You badly misstate my position on the relevance of international law to the controversy over the authoritativeness of
the Balfour Declaration when you writes that because I disagree with you I believe “that if one doesn’t like any aspect of international law then it is all right to declare it null and void and act as though it never existed.” I have never held the position that international law can be changed as a result of dislike or disagreement. There is a long sequence of legal steps involving elevating the principles of self-determination and
delegitimizing those legal claims of right possessing a colonial taint. I cannot make the effort to cite chapter and verse. I am not saying your position is necessarily wrong, but that it is strongly contested on the basis of subsequent international law developments.
I hope this comments clarifies my attitude toward two questions: how to view the Balfour Declaration and its subsequent validation
in the League period by the formal action of an international institution; how to treat claims that earlier approaches to international law have been overridden by subsequent legal developments.
Professor Falk
With respect you are again making general statements without any substantive facts to back them up.
I posted the following response to your article “Border Control Blocking Uncivil Comments”:
David Singer
July 13, 2014 at 3:42 am #
Professor Falk
We may indeed find ourselves to be far apart on article 80 but unfortunately you have not given any explanation as to why you consider it not relevant or capable of many interpretations.
This kind of blanket dismissal is extremely unhelpful.
I am more than happy to explore your point of view but until you advance reasons for it then that is impossible.
The decision to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Mandatory Palestine was endorsed and unanimously agreed to by the League of Nations. To consider it resulted from “colonialist arrangements” is telling half the story.
You can just as well argue that the Mandates for Mesopotamia and Syria and Lebanon are similarly flawed because they occurred at the same time leaving the Arabs with the right to self determination in 99.99% of the liberated Ottoman territories and the Jews with just 0.01%.
International law certainly does not remain immutable but to believe it could now be made retrospective and affect rights previously granted 92 years ago under international law would be most unusual.
Therefore I am very surprised that you should go even further and share the PLO view that the Mandate and article 80 are null and void.
I respectfully suggest you are going down a dangerous path in expressing your agreement to that point of view – especially given your illustrious legal career.
If anyone can simply declare any piece of international law as being null and void and act as though it never existed then we are all in far worse shape than we are now.
The PLO is indeed a prime example of what happens when international law is treated with contempt.
It is even more hypocritical when we hear the words ” illegal in international law” being mouthed daily by PLO representatives and with respect even by yourself.
Supporting the PLO “null and void” viewpoint does indeed help explain why you are reluctant to discuss or consider as relevant the Mandate, article 80, the Peel Commission report, the UN Partition Resolution, and even the right of the Jews to their own State and self- determination in their legally sanctioned homeland.
Thank you for being so frank.”
You never responded to the above post. That of course is your prerogative but in the absence of a reply I understood that I had stated your position correctly.
If I have misunderstood your position as expressed in the above post please advise:
1. Do you accept that the Mandate and article 80 are not null and void?
2. Please specify what you consider are the subsequent legal developments “involving elevating the principles of self-determination and delegitimizing those legal claims of right possessing a colonial taint.” that have overridden the Mandate and article 80
3. In this regard I note you now use the term “colonial taint” instead of “colonialist arrangements”. There is a big difference. Why the change?
Do you now accept that the Mandate was the unanimous expression of all 51 members of the League of Nations – not the result of “colonialist arrangements”?
Dear David,
This is what I understand:
Balfour Declaration it is best to be denounced, along with all that worked after that — that which drew its power/authority from it.
Balfour Declaration is eccalisticaly illegal. In general, civil religion and authority of it is very bad and twisted business, all together. It only creates civilly illegal things. Yes, Palestine Mandate may well be denounced. It doomed many.
From a Scriptural perspective (Scripture as a whole unit) Restoring Kingdom to Israel does not equal to Palestine Mandate, and with that Palestine Mandate it is null and void based on the Scripture.
I understand this:
Brits that have had a very evil and excommunicated spiritually British tribe– the tribe that has had created civil religion and works of that for the “christianity”, and now we look and see that they have done same for Jews /Judaism.
Their colonialism has always interfered with the mission of the Church to the Non-Jewish nations. They also have turned Holy Land upside down.
They have always oppressed and killed by any means; it is the rule in power of that work. Brits have had a very bad tribe among the nations. It is impossible to graft them in without Baptism in Gods Spirit.
About few other things that you mention:
You wrote this:
“As I have attempted to make clear – I believe the peaceful resolution of the Jewish-Arab conflict can only ever be achieved within the framework of international law.”
Yes, David, you are right. However, I must note this: International Law cannot support any forms of racism and separatism – nothing that was even linked to racism and separatism, noting that was in the past and that is in this present.
You wrote: “Professor Falk disagrees with me and considers that if one does not like any aspect of international law than it is all right to declare it null and void and act as though it never existed.”
David: What exactly are we making null and void? What works do we denounce and make null and void by the International Law and ecclesiastically given Laws? Racism and separatism we do not denounce and make null and void? However, we must!
As I said:
“I believe that we have to get these issues to the next step, and in a valid and a legal ways civilly and ecclesiastically.”
I may be wrong in my perception, and may be corrected.
Kata
The Balfour Declaration and the Mandate for Palestine had nothing to do with racism and separatism – indeed the opposite was their intention.
The Balfour Declaration stated:
“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 the object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may 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”.
Article 2 of the Mandate stated:
“The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion”
Protecting the civil and religious rights of “existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” – as expressed in the Balfour Declaration – or ” all the inhabitants of Palestine irrespective of race or religion” as expressed in the Mandate – certainly doesn’t sound like racism and separatism to me.
Any racism and separatism that subsequently emerged after the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate was caused by the Palestinian Arabs refusal to accept the judgement of the League of Nations which had unanimously endorsed the creation of the Mandate and its terms.
Today that Palestinian Arab racism and separatism is maintained and expressed in the PLO Charter and the Hamas Covenant which both deny that Jews have any entitlement to a sovereign independent State in their biblical, ancient and legally sanctioned homeland.
That is the reality.
Dear David,
I can not disagree with you.
You are presenting natural realities.
You have put smile on my face, with that.
When you compare natural realities to natural realities what do you get with that?
I understand that you look at that document and see nothing wrong with it. Perhaps, it does not even look wrong at all because it appearance is very legal; it is perfected to the natural realm/sight?
I saw such things before. In fact, I saw humanity/Christianity on extremely mannered behavior that was fixed in power of evil one, the Satan.
Things can look perfected and yet be in seal of Satan. I look to see at what’s natural and spiritual substance to all. Just to be on a safe side…
If you are not Church-Charismatic, you cannot understand the perfected evil power that works and has worked silently in the wicked.
You have to remember who in authority was initiating and implementing “Palestine Mandate” and on which terms of consequence?
The terms of consequence, right?
You can look at this in another way: People look at British Kingdom and the works and they say, “O’ you know what – they started in actuality a valid Christianity, and it has been perfected now in how many denominations? —lol, lol, lol, let’s follow that!!!” Right, so may appear? They are blindly doomed, all together.
Or we say, “Ohhh…now we see that they are bewildered and dazzled that such thing was started by sexually immoral and extremely evil king?” Lol, regardless what we think and say — they still do not know, nor do understand what devoted them to an evil of an evil man, all together.
The Church Charismatic in prophetic anointing looks back and says: “Oh…how could an evil king become so?” Who was he, in essence, and what are his descendants in essence—we look at that? Yes, we do that.
http://biblehub.com/text/matthew/24-24.htm
We read that, and we do not understand that part of the Gospel, at all? Well, first making changes in the Church by an individual without Corporate Church prophets approval is violation of Gospel, to make any changes – so to uproot things of the Church is violation of the Gospel; it is a work of a “FALSE PROPHET.” Is it not that what these numberless denominations are after: false prophets?
Moreover, then we would have a mind-hint that states” The evil king was so because of a silent seal of Satan, in generational blood-line—don’t you know?”
So then we are like “?” and do not see what do these things mean so to know?
By Spirit – we would just look and know false works of the counterfeit spirits and hosts of them.
The doctrine and teaching of the Church are systematic. We do apply peoples generational sins to our interpretations – we must do so! As a Church we can look at different patterns of works that were devil-directed, and ware/are in satanic seals, all together.
You write:
“Protecting the civil and religious rights of “existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” – as expressed in the Balfour Declaration – or ” all the inhabitants of Palestine irrespective of race or religion” as expressed in the Mandate – certainly doesn’t sound like racism and separatism to me.”
Dear David, you made me smile; it is because I probably am not even half of your age, and I understand more than what you can even imagine?
There is no disrespect on my part toward you about this – the only thing is that I am ordained, and I see from multiple perspectives, without difficulty. However, based on what authority? I tell you the truth that I have neither ability nor authority on my own, in my own will-power.
What I am telling you is this:
What they wrote down was not in Spirit of God!
What were they ever doing? — in what spirit and what they were intended to do ever – do we ask that? However, let’s look who?
Remember who in authority was initiating and implementing “Palestine Mandate” and things that lead to that.
What were their works at that time and the works they did in the time pass/ prior to that? All they practiced was/is racism and separatism and guilt of blood among the nations.
I am not wrong.
All they ever did was in silent violations of principles and laws: the civil one and these that were ecclesiastical!
Even when state of Israel was becoming established – this, too, was in violation of UN Charter. Why? Way was that? What was that, in fact? Lawlessness.
I am sure that you can understand why, David.
Another thing:
To be “establishing”, to be” doing anything” to be” making” the Jewish state, the Jewish homeland was/is in power of the evil one; it was a devil-directed undertaking, and that which was working in its own timing before ”legitimate / appointed timing of God.”
Jewish state, the Jewish homeland does not equal to restored “Kingdom of Israel!” Just based on what?
Palestine Mandate is illegitimate/ not appointed work concerning Holy Land, and it was in power of evil one, and it was lawlessness allowed.
Lawlessness of British ruling line since they did ecclesiastically illegitimate things: any civil illegitimate things?
Don’t we end with this conclusion: ecclesiastically and civil illegitimate things were done by whom, and when always?
What is that kingdom in the world, by Biblical terms? I can tell you exactly what it was, and it is and what is becoming more and more just by the Scripture. It is that of a consistent-Antichrist: a kingdom of a consistent-Antichrist. However, why is that so?
Furthermore, why would ‘devout Jews’ so to speak require anything from ecclesiastically evil kingdom on their well-being? Why did they not complain to God?
God is eager to transfer Spiritual authority from Church Charismatic-valid to the line of David and line of Judah – another dispensation of spiritual authority from Church Charismatic to Hebrew-Jews – but it is as it always was of birthright Jews, and nothing else but that.
However, wait! – The line of David and Judah is in the Church, and where else?
Ahhh (frustration to know)…there are some of His elect household hidden in wild places, and are not taking power and authority over their birth-right? Can you understand that?
Why are they not empowered by God alone? What’s hindrance to their strength?
Dear David, I understand that this may be too difficult on your perception, but I will not be surprised that you do understand the thoughts of my mind.
I have to note this by a sound understanding:
…” statement of foreign policy” is like nothing! it is 0 / zippo in its validity. British rule statement’s were / are 0 in validity! It was and it is mere lawlessness. Regardless when they apply some laws to it – or not. It always manifest in spirit and works of lawlessness civil and ecclesiastical, at the end.
This is what Church Charismatic valid / mature understands.
I am relieved to find your blog with such informative thoughtful writings, aside from the trailing rant.
What I am hoping to know now is about your post script following the horrendous conflict which is unfolding? What of the sixth future which was heretofore unimaginable, looking more like annihilation day by day. Can you help explain it?
What I really wonder, from the peace of my little life, is what can come of this now? How can it ever end? Or end well?
Rebecca.
Rebecca M:
Your Q & A’s are for God—ask God. We do not know. We do love suggestive ideas without substance, like yours?
In general, lay-people should kick back and enjoy their conscience/personal freedom, and do well. Meaning have your ideas to yourself & /or your husband – or a judge so to make personal issues /business out of it – or otherwise you are not called to them, but God Himself —ask God about your vocation? Would you be called? No?
If you can teach and problems then solve problems – then do that when you equipped and qualified. Otherwise do not.
In general, we do not like ecclesiastical property misplaced and misused, and this is the way: the judgment of God can hits imminently and very harsh.
Israel is and will be in war-crime proceedings after this episode of their ends – that should console your conscience if you live in US?
This is what you should do: go and complain to your congress if you live in US, and there you may give them some ideas without substance, as well? Seriously…they will take all your ideas without substance because the substance does not concern them!
About substance…